Best Winery / Vineyard Dining 2015

Best Winery / Vineyard Dining winners of Vancouver Magazine's 26th Annual Restaurant Awards

Best Winery / Vineyard Dining winners of Vancouver Magazine’s 26th Annual Restaurant Awards

  • Gold: Miradoro Restaurant
  • Silver: Joy Road Catering Vineyard Kitchen
  • Bronze: Old Vines Restaurant
  • Honourable Mentions: The Vanilla Pod, Terrace Restaurant

 There’s something wonderfully clever about winery dining. When food and drink pair perfectly, each course harmonizing flawlessly, plate and glass share intention and outlook (and, hopefully, the same soil birthplace). At Miradoro Restaurant (Gold) at Tinhorn Creek, Vancouver survivor Jeff Van Geest has dug himself deep into South Okanagan terroir, delivering authentically wholesome, unpretentious comfort food that mirrors the Tinhorn cellar uncannily. Anything from the wood-fired oven (starting with the locally topped pizzas) is a win. You’d be crazy to overlook Joy Road Catering Vineyard Kitchen (Silver) at Black Hills Winery, say our Okanagan judges, because chef partners and caterers extraordinaire Cameron Smith and Dana Ewart have transformed a shipping-container kitchen in the middle of a Black Sage Bench vineyard into an on-the-rise mecca for lovingly prepared, seasonally fresh small bites that truly come to life with a bottle at their side. A visit to Old Vines Restaurant (Bronze) at Quails’ Gate Winery is a no-brainer in summer, but the real trick is to return in the off-season, when the fireside lounge becomes one of the area’s few, best refuges, and proteins like Rocky Mountain elk and Fraser Valley game hen stand up to the house’s deep pinot noirs and chardonnays. Honourable Mentions: The Vanilla Pod, Terrace Restaurant