You can have a lot of fun exploring Calgary’s diverse culinary landscape: the days of it being restricted to steak houses and pizza parlours are long gone.

You’ll find many great restaurants and bistros serving European fare like French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Spanish and Greek, while Asian cuisines – like Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern and Korean – are also very well represented. And no, South America and Africa haven’t been left out, they’re here too.

If looking to explore Calgary’s dining options, the following communities have award-winning restaurants as well as more hidden, lesser-known gems:

• For a taste of Asia, hit downtown’s Chinatown
• Inglewood has a range of cafes and restaurants, including award-winning French and Italian bistros, as well as a café that specializes in dessert
• Mission has a trendy range of international fare, from Japanese to Italian to Indian
• Kensington/Sunnyside is also a hot spot with a variety of fine dining establishments and hipster cafés
• With a name like International Avenue there are obviously culinary adventures to be had – there are some fantastic ethnic restaurants here
• Downtown Calgary has a number of lovely fine-dining spots and bistros

That is just a sampling of communities of course, there are great meals to be had throughout Calgary’s neighbourhoods. To conduct some more research, John Gilchrist is a local trusted restaurant connoisseur whose reviews appear on both CBC Radio and in the Calgary Herald newspaper.

Urbanspoon is a community-driven website with thousands of reviews of Calgary restaurants.