Refined dining with a forgettable finish

On the first terribly cool and rainy night of the month, my friend and I ducked into the Kensington Riverside Inn as cars zipped by on Memorial Drive, wipers ablazing.

In Calgary, this is the first evening in months where a big, crackling fire could truly be embraced for its warmth and glow.

Oxbow

Instead of offering the appeal of fireside dining, the focal point of the inn's lobby bar, the fireplace, sat cold and empty with pieces of wood stacked to the right, as a boxing match played – volume muted – directly above it.

The juxtaposition of the televised sporting event spreading its cool glow across a beautifully and recently redesigned lobby of Calgary's only Relais & Châteaux property, owned by the Hotel Arts Group, is a perfect reflection of its restaurant not being able to get things quite right. To be fair, the group has had a tumultuous year, with many shifts in major back-of-house roles, but since reimagining this concept (it was formerly Chef's Table) and reopening in the spring, Oxbow has had plenty of time to hone its craft.

True to the group's other concepts, Yellow Door Bistro and Raw Bar, the service levels here are up to par. Knowledgeable and friendly servers can navigate you with ease whether you're looking for a glass of wine from their fairly extensive wine list or need help deciding on what you should eat.

If the restaurant is a sum of its parts, Oxbow delivers a dining experience that is fair enough, but the food leaves you wanting more. Many things on chef Sean Cutler's menu sound palatable in theory, but not much comes to delicious fruition.

The white-bean hummus is a most peculiar creation. A healthy smear of the hummus is the base layer, with teeny pieces of raw cauliflower, shaved radishes, pickled carrots, frisée, crumbled feta and an off-putting chili vinaigrette. Lacking the complement of a crisp cracker garnish or perhaps sourdough to spread the salty, acidic mixture onto, one is left wondering what exactly he is eating. Is it meant to be a salad? A bizarre crudité? Whatever it is, I don't recommend ordering it.

Chef Cutler's ricotta gnocchi are undeniably light and fluffy, but the 10 of them that arrived on the plate were lost in a sea of lemon-pesto butter sauce along with a mélange of mushrooms, peas and out-of-season asparagus, chewy chunks of guanciale and baby greens. A garnish of toasted buckwheat with its distinct, lingering flavour also does the tender gnocchi no favours.

Then there's the fruit turnover offered up for dessert. A small scoop of brown-butter ice cream is a fair companion to the sour-cherry-filled pastry, but doing this traditionally simple baked good no good at all is the addition of nut streusel strewn about the bowl and the handful of fresh blueberries, strawberries and blackberries. Since all of which are out of season and Oxbow prides itself on showcasing Alberta ingredients, it seemed reasonable to ask where the berries did come from. A question to which I was not provided an answer.

The tastiest dish you can have here are the duck wings. First confit, then fried, the tender fall-off-the-bone wings are covered in a Saskatoon berry glaze, crushed cashews and little bits of pickled carrots. The smoked albacore tuna when eaten in tandem on a crispy lavash cracker with its platemates (thin pieces of golden beets, mild ginger aioli and watercress puree) is quite enjoyable as well.

If you're an Alberta beef fan, then the striploin might be a fit for you. In upgraded "steak and potatoes" fashion, the tender steak arrives in two big pieces with a hasselback potato, carrots, baby turnips, house-made bone marrow, parsley and chive butter and a warming chermoula sauce. It's tasty and well-seasoned, but not overly memorable.

Your best bet for a start-to-finish enjoyable meal at Oxbow is brunch. The rosemary waffle and country-ham sandwich – not so much a sandwich as it is a waffle topped with shaved layers of the aforementioned meat, arugula, a fried egg, swiss cheese and a maple whisky dijon dressing – is a fun morning creation in which the greens and sweet-and-sour dressing help balance out the runny golden yolk and other counterparts.

Another indelible breakfast dish here is the big, beautiful cinnamon bun. Baked fresh each morning, it arrives with generous schmear of strawberry crème fraîche and the hemp seeds and a flax-seed granola sprinkled on top almost trick you into thinking that it's a healthy start to the day. It's worth pointing out, though, that with its $12 price tag, it's by far the most expensive cinnamon bun I've ever encountered in Canada.