Hastings House Country House Hotel and Dining Room on Salt Spring Island is excited to introduce our new guest chef program—Chefs Across the Water. Designed to build connections among British Columbia’s fine dining establishments and to highlight the incredible bounty of the region’s produce, Chefs Across the Water invites distinguished BC chefs to participate in a series of gastronomic island adventures. Salt Spring Island, the largest of BC’s Gulf Islands is a food-lover’s paradise, with a mild Mediterranean-like climate, and devoted food producers renowned for their organic fruits and vegetables, wines, meats, and cheeses. Fresh caught, wild seafood rounds out nature’s local pantry. Hastings House also has an extensive garden right on its own 22 acres that yields an abundance of herbs and produce.

Hastings House Executive Chef, Marcel Kauer uses this vast array of amazing foods to create his celebrated daily menus. With Chefs Across the Water, we are excited to see how our Guest Chefs put their own personal spin on Salt Spring Island’s flavours. The Chefs Across the Water program will consist of 5 events June through October. Each dinner will feature one Guest Chef (or team of chefs) preparing a 5 course dinner with wine pairing. For more info, visit www.hastingshouse.com.

Chefs Across the Water participants and dates:

VANCOUVER

June 29th–Pino Posteraro Cioppino’s                                                      

2007 Gold Medal Plates, Best Vancouver Chef 2008, Best Restaurant in Vancouver 200; www.cioppinos.wordpress.com

July 19th–John Bishop from Bishop’s                                                                              

Renowned author of Bishop’s The Cookbook, Deconstructing Supper, Fresh, and Simply Bishop’s. www.bishopsonline.com

 August 9th–Frank Pabst from Blue Water Café                                     

Former positions–Chef de Cuisine Lumiere in Vancouver, Pastis (Best New Restaurant 2000 Vancouver Magazine), Aachen’s Le Becasse, Hotel Negresco in Cannes, Antibes Restaurant de Bacon 

Sept. 13th–Alessandra Quaglia from Provence Mediterranean Grill and Jean-Francis Quaglia Provence from Marina Side

VICTORIA

October 4th–Sean Brennan from Brasserie L’Ecole                                          

Gold–EAT magazine reader survey 2009.

 SALT SPRING ISLAND

October 11–Marcel Kauer from Hastings House

As the finale to the series, Hastings House world renowned Chef will prepare an extra-special menu.

Dinner $100 and wine pairings $50 per person. A portion of the proceeds from each dinner will be donated to Island Natural Growers to benefit the Salt Spring Abbatoir project. Aspects of each event will be documented through photographs and video and posted on the website www.ChefsAcrossTheWater.com .