Old Vines Restaurant @ Quails' Gate Winery — Restaurant in West Kelowna

In my culinary journey enjoying pub grub and food truck fare, I will occasionally empty the wallet on a stylish meal in an upmarket restaurant. Though not often, maybe once every four months or so. On our vacation through the Okanagan, I was an idiot and blindly passed the credit card on more than one occasion. Burrowing Owl, Tinhorn Creek, Hillside, Poplar Grove—we loved eating at winery restaurants, and none of them were cheap. However, among all of them, the preeminent location, the one with the best food matched with the best view and service by a measurable margin was the Old Vines Restaurant at Quails Gate.

We had visited the winery on our previous wine trip a year prior and loaded up on a box of wine (not a box-o-wine, a box of bottles of wine). But on this trip, we only picked up a few varietals and opted for the dinner instead. It was only due to car space; we were on the last legs of our journey—over seven days, we had picked up 120 bottles from 60 locations. There wasn’t much room left save for our stomachs. The debit had been nearly tapped clean. But this was a vacation.

Old Vines shares a few qualities with Mission Hill up the road. Both take as much pride in their view than in their food, and despite Quails Gate being a slightly restrained experience in comparison, I found Old Vines to be equally as rewarding. We strode past the indoor dining area, past the bar, outside where everyone else was sitting. There were no Greek pillars or stone gazebos, just numerous traditional umbrellas shadowing glass tables. All of it was fringed by flowers, stone paths, and matching the mustard tones carried by the winery. Beyond the roses lay the vineyard open for walking (which we did so after our meal). Truly one of the most spectacular views a restaurant could ever hope to have, in many ways even better than their competition up the road. I would say only Bench 1775 in Naramata has the better view, but only marginally.

All that splendor comes with a price, and you can see it plain as day on the menu. The cheapest appetizer was $15. The cheapest main was $24. I wouldn’t call that extremely expensive (I had Castle Terrace in Edinburgh that was $300 for two people), but couple that with wine, and the bill will get up there. This is the kind of place that shapes their butter pats into roses; it’s not a tavern. Don’t come here on a budget—order what you want and let them indulge you with their cuisine. I made that abundantly clear from the onset when I opened with the Foie Gras Torchon (with marigold, peach, and cocoa nib). My girlfriend had the Rangeland Bison Tartare (with purified white rice, cured yolk, and pickled carrot). And then truffle and parmesan fries arrived…because they always do. Don’t get me wrong, they’re amazing, but it’s started to get a little cliched that these top end bistros are all serving truffle and parmesan fries. It’s like going to a Lexus dealership and someone proudly throwing you keys to a Toyota Camry.

The meal was fantastic, and we left satisfied, taking our time to wander the fields and view that sunset. There’s not much else to add really. I can’t go into specific details on the dishes as the menu has almost completely changed since last there. What we did have was an incredible experience in an incredible restaurant worth a revisit. We don’t have the kind of funds to make Old Vines a tradition, especially given we live nowhere near them, but will keep the memories forever…or at least until we get dementia and/or die.

Wow, that got dark fast.

At least we...

We had dinner there December 21 with another couple. The atmosphere and service is always perfect. The wine’s delicious. They could use another candle or two on each table. But otherwise those areas are lovely. We have dined here several times a year for decades. We’ve never left unsatisfied. Until this time. And we are sad about it.

I had the foie gras and the Ling Cod. So did the other female at our table. Hers was ordered without the pepper sauce as she does not like peppers. I am the other hand, adore them, and I was looking forward to the butter poached cod, atop a lovely, sweet roasted sauce. The sauce was so incredibly spicy that you couldn’t taste the fish. And I like spice a lot and I adore a really spicy meal when that’s what I think I’m ordering however, I didn’t know it was going to be that spicy. It was so heavy with spice it overpowered everything else on the plate. You couldn’t taste the fish. But even had the pepper sauce not been there the butter on the fish was barely noticeable. Even my wine could not cool things down or make it taste better. Nothing else on the plate could be tasted once you had the first couple of bites of the sauce. The foie gras appetizer was ridiculously small and mushy in its consistency throughout except for the crispy but airy croutons. Which were the size of a toonie. Maybe even a quarter. It was under seasoned. The gelee was good but on its own was boring and it did not add to the flavour of the dish.

My husband had the lamb. The bite I had was dry and chewy. He usually rants and raves about his food but this visit not a word. He said the broccolini was raw and tasteless. It was a very basic dish in a place that usually prides itself on quality and flavour.

Hubby also had the risotto. It was small and under seasoned. He found the mushroom flavour to be watery.

Our male dinner companion had the scallop crudo. It smelled and tasted fishy. Had no seasoning and disappointed him in that the crudo was made up of maybe 2 scallops total. His dinner was the pork rack. I did not hear any complaints But no raves either.

I suspect the chef has changed and with it the quality and consistency of the food. We are hopeful that come spring the kitchen will once again return to the luscious eye candy menu that we return to over...

What happened to this place!? I've always had a great experience dining at Old Vines, however, I was incredibly disappointed with our visit last week. I went with wine club members, so I was expecting great service, but the whole experience was disappointing. We called ahead of time to see if we could get an earlier reservation and were told no (which is fine) so they suggested we do a wine tasting at 6:30. We got to the tasting room and were told their last tasting was at 6:15, which we weren't aware of as the restaurant specifically told us to come at 6:30. I could tell the lady was annoyed we were there, so she asked another girl to takeover and she was lovely, so no complaints about that. After the tasting we headed to the restaurant, checked in, and sat at a table near the bar. We waited for 25 minutes while all the other tables around us were served, no one acknowledged us, so I finally went up and asked if we could order some drinks. Our reservation was at 7:45 but we were not seated until 8:05 PM. The waitress came up and greeted us and gave us water. We did not see her for another 25 minutes, however, I saw her going to the table next to us multiple times. I had to go up to another staff member and ask what happened to our server. When she finally came over she said she was waiting on our complimentary glasses of wine and that the bar was a little slow, however she could have just explained that to us sometime within the 25 minutes or poured the wine herself. We ordered our appetizers and they came out fairly quickly, which was great because we were starving. Our mains took almost 2 hours to reach our table and my vegetables were cold and undercooked but I was so hungry, I didn't care. I ordered the pork loin and was excited for the potato hash and I didn't receive it. I got baby potatoes, which are fine but had I known I wasn't getting the hash, I would have ordered something else. Normally, I always order dessert, but when she asked if we wanted to see the menu, everyone was a resounding NO. The wine club members we went with are canceling their membership because we had such a lackluster night. It's clear to me that this place has unfortunately gone downhill (as per other similar reviews from the last month) and I won't be going back....