PeakFine: Average-dining at the Sparkling Hill Resort in Vernon

For my mom’s 60th birthday, we took her for a weekend getaway at Sparkling Hill Resort in Vernon. Sparkling Hill is a luxury wellness retreat with European inspired spas, situated at the top of a cliff with views of Okanagan Lake (Full review of the resort coming soon!).

Inside the resort, there are a few dining options but the main restaurant is PeakFine on the first floor. With our hotel room booking, it came with complimentary breakfast at PeakFine. We also came here for dinner so this review will be a combination of their complimentary breakfast and their regular dinner menu.

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Dinner at PeakFine

Some packages at Sparkling Hill may include 3-course dinners at PeakFine, but our package did not so we did dinner al le carte. Here is everything my fiancé and I ordered.

Bread (free)

The bread actually arrived after our first appetizers but I’m not too strict on stuff like this. The bread was ok (not warm or fresh) and the butter had some pepper in it (not truffle).

Calamari ($20)

Calamari is one of our favourite appetizers so we order this to share between the 2 of us. On the menu, it is described to be fried calamari tossed in a lobster chili sauce with some pickled crudité, blue cheese foam, and a fine herb salad.

I have to say the I didn’t expect the calamari to look like this when it arrived. It is not fried that well (missing that dry crunch) but the lobster chili sauce was interesting and not that bad. I found the blue cheese foam to be a little weird 😕 and it tasted almost like a strong ranch sauce.

Portion size is ok to share between 2 people but definitely on the smaller side. Overall, we didn’t love the calamari.

Halibut ($46)

For my main entrée, I order the halibut. It came in a pretty presentation, but long story short, I really didn’t like the dish 😬. On the menu, it is described as a miso roasted halibut with mushroom and smoked bacon succotash, some yam purée, scallion emulsion, and a ginger soy salad.

I found the halibut to be dry and overcooked. There also wasn’t a lot of flavour for a piece of fish that is supposed to be roasted with miso. Only the top part had some flavour due to the miso there and the ginger soy salad.

The yam purée and the green stuff (not sure if that is the scallion emulsion or not) really reminded me of food I would give to my dog, Tofu 😖. The dish just tasted really bland without a lot of flavour.

Beef ($58)

Kelvin ordered the beef tenderloin for his main entrée. It comes with garlic broccolini, whipped potatoes and demi-glace. Again, presentation was nice for this simple dish.

The steak was cooked quite well (he asked for medium-rare). The steak was tender and all the other components were good. But at a price tag of $58, we do think it is overpriced for a simple steak dish.

Butter poached crab (+$17)

For Kelvin’s main dish, he also added a side of butter poached crab for $17. It did arrive separately on a smaller plate and all the shell had been removed, making it easy to eat.

Again, we kind of thought it was ok. Presentation could have been better for this crab side since it was just kind of shredded like this. And we also thought portion was a little small.

The taste of the crab is simple since it is just poached in butter. Ultimately, we were thinking adding it would create a sort of surf & turf combination, but it fell kind of short of that.

Breakfast at PeakFine

We stayed 2 nights so we had breakfast twice at PeakFine during our stay at Sparkling Hill. They have a selection of breakfast menu items you can choose from for free and then they also offer a baked good of the day and a small plate of fruit for each individual. For our small baked goods, we had some banana bread the first day, and a lemon pastry the second day (both were pretty decent).

Okanagan omelette

Kelvin chose the Okanagan omelette for breakfast on the first day. The omelette has roasted peppers, onions, ham and Toma cheese. They add a dollop of Romesco salsa on top and it is served with a side of toast (you can choose white bread or whole wheat), and hash brown potatoes.

The omelette is pretty big and the hash brown potatoes are yummy.

Farmer’s bowl

For my first breakfast, I chose the farmer’s bowl. It comes with scrambled eggs, bacon, BC chicken sausage, sautéed peppers & onions, roasted tomatoes, and a bed of herbed hashed potatoes.

It was a tasty breakfast bowl with a big portion. Again, I really liked the hash potatoes. The chicken sausage was just ok (I prefer my sausages to not be chicken-based) but everything else good.

Full breakfast

On our second breakfast, Kelvin and I both chose the full breakfast. It comes with 2 eggs any style, your choice of either the BC chicken sausage or bacon, herbed hashed potatoes and toast (white or whole-wheat).

As you can tell, the components of all 3 breakfast dishes we tried are pretty much the same thing except eggs are cooked in a different way. But I think the full breakfast is probably the best deal and has the most items. Everything was tasty!

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Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐⭐

Readers, you know I love breakfast and the breakfast at PeakFine is totally fine and great – I have zero complaints about the breakfast food. For breakfast, I would give it 3 stars.

But given our dinner experience, I don’t think I can justify giving PeakFine 3 stars. I think the dinner was really just not good (did not taste that great). And for PeakFine to be positioned as fine-dining with the price tag to prove it, I just don’t think the flavour and quality is there.

Service was always great – friendly and they always wished my mom a happy birthday. They also gave her a free dessert as well (a very small cupcake with some fruit and frosting), although she didn’t like it 😅. We still appreciated the gesture.

Since Sparkling Hill resort is situated at the top of this mountain/cliff, your dining options are a little limited. The resort has around 3-4 dining options that allow you to stay relaxed in the resort area the whole time.

If your stay/package at Sparkling Hill includes dinner, I do recommend you to try it but if your package does not include dinner credits, I recommend you drive to Vernon or a winery close by (maybe 20 minutes away) and you will find much better food and more dining options.

But come for breakfast!

Sincerely, Loewe