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Uncorking the Okanagan’s food and wine industry Kathy Michaels kmichaels@kelownacapnews.com
If you pull your stereotypes from popular TV programs, successful chefs should be bombastic tyrants, hurling insults and cutlery at anything deemed less than perfect. Wrapped in crisp doublebreasted chef coats with jaunty white hats atop their heads, they’re alluring and repugnant all at once. A walking contradiction reflecting the base pleasures inherent in gloriously culinary concoctions and the ugly work needed to deliver them, night after night.
Of course, reality is rarely found on TV. What those screen-dwelling caricatures have done in the real world, however, is build the public’s appetite for fine dining, making way for real chefs in cities both big and small to build on their trade and grow their profile. Locally that rising culinary standard has been further shaped by the success of the valley’s wine industry. Those who really have succeeded know how to capitalize on both. That brings us to Mark Filatow, the chef at Waterfront Wines who’s also a sommelier. He makes the news often,
so I was familiar with his name before I took Okanagan College’s three-day food and wine pairing intensive class last week. It was still, perhaps because of those stereotypes, a bit daunting to walk into the classroom of which he was at the helm, but luckily the day started with wine. Also, Filatow’s remarkably pleasant demeanour was a stark contrast to all preconceptions usually attached to someone whose background reads like the society pages for chefs. He began a culinary apprenticeship in 1996 working with chef Rod Butters at Tofino’s Wickaninnish Inn. After two years, he headed
back to Vancouver and worked for chef John Bishop at Bishops Restaurant, followed by Diva at the Met Restaurant under Canadian Iron Chef Michael Noble. In 2001 he joined Butters, and with Audrey Surrao became part of the opening team of Kelowna’s Fresco, which is now RauDZ. He started running his own restaurant in November 2004 and opened Kelowna’s Waterfront Restaurant and Wine Bar. It’s won numerous awards
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