Welcome back to the Okanagan Valley. Last week we toured the countryside. Today, we hit the towns.
Fresco Restaurant & Lounge in Kelowna seems the obvious place to start. As the only four-diamond restaurant in the region, Fresco is the benchmark against which everything else is compared. Chef/owner Rod Butters is a local legend.
We arrive early and it's a good thing we do. Even on a Wednesday night in late May, the restaurant is nearly full at 7 p.m. The sunken dining room, with exposed brick walls, white linens and a large open kitchen, looks simple. The food presentation is anything but. Spring asparagus soup ($12) is a thick purée, ceremoniously poured at the table - by no less than three servers - over a moulded pyramid of minced apple and walnut custard.
Gently grilled calamari ($12) is stuffed with a creamy mixture of preserved tomatoes and black olive tapenade. The swollen tubes are dramatically plated inside a spider web of balsamic dotted with blood-red drops of tomato sauce and tiny, deep-fried tentacles. Arachnophobes might find the optics disconcerting, but the first few bites are captivating. The bouncy skin and slippery centre have the same sinful texture as seared foie gras. Alas, the accompanying mash of roasted cauliflower and eggplant is too rich.
Pan roasted halibut ($28) is a perfectly cooked filet, rolled in an earthy cardamom-cumin crust, but the gnocchi are missing their pancetta and a cup of sweet corn nage seems oddly misplaced.
The waiter urges us to hurry if we want to order the veal strip loin ($30). But we don't act fast enough. For an extra $7, the waiter offers to substitute a 42-day-aged, 10-ounce New York strip loin that is "exclusive" to the restaurant. Perhaps nobody else wanted this tough, flavourless hunk of steak that the chef has drowned in a watery tarragon cream sauce, alongside a rock-hard slice of parmesan-potato pie.
When I explain to the waiter that I'm not happy with the meat, he simply turns and walks away.
Save for the steak and service, most of the meal is good - but not great. The side dishes don't complement the mains. Fuss trumps flavour. And the whole experience pales in comparison to our far superior lunch at Mission Hill. If this is the best of the best, I don't hold out much hope for the rest of the valley.
Bibo in Osoyoos, the latest project of Brad Lazarenko, the Edmonton chef who launched the widely acclaimed Passatempo Restaurant at the nearby Spirit Ridge Vineyard Resort & Spa, certainly doesn't inspire any confidence.
Outside, Main Street is bright and sunny. Inside this crypt of a wine and tapas bar, everything - the panelled walls, floors, ceilings, tables and chairs - is shrouded in dark brown and black. The spectre of a waitress eventually wafts over. I can barely see her, let alone read the menu she presents.
Temporary blindness, however, doesn't prevent me from seeing the food for what it is - slop. Soft, unripened goat cheese ($11) is a whipped cloud of blandness, enhanced only slightly by a slathering of jalapeno jelly. The dish is accompanied by lopsided slices of whole-wheat bread that look as though they've been attacked by a dull butter knife. Romaine salad ($10) is tossed with raw mushrooms, crumbled tortilla chips and rubbery strings of edam cheese. Roast lamb chops ($16) are grey on the outside, cold on the inside and dripping puddles of blood into a chunky bed of puttanesca that is served disgustingly chilled.
