I’ve put together a short video of our recent trip up to The Wickaninnish Inn (watch above). We were there for the annual food and wine festival, an event that I’ve been likening to the sort of fun you’d expect hobbits to get up to by virtue of its leafy, outdoors location and its complete absence of pretense and formality. Joie, Prospect, Nichol, Burrowing Owl, Elephant Island and many other BC wineries were in attendance, plus some great breweries like VI and Longwood out of Nanaimo, as well as Sidney’s Sea Cider ciderhouse (all thirsts suitably quenched). The booth fare was the best that I can recall.

The Wick, as per usual, made for a flawless stay. We had the good fortune of dining at The Pointe restaurant two evenings in a row (including a Road 13 winemaker’s dinner). It had been over two years since I’d eaten here, and on this trip I felt more familiar with the restaurant than ever before. I was also able to spend some time getting to know the two chefs. I’d been corresponding with executive chef John Waller and restaurant chef Nick Nutting for the past eight months as they are part of the Island contingent for the Chefs’ Table Society’s new cookbook (finished and soon to be printed!). As a consequence of these exchanges, I’ve had the ever-frustrating honour of having to salivate over their always creative recipes, and left very much pining for a food-centric Tofitian sojourn.

I wasn’t disappointed. Their cooking was mature and calculating (phenomenal saddle of lamb with natural jus and boulangere potato); obviously confident even when delicate (hot smoked arctic char wading contentedly in a shallow pool of elephant garlic soup, emboldened with beurre noisette and flashes of hazelnut); and grounded in but not imprisoned by the region (citrus-blasted rockfish ceviche with fresh rhubarb and orange). All top drawer. as talent was a test these boys never had to take.

View an interview with them below:

The Wickaninnish Chefs

We stayed pretty close to the Inn for most of the weekend. Visits to SOBO and the skatepark were our only real adventures out aside from the food and wine festival and beachcombing.

It was nice to have a holiday (sans kids), however short it may have been. Sigh…

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