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.