Winterlust at H Tasting Lounge

Winterlust is a unique, outdoor, domed-dining experience at the H Tasting Lounge which is a restaurant at the Westin Bayshore Hotel, Vancouver.

Lunches and dinners on the patio at H Tasting Lounge in winter feature exquisite foods and fancy drinks in your own exclusive, Nordic-style, wood and glass dome that seats up to six people. It’s an amazing culinary experience!

For details about the restaurant and its Winterlust dining experience, visit the H Tasting Lounge website.

Winterlust Domed Dining in Vancouver

The H Tasting Lounge offers special dining options at select times of the year. During the colder months of the fall and winter, guests can enjoy Winterlust. It involves private service in glass domes on the restaurant’s outdoor patio. Located in the Westin Bayshore, Vancouver, Winterlust features a unique dining experience and fancy food.

Each dome has wooden panels, floor-to-ceiling glass windows and Nordic-themed decorations. Instead of regular chairs for seats, there are cozy cushions, pillows and blankets. The domes are also equipped with sliding doors, fresh air circulation and heaters. There’s no need to worry about the weather. Each dome has its own set of music speakers as well which guests can control using a touchscreen tablet. Winterlust is a private, luxurious and comfortable dining experience for you and up to five friends.

The H Tasting Lounge is one of two restaurants at the Westin Bayshore Hotel. The other one is the H2 Kitchen + Bar which is also a great place for food and drinks. Both places serve a wide range of menu options. The H2 Kitchen focuses a bit more on meat (including barbecued and smokehouse meats), however, while the H Tasting Lounge specializes a bit more on seafood.

TIP: In December 2024 there are light installations along the Coal Harbour Seawall as part of the Destination Downtown series of events. Some of the light displays are right outside the Westin Bayshore Hotel and just a short walk away. In the evenings on Thursdays to Sundays up until December 22nd there is also live entertainment. Either before after your gourmet dinner experience at Winterlust, go for a stroll and enjoy the lights. It’ll make for a magical experience.

For full details about Winterlust, and to make reservations, see the H Tasting Lounge website.

Hours and Reservations

In 2024 Winterlust opened for the season on November 1st. The domes are open daily from 11:30 am until midnight. Last season the exclusive experience ran until mid-March (and after that date they had a spring-themed dome-dining experience for a few weeks). The end date for Winterlust in 2024 will likely be similar to that of last year, although exact details are to be confirmed.

Unlike guests sitting inside the main H Tasting Lounge or H2 Kitchen + Bar restaurants, there’s a minimum spending amount for all Winterlust guests. Each dome seats up to six people. Excluding taxes and tips, groups must spend at least $200 in total between them for lunch on weekdays and at least $300 for lunch on weekends. The minimum spending amount for dinner is $250 from Sundays to Thursdays, and $450 on Fridays and Saturdays. Between six people, that works out to between $33.55 and $75.00 per person.

Reservations can be made online. Each group can stay and dine for up to 2.5 hours.

For full details about Winterlust, visit the H Tasting Lounge website.

Our Winterlust Dining Experience

We had lunch at Winterlust in late November and it was wonderful, memorable, magical, tasty, lovely and delicious, all at the same time. If you want to spoil yourself, and your family, friends, date or other loved ones, this is the place to do it!

Three of us had lunch together when we went. Upon arrival we were shown to our own private dome. It was cute, romantic and exotic. It was cozy, in a warm, comfortable way, with ample space for six people (assuming you aren’t all extra big, like a group of professional basketball or football players).

Below is a description of some of the foods and drinks we had for lunch at Winterlust when we went. (Note: Menu items and other details are subject to change. When you go it might be the same, or it might be different.)

Our Winterlust Drinks

As soon as we arrived, the waiter gave us our menus. We got a detailed description about the various exotic drinks available, which, for the Christmas season, had a terrifically-original holiday shopping mall theme. The drinks themselves were an experience!

One of us had the Double Feature which was a rum-based cocktail that came in a movie theatre-style takeout box with pretzels and popcorn. Another had the Advent Calendar which was a vodka, Grand Marnier, ginger and cranberry cocktail that came with its own miniature Christmas tree with lights for the table. The third person in our party had the Barbados Bombshell from the “lingerie store”. It was a two-ounce cocktail with Barbados rum, passionfruit liqueur, white chocolate, scotch bonnet and a giant smoking bubble on top. All of the drinks were delicious!

Later, towards the end of our lunch, we ordered the mulled wine which came in a fancy, brass-looking contraption that heated the drink and siphoned it from one chamber to another. The apparatus looked like a combination of an antique chemistry science experiment tool and a drink-making machine you might see in a Harry Potter movie. It was really cool, and the mulled wine was tasty!

On the Winterlust cocktail menu it said it was a “festive cocktail experience that is one part wacky, two parts festive and 100% unforgettable.” Our drinks and the experience were indeed all three!

For full details about Winterlust, and to make reservations, see the official H Tasting Lounge website.

Our Winterlust Lunch Menu Items

Whereas our drinks were wacky, cool, magical and delicious, our food at Winterlust was both beautifully presented and exquisite.

As an appetizer, we had the grilled octopus. It came in a Thai coconut curry sauce with shiitake mushrooms. It was very nice. Probably the best grilled octopus we have ever had (and yes, we’ve actually eaten quite a bit of octopus before, having lived in Asia for a number of years). We also had the house-made milk buns with brown honey butter. They too were very tasty!

For our main entrées, one of us had the 5 oz. grass-fed tenderloin steak frites. It was excellent. The other two people in our group shared the Chilled Seafood Tower. It included Dungeness crab legs, tiger prawns, clams, mussels, a smoked trout dip, albacore tuna tataki, and a few other items. It was magnificent! It was both a sight to see and a treat to eat!

Other Lunch & Dinner Menu Items

Other lunchtime menu options that we could have ordered included a roasted cauliflower steak, chicken schnitzel, steelhead trout, a seafood ‘nduja bucatini pasta or an HTL Smash Burger. For the experience, the quality of the restaurant and what you got, the entrée prices all seemed quite reasonable.

Lunch and dinner menus at Winterlust are similar, but slightly different. Most menu items are the same, but in some cases the portion sizes are different. Also, when we went, steelhead trout was on the lunch menu, whereas for dinner it was sablefish instead. Other than that, most other things were the same. The restaurant also has a special menu for kids under the age of 12.

For full details about menu options, see the H Tasting Lounge website.

Chocolate Dome Dessert — Chocolate Dome at Winterlust

Our H Tasting Lounge Dessert Menu

To finish off our Winterlust experience we went for the Chocolate Dome. Wow was it ever delicious, and decadent! The Chocolate Dome was beautiful! It was shaped like a large dome, just like the Winterlust wood and glass one we were having our lunch in. The dessert came with a hammer which you then used to break the dome (the chocolate one, not the glass one). Inside was an exquisite chocolate mousse.

The Chocolate Dome was unbelievable! In addition to the house-made chocolate outer shell and dark chocolate mousse inside, the plate was decorated with pistachio moss, meringue mushrooms, chocolate twigs and berries. The dessert was a dream to eat (both at Winterlust and then at home the next day too). The dome was also fun to smash open with the small wooden hammer. It took a surprising number of tries!

Other dessert menu items we could have chosen included a dessert platter and an HTL Affogato (which is a burnt honey ice cream with an almond tuile biscuit and espresso). Other options were Doughnuts & Cotton Candy (with whipped cream and fresh berries), a Calamansi Tart (which has a mix of vanilla, raspberry and pistachio flavours), and a Nougat Semifreddo (which is made with nuts, candied fruit, honey chantilly and other ingredients).

Of the dessert menu items, the Chocolate Dome and Dessert Platter were the two most extravagant, at over $50 each. They both served, however, far more than just one person. The other options cost either $14 or $16 last year.

For full details about Winterlust, see the H Tasting Lounge website.

Winterlust Video

For a good idea of what to expect at the H Tasting Lounge’s Winterlust event, check out the video below. It includes footage from when we visited. As you can see, the domes are on the restaurant’s outdoor patio. They are beautifully decorated, private and very cozy. The food is also both fancy and delicious!

Tips & Advice

The following suggestions will help you make the most of your Winterlust experience. The first few are about the restaurant specifically. After that, we provide a few extra tips about other topics.

TIP #1: The Winterlust menus are the same as the regular lunch and dinner menus at H Tasting Lounge. The difference is that with Winterlust there are minimum spend requirements.

TIP #2: Reservations require a $100 deposit, which is refunded after your Winterlust experience. The company also has a 48-hour cancellation policy. If you need to cancel your dome reservation, be sure to do so at least two days in advance. That way, you’ll get your deposit back and won’t be charged extra. If you don’t cancel at least two full days in advance, you’ll be charged the minimum spending amount even if you don’t show up.

TIP #3: If money is a concern, go for lunch on a week day and with a party of six people (so you can split the lower minimum spend amount among more people). Plus, if you go between 3:00 pm and 5:00 pm, there might be Happy Hour pricing on some items.

TIP #4: Both the H Tasting Lounge and H2 Kitchen + Bar are excellent restaurants at the Westin Bayshore Hotel. The former specializes in seafood and cocktails while the latter specializes in barbecued and smoked meats. The H2 Kitchen also has great weekend brunches, especially on special occasions like Easter and Mother’s Day. Both restaurants also have good deals during their Happy Hours.

Other Things to Keep in Mind

TIP #5: Winterlust is lovely! Do it if you can! It’s a dining experience you’ll remember for a long time! Also, be sure to take your camera!

TIP #6: If you are ever looking for a place to stay in downtown Vancouver, the Westin Bayshore Hotel is great! We’ve stayed there a couple of times, for staycations, and loved it! It’s highly recommended! Their outdoor pool is especially nice. The hotel is a resort, and it feels like one! To learn about our experience, click Our Westin Bayshore Winter Staycation.

TIP #7: Before or after your Winterlust experience, go for a walk along the Coal Harbour Seawall. It’s a beautiful area that stretches from Stanley Park in one direction to Canada Place in the other. During the winter there are also light displays and installations to see as part of Destination Downtown.