Restaurants in Medina

Nearly 12,000 years ago, a glacier hungered for a bite of wilderness. The gratuity it left behind isn’t a shiny Loonie but a 385-acre waterway known as Chippewa Lake. In the late 1800s, trains began hauling blocks of ice from its chilly recesses, where vacationers swam and canoed during the summer. One of the railroad’s most prominent families built an estate beside the water, adorning the wilderness with a carriage house, formal gardens, and a portico lined with ornate columns. Inside the mansion, two fireplaces welcomed the rich and famous with stones collected from faraway lands. The same fireplaces warm patrons today, inside a restaurant known as The Oaks Lakeside. In addition to feeding guests at the resort’s wedding receptions, the eatery serves upscale fare in six different dining areas flanked by covered terraces and a shoreside pagoda. During the summer months, visitors can dine al fresco by the lake, where sunsets paint the sky with art as bold and colorful as coffee brewed from ground-up rainbows. The kitchen creates masterpieces as well, loading plates with sculptural configurations of king crab legs and bread pudding. Dishes such as veal piccatta and chicken marsala lend Italian flavors to the dinner menu, while dry-aged rib-eyes conjure the charm of a classic American steakhouse.