Whistler’s Most Compelling Table
Has a Story Worth Savouring
To dine at Il Caminetto is to understand, perhaps for the first time, what it means for a restaurant to be exactly what it was always meant to be. Since its relaunch in 2017, this 200-seat dining room has redefined what mountain hospitality can and should mean: not the predictable warmth of a ski chalet, but the kind of culinary precision and regional pride that stops a table mid-conversation.
The room itself sets an expectation. Grand without being cold, alive without being loud, it draws you in and then holds you — across antipasti, through pasta, past dessert, into a second glass of something Piemontese that the sommelier suggested with quiet authority. Il Caminetto does not rush its guests. It earns their time.
At the centre of everything is James Walt, Culinary Director and one of the most decorated figures in Canadian cuisine. His trajectory reads like a map of culinary ambition: graduate of the Stratford Chefs School, a formative four-year tenure at Sooke Harbour House, opening chef at Blue Water Cafe in Vancouver, and eventually, Executive Chef to the Canadian Embassy in Rome. That Roman chapter was not incidental. Italy refined Walt’s already exacting sensibility, introducing him to the layered respect for tradition that distinguishes truly great cuisine from merely accomplished cooking.
He returned to British Columbia carrying both worlds — the Italian reverence for place, season, and technique, and the West Coast’s extraordinary bounty.
“Our philosophy at Il Caminetto is to interpret the classic traditions of Italian cuisine with the best local ingredients available.” It is a deceptively simple statement from a chef whose execution of that idea is anything but.
Walt is also Whistler’s only chef to have performed at the James Beard House in New York City, on three separate occasions, and was inducted into the British Columbia Restaurant Association Hall of Fame in 2011.
Walt lives in nearby Squamish, and that proximity to the land is not incidental to the menu — it is the menu. He works directly with local farmers and producers, personally selecting what arrives in Il Caminetto’s kitchen. “We are very fortunate to be positioned where we are with the fertile agricultural properties around us,” he has said. “Our job is easy when we just cook with the seasons. In the warmer months, there is new beautiful produce every week and the menus write themselves.”
That seasonal fidelity is visible across every plate. The formaggi platter — ubriaco, mozzarella di bufala, la tur, gorgonzola, parmigiano reggiano, pecorino toscano, and taleggio, served alongside toasted almonds, preserved fruits, and wildflower honey — is unrivaled in Whistler for its range and intentionality. It is the kind of opening that recalibrates expectations for everything that follows.
The roasted cauliflower steak arrives with king oyster mushrooms, charred shallots, beluga lentils, gorgonzola, and Piemontese hazelnuts — a dish that demonstrates how plant-forward cooking, executed at this level, becomes something far beyond accommodation. It becomes a destination on its own terms. And no meal concludes without the Il Caminetto latte chocolate bars: three milk chocolate bars, lightly scented with vanilla, developed in France by Chef Walt himself. Small in form, definitive in finish.
What separates Il Caminetto from its peers is not merely the provenance of its ingredients or the depth of its wine programme, but the spirit in which everything is brought together. Walt has described it precisely: “I am excited most about finding the absolute best ingredients, respecting tradition and authenticity, while pushing the envelope playfully.”
That playfulness surfaces throughout the menu. The crispy polpettine — wagyu beef meatballs finished with salsa verde and parmigiano — carry the comfort of Italian tradition with the technical confidence of a kitchen that knows exactly what it is doing. The Fraser Valley pork lasagna, built from wild fennel sausage sugo, ricotta, baby spinach, besciamella, pomodoro, fior di latte, and basil oil, is the kind of dish that renders a table silent for a moment before the conversation erupts in appreciation.
Executive Chef Mark McLoughlin trained across Canada’s most respected kitchens before arriving on the West Coast in 2013 to join Walt’s team at Araxi. He has grown through every role since, eventually earning the position of Executive Chef at Il Caminetto. His approach reflects Walt’s founding principles while bringing his own creative energy — shaped equally by the kitchen and by the mountains, forests, and waters that surround him.
Walt’s view of that collaboration is telling: “I feed off the energy of the young, creative talent around me.” In McLoughlin, that investment has clearly compounded into something durable and distinctive.
Il Caminetto is, in the end, the product of a kitchen that believes great food is inseparable from great place. Every service is a proof of that conviction — and reason enough to return.