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Food is an art form all in itself. It’s a way to show love and gratitude and is one of the best ways of bringing people together.
Being a chef means understanding the importance of utilizing flavours that work together and gorgeous plating techniques. A lot of thought goes into making the perfect meal, and that’s why chefs spend a large portion of their lives honing in on these skills.
Kelowna’s restaurant industry is flourishing, making it attractive to a variety of talented chefs who call different cuisines their home. Want to meet some of our local talents? Here are the top three chefs in Kelowna, as voted by you and brought to you by Secure-Rite Mobile Storage.
Bronze - Justin Best Executive Chef at BNA Brewing & Skinny Dukes
Our bronze medal winner has a fitting last name and is about as hard-working as it gets. Justin Best is the Executive chef at two of Kelowna’s favourite restaurants, BNA Brewing and Skinny Dukes, and at one of Kelowna’s newest hangouts, Bernie’s Supper Club.
He also had a part in creating the incredible UMAMI Original Dressing, Dip and Finishing Sauces with his wife Joanna and his sister.
Best and his wife both attended a culinary school in Atlantic Canada and have cooked all across the country. Finally, in 2009 they arrived in Kelowna and things have only gotten better for the two.
Now you can find him creating spectacular and tasty dishes for some of Kelowna’s best restaurants.
Best has been busy over the last few years, and it’s paying off.
Silver - Brian Skinner - Frankie We Salute You
Chef Brian Skinner along with his wife Christina Skinner, are the owners of a Kelowna favourite, Frankie, We Salute You. Even though the eatery is strictly vegetarian, meat eaters can appreciate the incredible use of flavours and ingredients to make a great-tasting meal.
Chef Skinner adores vegetables, whether it’s eating them, growing them, or just turning them into a healthy and delicious meal, and one of his greatest skills is the ability to take comfort food staples and create a mouthwatering vegetarian variant that will appeal to everyone.
He’s cooked in four countries, spent 28 years in the kitchen and has created 12 start-ups. He made his way to Kelowna in 2017, opened Frankie, and has become something of a local legend since then.
Gold - Rod Butters at RauDZ Regional Table
Our gold medal winner has certainly made his mark on Kelowna’s dining scene. He’s won Best Chef in Kelowna every year since we began the competition.
Chef Rod Butters is the chef and owner of three incredible Kelowna restaurants: RauDZ Regional Table, micro bar & bites and Sunny’s Modern Diner, all of which have won a variety of Best of awards throughout the years, and has also been inducted into the B.C. Restaurant Hall of Fame.
A large reason that Butters is such a well-respected chef is his regional focus and commitment to sourcing his ingredients locally whenever he can. If you want to see this in action, check out his cookbook “The Okanagan Table: The Art of Everyday Home Cooking”, or head over to one of his incredible restaurants.
There is no shortage of talented local chefs. If you want to see who else made the Best of list this year, click here!
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