Muskoka’s Windermere House latest annexation in the ever-growing Oliver & Bonacini empire

After three new restaurant openings last year (O&B Canteen, Luma and O&B Café Grill), a $1 million facelift at Canoe and a host of new restaurants at Bay stores announced just last week, it seems as though nothing can hold Peter Oliver and Michael Bonacini back. Adding to their portfolio expansion, Oliver and Bonacini announced today that it will become the new food service provider at Muskoka’s historic Windermere House, one of the oldest hotels in Canada.

Chef Anthony Walsh of Canoe, along with Markus Bestig of O&B Café Grill, will oversee the revamping and O&B-ification of the hotel’s culinary offerings, which include: Rosseau Grill, a fine dining restaurant; Windermere Pub and Patio, a casual eatery; P.J.’s Lobby Bar; and the Windermere House’s popular sushi restaurant—O&B’s first foray into Japanese cuisine.

The venture into Muskoka cottage country isn’t new for O&B, which opened a location of its O&B Café Grill at Blue Mountain in 2005. Nor is the foray into meetings and event spaces a huge leap, as the company runs the Malaparte private event space at the TIFF Bell Lightbox and conference facilities at the Westin Trillium House at Blue Mountain.

The Windermere House opens for the season in May, giving the team only a couple months to bring the O&B machine up to the posh banks of Lake Rosseau.