Review: Okanagan wineries offer some of the region’s best food

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Nk’Mip Cellars

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Where: 1400 Rancher Creek Road, Osoyoos
When: Lunch, Friday to Monday and private dinners.
Info: 250-495-2985. nkmipcellars.com

The Restaurant at Poplar Grove

Where: 425 Middle Bench Road North, Penticton
When: Thursday to Monday, lunch and dinner.
Info: 250-493-9463. poplargrove.ca

Miradoro Restaurant at Tinhorn Creek Vineyards

Where: 537 Tinhorn Creek Road, Oliver
When: Lunch and dinner, daily
Info: 250-498-3742. tinhorn.com

A pandemic. Wildfire smoke. Bridges down on the Coquihalla Highway.

The Okanagan food and wine sectors have taken a beating in recent years. But when I visited in April, I found them ramping up, recovering from those biblical blows.

Last week, I wrote a glowing review of my first-time visit to the restaurant at Phantom Creek Estates in Oliver, where chef Alessa Valdez makes dazzling food. So good. This week, I revisit some winery restaurants in the Okanagan where you’ll find some — or should I say most — of the best food in the region. Food and wine meet ups, what a concept.

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At Nk’Mip Cellars, I was impressed with chef Ian Stillborn’s food amid a severe staff shortage. It’s severe when the chef is washing dishes, and he’s not the only chef doing this these days. Stillborn has been at Nk’Mip for a year. He previously cooked at See Ya Later Ranch winery bistro, Miradoro at Tinhorn Creek winery, and Liquidity winery bistro.

My dinner was in the Grotto, the private area at the winery. At these dinners, the chef often honours the ‘Four Food Chief’ legend, central to the Okanagan First Nations or Syilx Nation food culture.

We began with a beautiful burrata dish with sea asparagus, miner’s lettuce, fiddleheads, fava beans, nettle pesto, watercress and ember aioli.

“I take fruit wood binchotan charcoal, grill it until it’s red and ember-like and plunge it into neutral oil like grapeseed or canola. It takes on the flavour of charcoal,” Stillborn explains. “I make an egg emulsion with the oil and I also use it as a dressing for a wedge salad for lunch.”

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A Nobu-style sablefish dish in a pool of mushroom consommé came with pickled mushroom caps, black garlic emulsion and ponzu pearls. Wild boar belly confit cooked in duck fat was seared and glazed with gochujang barbecue sauce and served with parsnip puree, puffed quinoa and pickled apples.

Stillborn — who also does pastry — served a chocolate mousse dome, with lemon sponge, haskap berry preserves and black cherry caviar. It was totally ready for its close-up with the cherry-hued white chocolate glaze.

Apart from private events, in the Grotto, tasting room or patio, à la carte lunches are served on the patio. Lunch leans to comfort dishes, spun and elevated. Take the burger. The patty’s a mix of wagyu beef and pork shoulder and it’s served in a toasted brioche bun, spread with spruce butter topped with aged cheddar and apple wood bacon. ‘Umami aioli’ with porcini powder amps up deliciousness.

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“We do high volume out here and the food has to be built for speed,” Stillborn says.

Another fan favourite is duck fat potatoes, seasoned with house-made furikake and crowned with foamy ponzu aioli from a siphon. Braised bison taco comes loaded and is served with pear butter, mustard onion pickles and cotija cheese. He does a switcheroo on fried chicken and waffles, subbing grilled cheese for the waffles.

“It’s one of those ‘You Gotta Eat Here’ gluttonous dishes,” Stillborn says, referring to the TV show featuring over-the-top comfort food.

Over at Poplar Grove Winery, the restaurant had just switched over from the shoulder season menu and hours. I loved my lunch there.

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Chef Rob Ratcliffe calls his food “refined nostalgia and comfort food everyone can relate to with twists.”

It’s bright, sunny, with pretty nostalgia.

Ratcliffe acquired refined skills at the one-Michelin star restaurant at Lucknam Park Hotel in England, Hawksworth and the West Coast Fishing Club on Langara Island.

For lunch, we started with an amuse of bull kelp gougères with spring peas, nettles, charred scallion and roasted garlic. The first course was sweetbread ravioli with roasted maitake and chicken wing butter. To make the latter, Ratcliffe made a stock with roasted chicken wings and reduced it almost to a glaze before whipping it with butter for a light toss in an elegant sauce.

The main dish, crispy skin sea bass, was served with oyster velouté, a fried oyster and apple bites. The dish showed meticulous knife skills.

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There’s room for dessert if it’s good — the olive oil cake with white chocolate ganache and saffron marmalade sure was.

“I’m renowned for changing things last minute. My menu’s basically scribbled on paper,” Ratcliffe warns. “For lunch, it’ll be a little more casual and there’ll always be a homemade burger with gruyere and cheddar slices moulded like American cheese slices that holds its shape upon melting.”

As tourist season starts, visitors can also purchase a picnic with a bottle of wine to enjoy on the lawn.

At Miradoro restaurant at Tinhorn Creek Vineyards, chef Jeff Van Geest is doing what he’s always done — cooking beautiful approachable food with shout-outs to the Mediterranean. After 10 years at the restaurant, he and the very genial owner Manuel Ferreira — remember him from Le Gavroche in Vancouver? — are Okanagan wine and food veterans.

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But it’s been a tough couple of years.

“Even if we attract the right people, there’s no housing for them. And we’re all fighting for the local cooks,” Van Geest says, adding that it’s common for chefs to wash dishes. He puts in 60 to 70 hours a week.

“It’s tough on the body, it’s tough on the brain but everyone supports each other and we’re a close community.”

In the past two years, Van Geest has simplified his menu but won’t compromise on techniques and quality. There are a number of pizzas and pastas but he’s quick to say it’s not an Italian menu.

My dinner started with a luscious sous vide vitello tonnato. He tweaked on tradition — instead of going into the dressing, the anchovies were pickled and olives were dehydrated and powdered as garnishes.

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The next course, tuna tataki, was paired with a perfect bronzed potato pavé seared in duck fat. Kelp aioli, hen of the woods mushrooms and baby turnips were friendly accompaniments.

A hearty main dish of juicy grilled Fraser Valley pork chops came with creamy parsnip puree, braised leeks, beets, farro risotto and a ruby-hued, brightening rhubarb mostarda. Van Geest cooks the chops in the pizza oven where it acquires a nice char and is brought to the brink of doneness.

And dessert — is there a nonna in the kitchen? A rhubarb and ricotta tart with chocolate gelato certainly has a nonna stamp of approval.

While I was there, the restaurant was busy with the last short table dinner, a once-a-week themed wine dinner held only during the shoulder season.

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“Now, we’re buckling down to welcome the tourists and getting ready for a busy summer,” says Van Geest.

About time, says just about everybody.

Some wineries might not run a restaurant operation but offer food in other formats. For example, Black Hills Estate Winery in Oliver will offer light lunch bites to accompany sit-down wine tastings from mid-June to Thanksgiving. And on June 18, the release party for their beautiful Nota Bene red blend returns after a two-year hiatus with live music, early access to that beautiful wine and food by Miradoro’s Van Geest.

Little Engine in Penticton offers a lovely charcuterie board as well as food ‘events’ including some pizza nights and oyster nights. And wine club members have a shot at scoring tickets to one of two dinners put on by chef Chris Van Hooydonk of Backyard Farm Chef’s Table.

It’s definitely worth checking out winery activities before winery tasting adventures this summer.

mia.stainsby@shaw.ca

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