If you have never been to Summerhill Winery, you should definitely go. Their winery tour is easily my favourite of any of the wineries I have toured in the Okanagan. It’s not only very informative and entertaining, but its also got “the pyramid” which is worth the visit all in itself. The view at Summerhill is also right up there with the views at Quail’s Gate and Mission Hill. It is usually one of the first places I take out-of-towners who come to visit.Summerhill’s Sunday brunch is set up as a buffet, which definitely has its pros and cons. The major drawback to buffets is that the food sits out. For hot food this can prevent a few problems. It’s hard to maintain food at its proper temperature. Chafing dishes usually leave food lukewarm and they are also notorious for drying out food and ruining the texture. On the other hand, the best thing about a buffet is that instead of being confined to one dish and maybe an appetizer or two, you can try lots of different dishes. I was eager to taste a wide variety of dishes, as well as see how the Sunset Bistro would handle the challenges a buffet can present.Before we hit the buffet, the server came to our table and took our drink orders. The wine list featured all of the currently Summerhill wines and had a wide range of prices. Glasses of wine ranged from $6 up to $15 and bottles were anywhere from $25 to $56. I ordered myself a glass of the 2006 Syrah, mostly out of curiosity. I didn’t realize Summerhill made a Syrah, so I was very eager to try it. It was pretty good, but I definitely wouldn’t call it great. It was smooth and had nice flavours of plum and cracked pepper, but it was very light and lacked the bold, full bodied flavour that makes Syrah so great.I started my brunch experience with a plate of cheese and deli meats. The Sunset Bistro offered a very good selection of cheeses, with at least seven or eight to choose from on the cheese tray. I also appreciate the fact that they didn’t skimp on the deli meat and included prosciutto amongst the selections. This part of the buffet also included various traditional Italian antipastos like red peppers, artichokes, olives, etc.

My next stop on the buffet was the salad bar. I was fairly impressed by the selection of several types of lettuce and a variety of toppings and dressings to choose from. I opted for mixed greens with goat cheese, sunflower seeds and raspberry vinaigrette. I was very excited to try it, but when I returned to my table I was disappointed to discover that whoever set the table had neglected to give me a fork. It took a few minutes to track down my server, but eventually the problem was rectified and the salad was very nice. The salad bar also had potato salad and pasta salad, neither of which I tried.

For my next trip up to the buffet, I loaded up on traditional breakfast foods. The sausage and bread pudding was pretty good. It didn’t have a ton of flavour, but the texture was good and its just one of those old-fashioned home cooking dishes that you can’t help but enjoy.

The item I was most looking forward to trying out of the entire buffet was definitely the Eggs Benedict. I LOVE Eggs Benny. There really isn’t anything not to love about them. Unfortunately my benny was overcooked. I don’t know if it was from being in the chafing dish for so long or if it was overcooked to begin with, but either way it was disappointing. I will say that the hollandaise sauce was good though.

The other traditional breakfast foods that I sampled were the bacon and the homefries. There was nothing wrong with either, but at the same time there wasn’t anything worth writing about either. Simply put, they were very average.

After the breakfast dishes I was ready to start trying the lunch dishes. The baked chicken tortellini was a favourite of my wife’s, and although I would agree that it had a nice flavour, I found mine to be very dried out (probably from spending a lot of time in the chafing dish). The Thai Curry Vegetables had a nice coconut curry flavour and still had a pretty good texture, especially for buffet vegetables. The roast beef from their carving station was a major disappointment. While the flavour was fine, the meat was cold, despite being under a heat lamp.

For dessert I opted to try a crepe with mixed berries. It sounded like a sure fire winner, but the crepe was a little rubbery, and the berry mix was mostly flavourless. It was obvious that the crepes were all made well in advance and had been sitting out for an extended period of time. This certainly isn’t unsafe, but it definitely didn’t do any favours for the texture of the dish. I couldn’t reasonably expect the to use fresh berries in April due to their lack of availability, but these were still well below what I would expect of something prepared with frozen berries. It was a poor way to finish my meal.

We were reminded several times throughout the buffet that the restaurant would be closing at 2pm (our reservation was at 1pm) and towards the end of the meal we were definitely feeling like we were being rushed out. You’d think that if they wanted us out our server would at least be easily accessible, but when we were ready for the bill she was nowhere to be found.

Overall, it was a disappointing experience for me. I had eaten at Summerhill a few times before and have always found it to be inconsistent. In the past my workplace hosted a luncheon there and it went very poorly; both the service and the food were well below average. However, they issued us a bunch of vouchers for a free Sunday brunch (which I used with family in the summer of 2007) and that experience ended up being very enjoyable.

My advice would be to try the Sunset Bistro for yourself if you are curious, but remember that it is a bit of a gamble, so I wouldn’t recommend taking guests.

Ambience: 4/5
Taste: 3/5
Service: 2/5
Value: 3/5
Overall: 2.5/5