WELCOME, WE ARE GLAD YOU ARE HERE
No single publication gets to decide what’s the Best Ever. The Michelin inspectors, the James Beard voters, the critic who kept coming back, the guests who left reviews nobody asked them to write, the locals who’ve been going for twenty years — all of them together, over time. That’s the culture. That’s the signal we follow.
We pay attention to what the culture keeps pointing at. The businesses that earned it the slow way, through care and repetition and the kind of intention that shows up in small details. The owner who remembers your name. The product that took three years longer to get right. The place that feels immediately familiar even though you’ve never been there before.
The Best Ever doesn’t come with a price point. It’s not an aesthetic. It’s a feeling — the specific, unrepeatable quality of an experience that lands on you before you can explain it. A $9 taco can have it. A $400 hotel stay might not.
We started in BC, covering food, wine, travel, and experiences. We’ve expanded into products and brands across Canada and beyond, because the question we’re asking doesn’t have a geographic boundary.
Michelle has spent 20 years in digital publishing and content strategy and has strong opinions about whether something is actually good or just well-marketed. Steve is a Red Seal chef, photographer, and WSET-certified wine specialist who will tell you when something isn’t worth the price and means it as a kindness.
Brandy the dog has no credentials but attends most tastings.
We find the places, experiences, and products that have it. We tell their stories. And we make sure the people who care about this kind of thing can find them.
Our Founder’s Story
Michelle Stewart
Co-Founder, Story Strategist, and Certified Professional Coach
Michelle has spent 20 years in digital publishing, audience development, and content strategy across lifestyle, food, wine, travel, and wellness. She knows how search works, how AI discovery works, and how editorial builds the kind of trust that advertising can’t buy.
She launched BestEver.Guide because she kept noticing the same gap: the best restaurants, stays, wines, and products weren’t always the most visible ones. And the most visible ones weren’t always the best. This site is her answer to that.
She also wears hearing aids and has opinions about restaurant acoustics, which turns out to be more relevant than you’d think.
Steve Stewart
Co-Founder, Photographer and Red Seal Chef
Steve is a Red Seal chef, food and beverage photographer, and WSET-certified wine specialist. He shoots everything you see on this site, develops the recipes, and is the person most likely to tell you a dish isn’t worth ordering even when it’s his own.
He’s spent years working across professional kitchens, behind the camera, and increasingly in wine — completing both levels of the Wines of BC Ambassador program and WSET Level 1. That combination of cooking, photography, and wine knowledge is pretty rare, and it shows up in the work.
If something makes it onto Best Ever with Steve’s name on it, it earned it.
