DeWolf Dining · About
Red Seal chef.
Twenty-five years.
One kitchen at a time.
About twenty-five years of kitchens — restaurants, hotels, large-scale food service, remote wilderness lodges, catered events, and private dinners. Red Seal certified in 2014, based in Cobble Hill in the Cowichan Valley, working mostly solo across most of Vancouver Island.
Chef Rob DeWolf · Photo coming soon
The chef
Meet Chef Rob.
Red Seal Certified Chef · 2014
I earned my Red Seal certification in 2014 — a milestone I worked toward across restaurants, hotel kitchens, large-scale food service, remote wilderness lodges, and catered events that spanned most of my career.
Twenty-five years of professional cooking gives you a certain calm in a kitchen. You've seen the rush, solved the problem, cooked for two and cooked for two hundred. What it taught me is that the size of the table doesn't matter — the quality of the attention does.
Private dining is where I do my best work. One kitchen, one table, one group of people. No ticket rush. No compromise on the plate.
Red Seal Chef
Certified 2014
~25 Years
Professional Experience
Cobble Hill
Cowichan Valley
The philosophy
Seasonal, local, and scratch.
The Cowichan Valley has some of the best small-scale farms, artisan producers, and seafood access on the island. When a menu is built around what's actually in season here, it shows on the plate in a way that imported, year-round ingredients simply can't replicate.
Menus shift with the season. Spring asparagus, summer berries, fall root vegetables, winter braises — the calendar shapes the table, not the other way around.
Where it makes sense, ingredients are sourced from the Cowichan Valley and Vancouver Island — local farms, small producers, and fresh Island seafood.
Everything from stock to pastry starts from scratch. No packet sauces, no shortcuts. The difference is in the flavour and in the time I take to plan your menu before I buy a single ingredient.
Gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian, and common allergies are part of every menu conversation — accommodated during the planning stage, not improvised on the day.
Where we cook
Where I cook.
Based in Cobble Hill in the Cowichan Valley — roughly central on the Island, with a working radius of about a two-hour drive in most directions. That puts most of Vancouver Island within reach for a private dinner or catered event, and shapes where a small travel fee comes into play.
Travel fees for distant locations are quoted before booking — never a surprise. If you're on a small island, a remote property, or outside the standard Island corridor, get in touch and we'll figure it out.
E-Transfer, Cheque, or Cash · 25% deposit secures the date.
Community
Occasional community
giveaways.
From time to time, an evening is offered at cost — my time is covered and the host covers the groceries. Mention your cause on inquiry and we'll keep you in mind.
The seasonal side of the kitchen — farms, fishers, and the small windows the menus are built around — lives in the journal.
Back to the journal →Ready when you are
Tell me about the table
you want to set.
A short note is all it takes to get started — Chef Rob will follow up to talk through your date, guest count, and the kind of evening you have in mind.