Twist Kitchen & Cocktail

Twist Kitchen & Cocktail keeps evening hours on purpose. The doors stay shut until five, and on Friday and Saturday the lights stay on past midnight — closer to one in the morning than to a tidy end of dinner service. That schedule tells you what the place is built to do: serve a European-influenced dinner first, then let the same dining room shift into cocktails, a DJ, and dancing without anyone having to relocate. In Blue Mountain Village, where most tables empty out once the kitchens close, that second act is the point.

The dinner menu reads French-influenced New American, and it leans hardest on seafood. East Coast oysters arrive by the half-dozen with cucumber mignonette, pickled shallot, and basil oil, with a Prosecco granita available over top. Charred Mediterranean octopus comes with preserved-lemon yogurt and a chickpea puree; jumbo garlic shrimp swim in spicy olive oil and white wine with a garlic baguette alongside; beef tartare is dressed the classic way, with capers, shallot, Dijon, cornichon, and an egg yolk over crostini. The starters are built to share, and the Summer Dip Trio — whipped feta with dill and lemon, charred eggplant, and chickpea hummus with grilled naan — is the easiest landing point for a table still deciding. From there the kitchen moves into steakhouse territory: a seven-ounce New York striploin as steak frites, finished with a seventy-two-hour veal jus or salsa verde, and a twenty-two-ounce bone-in Bistecca alla Fiorentina for the table that wants the larger cut. Seafood mains hold their own — grilled orata over lemon potatoes and rapini, and a lobster linguine built on a poached lobster tail and lobster bisque — alongside house-made gnocchi with eggplant, cherry tomato, stracciatella, and basil pesto. The clearest house favourite, though, is a starter: crispy Brussels sprouts, charred and finished with lemon zest and a honey vinaigrette.

The bar is not an accessory to the food. The drink list runs to showstopper cocktails, a bench of classics, wine by the glass, champagne, spirits, and bottle service — enough range that ordering a round is a decision on the same level as ordering a course. That balance is what the kitchen is actually after: scratch cooking that takes North American comfort and gives it European polish, set beside a drinks program serious enough to carry the evening on its own. A prime-rib Twist Burger with aged cheddar and truffle aioli, or a plate of gnocchi, keeps the menu reachable for a mixed group, while the oysters, octopus, and Bistecca push it toward occasion dining. Vegetarian tables are not an afterthought either — the dip trio, the Brussels sprouts, an arugula salad, a burrata-and-grilled-plum salad, and the gnocchi give them real plates rather than a token side.

The address has anchored this corner of Blue Mountain Village since 2007, long enough that the restaurant reads as part of the resort's evening infrastructure rather than a seasonal arrival. The setting does much of the work. Après-ski traffic, a steady weekend flow of visitors, and a dressed-up dining room give Twist a built-in sense of occasion that a roadside restaurant has to manufacture for itself. Rustic-chic finishes and a European-bistro tone keep it from tipping fully into nightclub, even once the music starts.

What ties it together is use. Twist works best as a planned night rather than a quick stop — a group booking, a birthday, a ski-weekend dinner meant to keep going. The kitchen runs a separate path for large parties and private events, the booking surface holds tables up to sixteen, and the late weekend hours give a table somewhere to stay once the plates are cleared. Order the Brussels sprouts, move through the seafood, land on steak frites or the lobster linguine, and let the cocktail list decide how long the evening runs.