Home Block at CedarCreek Estate Winery — Restaurant in Kelowna

TLDR: Don’t book this location for a special occasion later in the evening unless you’re looking for a specific view, and ready to be disappointed by the hit or miss service. They won’t explain the fact you can order drinks by the glass for the same price compared to the fixed dinner menu with tastings, probably because they want to upsell you. Also, don’t expect to receive the kind of service you would typically expect from restaurants at this price point. If anything, expect to have your food taken away if you step out momentarily if it’s late in the evening. Absolutely ridiculous.

The food was fresh, portions were more than adequate, wouldn’t say it’s the best I’ve ever had in this calibre but it was fairly good tasting.

The overall dining experience from the beginning was welcoming with our hostess at first; this restaurant was booked for our anniversary trip, however, things took a quick turn with our server later on towards the end. Throughout our dining experience, our waiter (the male with a tattoo on his left forearm and potentially a Quebecois or European accent) was checking in on us, refilling our water, and ensuring that we had everything we needed. Later on in the evening, after I finished my dessert on my plate, as my partner briefly stepped away to use the washroom after only eating half of her dessert, the waiter came by with the bill which was completely understandable considering it was 10:30pm and it was getting late. As I pulled out my credit card to pay, without asking me if she was done with her dessert, he literally took my empty plate and stacked it on top of my partner’s half eaten dessert, and proceeded to hand me the POS terminal. I was pretty shocked at first, but I didn’t say anything to him and still left him a generous tip, although in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have, but impacting the other staff over one waiter’s mistake didn’t seem reasonable either. My partner was extremely upset at me afterwards and was wondering where her dessert had gone when she came back. I had to explain what had happened to her half eaten dessert, and that I didn’t have a chance to stop the waiter from essentially rendering her dessert inedible by stacking my plate on top of her’s within two seconds without a single word.

I’m very surprised that this restaurant would allow for such unprofessionalism, considering that it’s common courtesy to ask somebody if they’re done with their dish or if they’d like some more time instead of rendering it inedible because you potentially want to go home earlier given the later hours.

If you’re wanting to come here because of an anniversary trip or special event, do NOT come here during the later hours of the evening for dinner, unless you want to gamble your experience on a server that will be providing you an unforgettable positive or negative experience. Perhaps it’s getting late and some staff don’t want to stay too late. It’s evident that not every single individual here is poorly trained and lacks basic consideration for others given simple observations left and right, however, why would you want to spend your hard earned money here only for a small, easily avoidable situation to occur and ruin your experience?

In the past, when I’ve dined here each year for the last few years and had their food along with the wine and food pairing experiences next door in the summers, the experiences were always fabulous which made me revisit annually. Now, I can only say with this declining experience, that you should ONLY come here if you’re looking for a view, but be sure to have zero expectations in place for the service you’ll be receiving otherwise you’ll face disappointment.

Why come here when you can go to other wineries such as Quails Gate or Mission Hill which are close by, offer similar price ranges for equally delicious food and wine pairings, have beautiful views, but do not miss the mark when it comes to providing basic dining consideration to their paying clients? Not impressed at all, I would not recommend this restaurant or winery anymore to...

Truthfully the worst dining experience I have ever had. Your team needs a serious review on proper service and food standards towards your customers.

Jumping into the food Mushrooms on bread came in with very burnt toast on the edges and under the food that I didn’t have a better picture of, not acceptable for a place of this caliber to give your customer exceptionally burnt toast. When informing the waiter of this he was taken back as if we offended him. To us that makes me think this level of food is typical (I hope not)

It sadly does not stop there & based on what we got back from the kitchen clearly shows the chef’s were upset and rather than giving us or the servers an apology of some form, they actually gave us a barely cooked soggy piece of bread. I assume someone’s ego was hurt here and they decided to pull one over on the customer as an”that will show them” situation.. not impressed.

Food item #2 Eggplant main course I’m not kidding here when this came back charbroiled and burnt on the outside and leaving a large chunk of the meal completely inedible. You can’t expect a customer to dine on charcoal, that’s just offensive. I’m sure we all know that it’s fine to broil or cook and eggplant like this, but you must remove the blackened skin before serving.

(Glass of wine issues surprisingly too) We ended up having a fly land inside our wine.. This isn’t the worst thing as these things can happen but not a good look regardless.

So summing up the food issues then takes me to staffing.

We had 3 servers during our entire course, very confusing who actually looked after us, not that it mattered as we had very little service.

Long time to get food: It took exactly timed 27 minutes from ordering to get appetizers & 43 minutes from appetizers to main course and very little people inside dining when we ordered

water was filled once or twice during the 2 hours we were dining. Not one staff asked me about my black burnt to crisp eggplant when I left it at the end of the meal.

(Just to mention we spent over $600 here and had an $87 service fee tacked...

I wanted to take the time to thoroughly review the restaurant over a couple different experiences.

Positives: The staff is absolutely incredible, over and above friendly, accommodating, and made the experience(s) memorable. Fast, responsive service Breathtaking grounds and view Superior wine selection Knowledgeable all around Fresh farm to table, open concept kitchen

Critical: Our first visit was for Valentine's Day and we were blown away by the experience. The pairings and food was next level. Each bite was exciting and elevated. We waited for a special occasion to justify the pricey course meal, we couldn't wait to get a full experience. Based on our Valentine's experience and price for the meal, we went in with high expectations. I had the beet salad (which was OK, but more or less just tasted like it was dressed with olive oil/salt/ pepper), Veg Main (again, this was OK... but was cooked brocollini, artichokes, and potatoes with basic seasoning), then finished with a mango coconut dessert (which was more or less a yogurt cup). Then my partner started with avocado toast (again.. it was OK but our daily breakfast has more flavour), followed by the steak (this was one of the best cooked steaks we have had in the Okanagan, unfortunately we were insistent on no pungent horseradish on the dish... which was forgotten. They were very apologetic and rectified the matter, but I finished my main before it was corrected meaning we did not enjoy our "fancy" meal together), then finished with the white ganache dessert (tasty, but off putting consistency). Overall, we know that the head chef and staff are talented and love that they use farm to table ingredients. It was disappointing that there wasn't a level of elevation or "wow" factor to our special occasion meal. Perhaps it was the particular menu that evening, but all courses were underwhelming. Our meal was $220+ which in our case we save for special occasions and really want to treat ourselves, it unfortunately was disappointing that the flavour was lacking and we couldn't fully enjoy...