Restaurant Review: The Bow Valley Ranche

For Father’s Day dinner, my family and I had the pleasure of eating at The Bow Valley Ranche. This upscale restaurant, located in the heart of Fish Creek Park, operates out of a ranch house built in 1896. This antique yet newly refurbished setting adds a modern twist to the classic architecture of the building.

The first thing that struck me when I sat down was the décor and the atmosphere of the dining room. As the restaurant is in actuality a house, there are multiple smaller dining rooms, and we were seated in one of the smaller ones. This created an intimate feeling, although the room was slightly sparsely lit (but then again, it was also dark and raining outside).

Our server was very accommodating and enthusiastic. Being an insatiably curious bunch, we had many questions regarding both the menu and the building itself, all of which she was able to answer. I chose to not drink anything other than water that night and despite that, I was asked if I wanted anything else most of the times our server stopped by the table to see how we were doing. We had absolutely no complaints regarding the service we received.

Being a quite fancy and upscale restaurant, the menu was exactly that; fancy and upscale. I honestly couldn’t tell you what some of the menu items were, as I wasn’t entirely sure what they were either. I’ll chock that one up to youth and inexperience in fine cuisine on my part. All or most of their ingredients are also locally sourced, which is a really nice touch. We started with the charcuterie board, which features multiple local meats, cheeses, veggies and spreads, which was different than anything I’ve ever had, but undoubtedly very good. I decided to stay on the safe side and ordered stuffed chicken breast as my main entrée. I cannot even describe how tender and juicy it was. In fact, until then, I didn’t know that it was possible for chicken to even BE that succulent. As for my parents, they had elk osso bucco and arctic char, respectively, and enjoyed it down to the last morsel.

Finally, we had dessert, and oh, what an experience that was! After intense internal debate, I decided on the apple & fig pudding, my mother had death by chocolate and my father, the cheese plate. I think my insides melted just a little upon tasting the first bite of my dessert. My mother claims to have thoroughly savoured her dessert and as for my father, well, let’s just say that the cheese plate was so big that we had fancy cheese in the house for about three days afterwards.

Overall, My experience at the Bow Valley Ranche was definitely a positive one. This is dining at what I say is pretty near its finest. The only stumbling block that I observed was the price. However, I am a broke teenager and I have a much different perception of price than the patrons who would normally be dining and paying for their own meal. Price tag aside, I heartily give this restaurant my fondest recommendations to anyone who wishes to eat a meal in a beautiful setting with wonderful service and food.