The following article appeared in BC Food & Wine Trails, May/June 2019 and was written by Roslyne Buchanan. Photography by David McIlvride. As the line creeps higher on thermometers and spring unfolds her joyous features, who doesn’t want to head to a wonderful patio for......
Chef Chris Braun, the culinary team and the bar team have created a special feature menu for Sunday, May 12 for Mother’s Day. Our bar team has created a signature cocktail, ‘Yo Mama’s Daiquiri’ and brought in three new local wines for the occasion. Reservations......
Restaurant innovators, RauDZ Creative Concepts Ltd. (RCC), are bringing their latest idea to life in downtown Kelowna. Like ‘The Okanagan Table’ cookbook that encouraged us to get in the kitchen and cook, this new space, ‘The Okanagan Table – kitchen | events | catering’ continues......
We’re blessed in the Okanagan to have a large number of independent growers, vintners and crafts people who excel at what they do.
Many of our suppliers have been with us for years. Their philosophy and passion for food dovetails with ours: grow, or produce, local fare of the highest quality.
We are leaders in the use of organic, sustainable and naturally raised ingredients and concentrate on pure, simple flavours with a fun presentation.
We are committed to our community, our suppliers, our environment and to you – our friends and neighbours.
Proud member restaurants in the RauDZ Creative Concepts Ltd. family.
Chef Rod Butters of RauDZ Regional Table and micro bar • bites has finally completed a project that had been long on his mind and close to his heart – his first cookbook. Working with publisher Figure 1 in Vancouver, The Okanagan Table: The Art of Everyday Home Cooking hit the bookshelves in summer 2017.
“At its heart, this book is about my passionate relationship to food. I wrote this book, quite simply, for people who love to cook. It’s not intended to blow our minds or turn cooking into a lab experiment. Cooking should be inclusionary, not exclusionary. We gather in the kitchen because it’s comforting, and it harkens back to the happy feelings that a warm, aromatic kitchen instilled in us as kids” explains Butters.
As the name suggests, this cookbook is for the home cook. Butters states “I want you to get this book dirty – dog-ear the pages, write in the margins, stuff your grandmother’s best recipes for Swedish meatballs and zucchini loaf between the pages.”
The Okanagan Table: The Art of Everyday Home Cooking boasts over 270 pages including 80 recipes and more than 120 photos by local photographer, David McIlvride. The recipes include some favourites from Butters including Oat Crusted Arctic Char, a classic on the menu at RauDZ Regional Table, the addictive Spring Pea Soup that celebrates that season in the valley and even a few cocktails to be enjoyed with appetizers and friends. Many of the dishes also have a suggested Okanagan wine, beer or cocktail pairing, selected by Audrey Surrao, a respected wine competition judge and co-owner of RauDZ Regional Table.
Chef Butters worked closely with the publishing team at Figure 1 who are behind the top selling cookbooks in the marketplace producing books such as Araxi – Roots to Shoots, CinCin Wood Fired Cucina, The Dirty Apron Cookbook as well as the various chefs and their home city cookbooks, Montreal Cooks, Edmonton Cooks, Ottawa Cooks, etc.
Order your book here.
RauDZ Creative Concepts Ltd. proudly welcomed one of the South Okanagan’s most celebrated wine country restaurants, Terrafina at Hester Creek into it’s family of restaurants and bars in Spring 2017.
Terrafina is a gorgeous Tuscan style restaurant nestled amongst the vines of Hester Creek Estate Winery in Oliver. This unique vineyard dining experience provides the perfect partner to be enhanced by the culinary and service expertise of RauDZ Creative Concepts. Set on the 105-acre Mediterranean-influenced grounds, views at Hester Creek are highlighted by the vineyard laden hills of the Golden Mile Bench and the estate boasts some of the oldest vines in the region. The coveted seats on the patio capture the Okanagan sunshine with a Tuscany-like view.
micro bar • bites in downtown Kelowna is an expansive 900 square feet of bar and small bites. Chef Butters jokes that the space is so small that “we don’t even capitalize the ‘m’ of micro”.
The compact space is designed around the unique bar built by local wood craftsman Will Brundula. Constructed from three species of reclaimed wood, the end cuts are put together like a jig-saw puzzel to create a one-of-a-kind surface that anchors the space. Will also constructed the trestle community tale, front door and bar top at RauDZ Regional Table. Over the bar is suspended a 20-foot wooden chandelier complete with dozens of antiqued-style caged lights.
Chef Butters along with Chef de Cuisine Chris Braun rotate the ‘creatively simple’ tapas and large plate menu monthly. micro has 8 rotating taps of both local and international brew. You can do a world wine tour without leaving your bar stool with a blackboard wine list that changes regularly.
micro is open daily from 2:00 pm until late.
Sunny’s Modern Diner is the fourth restaurant in the RauDZ Creative Concepts Ltd. (RCC) family. It opened in April 2018 at 235 Bernard Ave, around the corner from other RCC hotspots RauDZ Regional Table and micro bar • bites.
The name Sunny’s is a tribute to the owners’ shared photogenic golden retriever and a play on the sunshine of the Okanagan Valley and the restaurant’s prime Lake Okanagan location.
Like the pre-fab stainless steel dining cars of the original diners, Sunny’s floor plan is a long and narrow footprint. Framed by a reclaimed brick wall, and a soaring 20′ ceiling topped with wooden timbers, designer Tim Bullinger of Arca 3 Design Studio satisfied our craving for diner nostalgia with a modern twist.
The culinary team led by award-winning Chef Butters and Chef de Cuisine Robyn Sigurdson offer a menu of fresh, innovative takes on diner fare. You’ll need to brush up on your diner lingo as ‘Cluck and Grunt’ will get you your order of eggs and bacon and ‘Two Cows Make ’em Cry’ will have your double stack burger with onions arrive at your table.
Sunny’s Modern Diner is open Tuesday – Sunday at 7:30 am – 3:30 pm.
