Ktunaxa Grill — Restaurant in Area D (Lardeau Valley/Duncan Lake)

Reasonably enjoyable experience and meal here. Very much trying to be considered a high-end restaurant with prices to match. We attempted to make a reservation when we arrived but when the front desk phoned up to the staff, we were informed that the earliest available time was 7:30. This is later than our usual preference for dinner timing so we passed. Even though we were told the options in the area during our time there were limited. So we hit the hot springs and enjoyed our afternoon. As 5:30pm rolled around we knew we were getting hungry. Thinking that maybe the restaurant would have a bar with possibly a happy hour or room to dine in the bar we headed up to the fourth floor. Upon arrival we found no bar but the hostess gladly ushered us to a table by the window with a view of the lake and the hot spring area. Very pretty.

The menu was not vast, keeping with some local vendors and products to create a nice meat, fish, and vegetable selection. Kudos for noting dishes that were or could be made as vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free. The front desk staff member we worked with upon check-in highly praised the appetizer available now made with locally foraged mushrooms and served on toast. So we certainly were ready to try this dish when we arrived but I'm not sure we were ready for it once it was served. The menu describes it as Mushrooms, spruce tips, and parmesan cream with pesto served on locally baked sourdough toast. Sounded distinctly unique. When placed on the table, it looked like a small bit of mushrooms masking any bread, some green sauce-spruce tips? pesto?-on top and sitting next o a sprig greens and a mound a white foam. This turned out to be the "parmesan cream" (really an emulsion IMO) and was truly flavorless. Topped with a small shaving of fresh parm and black pepper and sitting in an pool of herb pesto. The mushrooms themselves, when you could grab a bit not covered with other flavors, were truly delicious. Unctuous and fresh. The dish appeared to have been plated a good bit ahead as the "toast" was just a flavorless mushy piece of bread. Having this be fresh and crisply toasted, and a bit larger, would have done much more justice to the bread I'm sure. And complimented the other ingredients better. The overwhelming flavor profile when eaten together was of pesto. Very strong over all other ingredients. We think a different preparation for those mushrooms would suit them better.

My entrée choice for the evening was the server recommended special-7oz portion of BC Halibut served over roasted potatoes, asparagus and crispy prosciutto, overlaid on a pool of pesto. All topped by roasted cherry tomatoes. Fish was excellent, exceedingly fresh, if cooked a little rare in the center to my taste. The asparagus was clearly very fresh (local?) and the potatoes cooked perfectly and wonderfully seasoned. But, here again, if you included the herb pesto in your bite of the dish, it really overpowered everything else. The wife's 10oz strip loin steak was served over mashed potatoes with roasted beets, asparagus and carrots. Complimented by a nice sage reduction. It was cooked a bit rarer than requested but was delicious. It was a bit on the peppery side for her taste but didn't keep the whole thing from disappearing. The potatoes and vegetables were truly cooked perfectly. Our service was nicely attentive and personable up until the end portion of the meal when it became a bit too much of a wait on dessert choices, bill presentation, and bill payment. possibly because the server was spread over an increasing number of tables. While we experienced some missteps, I'm almost certain it's the best meal available in the area....

The food here has always been great! Our family has always traveled to the ainsworth hot springs many times! We have Stayed in the hotel many times also! We eat at the restaurant every time, Well tonight we had booked ahead in the day with a reservation to go in and have a nice dinner! The head manager Loretta Anderson told us we were not welcome in the dining room! Apparently they decided that evening (new rule) that they did not Want kids in with the adults for dinner! Our 12 year old girls are behaved and we didn’t see them as a problem so expressed they were behaved and explained we didn’t have a desire to sit with 2 year olds either! We explained we booked to eat there because we love the view! Loretta was really rude but her staff seated us in the farthest corner in the back! Our server was lovely she sat us kindly ….explained the menu and we ordered our food! As we were awaiting our food Loretta would look at us from across the room when she went in and out of the kitchen to roll her eyes at us! This woman is at least 50 We ignored her and carried on with her dinner! My Husband and I quietly discussing how odd it was that she was acting that way towards us

We went on ate our food had a nice chat with our girls who were also very polite to our server and used kind manors! We paid our bill and Loretta jumped out in front of us as we were walking out of the restaurant and shouted at us to get out! We questioned why and she said “why didn’t you tip my girl (our waiter) I expressed it was because of how rude and uncomfortable her behavior as the manager was! She was yelling in front of the other guests, in front of our children! One of our girls luckily video taped the incident! We left feeling pretty disappointed!!! Won’t go back to see grumpy ol Loretta again! If interested in seeing it for yourself….look up on TikTok and insta reels under Ainsworth BC...

I’m not sure if the chef has changed here because I see so many photos of beautiful food but our experience was not great. We came here for our anniversary and really enjoyed the hot springs and the hotel… but the restaurant was another story. We got an early reservation online and asked if we could have a table at the window and mentioned that it was our anniversary- they gave us a table overlooking the pool with screaming kids… ok I guess the food will make up for the disappointing table. We waited 15 min for our order to be taken and another 40 min for food. All I can say was that the yam fries were good, the rest of the meal was not great. The service though super slow, the waiter was very nice and apologized multiple times.

The next day we decided to give it another chance for breakfast. We arrived at 10am (breakfast served until 11:30am) we were the only ones waiting and the dining room was one third full, we waited 15 min to be seated. We were given water right away, coffee 15 min later but 25 min to get our order in. After another 30 min and still no breakfast I had to leave and my guest waited to get our meals to go. See photo of the breakfast, it was definitely not worth waiting over an hour for. Dry toast (not sourdough ordered) frozen potatoes and cold eggs. Bacon was supposed to be “maple bacon” I’m not sure if that’s a brand but I was expecting it to be maple flavored? It was overly salty “normal” bacon. Coffee plus this breakfast was $22 + taxes + tip. 😳 problem is that they portray that this is a nice restaurant with great food but it is disappointing. Save yourself the frustration...