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If you look for me this summer, I just might be kicking back in one of the private cabanas at Westcott Vineyards. This past weekend, I was texting with a dear friend at about 9pm and told her we were planning to drive to Niagara in the morning and see if we could snag a table at Westcott and partake of a delicious lunch courtesy of chefs, Ricky and Olivia- You can read my story about them here. I was shocked to learn that they had not been there before. They are the only other couple I know that travels to eat as much as we do, dropping everything to throw the kids in the car and drive to Detroit on a whim after we texted pictures of our dinner at Prime and Proper Steakhouse. We take our food seriously.

On my first visit in June of 2019 , I had a chance to chat with this charming culinary duo, as well as sample a table food of delicious treats

We had not seen makeup artist, Ivy Lam and her husband, Patois chef/owner, Craig Wong, since 2019 – in fact, we had not even met their youngest son yet, so a fully vaxxed lunch date was long overdue. When Ivy suggested joining us, I told her that I wasn’t sure if we could get a table (no reservations available and we would be six with the boys) but maybe we could do take out and picnic on the grass. That would be fun for the boys and totally low maintenance, all around. Ten minutes later, she told me that it looked they now have private cabanas you can rent, if we wanted to make our first post pandemic meet an occasion.

WHAT???

it’s a bit of a splurge but it’s also a great re entry to dining for people who are not quite ready to sit on an actual patio with other humans yet

By 10:15pm, we had booked a cabana for the next day and pre-ordered more food, expecting a sunny, 24C day spend touring the region with a 90 minute lunch at Westcott. By the time we woke up, the day was was now grey and rainy, picnicking was no longer in the cards and that cabana was looking like the best deal in town. With the rain forecast predicted for the rest of the summer, these cabanas are going be hard to get.

So, for $250, you get the cabana all to yourselves (price is for four adults), two bottles of the wines of your choice, a welcome flute of sparkling and a charcuterie/cheese plate. All of that for just over $60/pp and if you want, you can order more food that they restaurant will bring to you in take out boxes, providing real cutlery and plates and condiments etc. If you aren’t there for an actual meal, the charcuterie is more than enough to satisfy four light snackers.

Nobody would ever call the four of us “light snackers”.

Because the spot wasn’t booked after us, nobody batted an eye when we stayed for an extra hour and watched the boys, obviously drunk on rose and rain, run around, bootless, in the wet, muddy grass, living their best lives while the grown ups sipped rose and caught up.

chili tofu, Big Mac Tartare and Edamame Hummas, each thing more delicious than the last

if there were an olympics of dining, you would be looking at my teammates

I chose their Delphine Rose, a wine we knew we liked and Craig followed it with a bottle of 2020 Pinot Noir Rose. the Pinot was a bit drier, very crisp and I am ordering a few bottles as I type. The charcuterie was delicious, with a generous portion of local cheeses and cured meats, some pickle and addictive deep fried saltines that we ended up almost armwrestling over the last few. We fleshed it out with a number of items off the menu and the four us of shared everything. The kids appeared to enjoy dipping their herbed fries in a bit of mud but who am I to judge?