Description: We spent an entire day at
Butchart Gardens, and eventually got hungry. The fine dining and tea room in the
Dining Room Restaurant are found in the original Butchart home, Benvenuto. This was a bit too pricey for us, though, and we were trying to squeeze supper in between the late afternoon outdoor theater performance of the Pied Piper, and the evening concert by
Kitangus, which was to begin at sunset.
Blue Poppy Restaurant was closer to what we were looking for. Its mid-price range and cafeteria-style service was good for our budget and time constraints. Located in a conservatory-type structure with high glass ceilings, the dining area is flooded with outside light, like a sort of giant greenhouse. Off-white and cream-colored tables, chairs and walls add to the open airy feel.
Stairs lead down into the spacious dining room, which is filled, as one might expect at Butchart, with plants. Hanging from rafters, growing in big pots on the ground, and covering any available flat surface, the area is a riot of green leaves, even small trees, and bright-colored blooms, most of them flawlessly spectacular. A large window on one side allows views up into the Show Nursery, where more spectacular growing flora thrive.
The dinner menu on the wall (begins at 4pm; lunch runs from 11am) offers five substantial entrees, a variety of salads and soups, desserts, and a children’s menu. Dinners ranged from C$7.95 to C$13.95, including fettuccine marinara, thick hearty beef stew (using lean Canadian beef), grilled BC salmon, barbecued pork baby back ribs, and chicken.
We split a roasted half chicken, potatoes au gratin, and veggie medley (broccoli, cauliflower and baby carrots). A delicious vegetable beef chowder and green salad with watercress rounded out our meal. Every dining table is adorned by a vase of freshly cut flowers.
Though wine and beer (on tap) were available, we only had water with our meal. Total cost: C$24. Only a few other diners were present, so it was a quiet, peaceful and pleasant meal in very clean and pretty surroundings. Images of the rare and vibrantly blue Himalayan blue poppy for which this restaurant is named hang on the walls as photographs, and are embedded in stained glass windows of the restaurant.
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