Restaurant and Dining Guide: Marine Drive White Rock

The view tables

The west end around the pier has the restaurants with the proper sunset views, the patios people book for anniversaries and the rooftop decks that fill on the first warm evening in May. Uli's has been the white-tablecloth anchor on the strip for many years. Charlie Don't Surf and the Washington Avenue Grill are the long-running waterfront rooms a few doors apart, with patios facing straight at the water. Book on summer weekends. In January you can walk in anywhere and watch the fog roll across the bay from a window table.

Fish and chips, and the pier

White Rock's fish and chips are a civic institution, and Moby Dick's near the pier has been serving them since the 1970s. The line on a sunny Saturday is part of the experience. Several other windows and counters along the strip do the same, and residents have strong, unresolvable opinions about which is best. Take yours to the beach or the end of the pier, mind the gulls, and you have done the most White Rock thing it is possible to do.

Pubs, casual and everything else

The strip has a few pubs with patios that do a solid job of a burger and a pint, Greek and Mediterranean rooms that have been there for decades, pizza, sushi, gelato and a steady rotation of newer places testing the market. East Beach, past the pier toward the Semiahmoo end, is quieter, with a smaller cluster of cafes and restaurants and a more local crowd. Up the hill, Johnston Road and Five Corners have the coffee shops, bakeries and the restaurants that residents use when they want to avoid the beach traffic entirely.

How the strip changes with the season

From May to September, Marine Drive is busy. Parking is scarce, the patios are full, and the promenade is a parade. This is the version visitors know and the version that worries some buyers looking at homes on the lower hillside. From October to April it is a different place: quiet, local, often spectacular in the weather, with the restaurants grateful for your business. People who live here learn to love the winter version and tolerate the summer one, and most of them walk down rather than drive.

What living above it is actually like

Homes on the lower hillside and the condos along and just above Marine Drive are a specific proposition. You have the restaurants, the beach and the view at your door, and in summer you have the noise, the parking and the visitors too. Many buyers who want the beach life end up a few streets higher, where the walk down is five minutes and the summer weekend is something you hear faintly rather than live inside. I show both and let people decide on a July Saturday, not a February Tuesday.

The short version

• West end by the pier for the view restaurants and the sunset patios. Book in summer.
• Fish and chips by the pier are mandatory at least once.
• East Beach for a quieter, more local cluster; Johnston Road up the hill for the everyday places.
• Summer is busy, winter is yours. Living a few streets above the strip gets you most of the good and little of the bad.

If you are thinking about living in White Rock, I am happy to meet you on Marine Drive for a coffee and a walk. It is the best way I know to explain the town.