The Ancestor Cafe in Fort Langley village is one of the few restaurants in the Vancouver region to put First Nations foodways at the centre of the menu. Run by the Tradish team, the cafe serves dishes that draw on Indigenous ingredients and culinary traditions: bannock, bison, locally foraged plants, and preparations influenced by Coast Salish food culture. It started as a food truck and became popular enough to expand into a permanent space.
The menu changes seasonally and is relatively short — which is a good sign. It's not a gimmick; the cooking is genuinely rooted in the tradition it claims. Fort Langley is an appropriate setting, given that the fort's original success depended entirely on trade with and provisioning from the Indigenous peoples of the Fraser Valley. The Ancestor Cafe makes for a thoughtful companion visit to the historic site next door.