Naramata Inn

CHEF NED BELLKate Colleyhighlights
Written By Kate Colley + Chef Ned Bell


A 1907 heritage inn, reopened during a global pandemic and transformed into a nationally recognized destination restaurant. Revenue tripled in three seasons, helping build Naramata’s profile as a food and wine destination.

The Challenge

Naramata Inn reopened in June 2020 amid changing public health restrictions, closed borders and an uncertain tourism season. Over the next three years, wildfires, the heat dome, labour shortages and inflation added further pressure.The setting brought its own challenge and opportunity: a 12-room heritage inn in a small Okanagan town at the end of the road.

What Kate + Ned Built

A hyper-local, hyper-seasonal dining experience that could only exist in Naramata.

Ned developed the culinary identity and a procurement model that paired distinctive ingredients from Okanagan farms and producers with the broadline partners needed to operate reliably at scale.

Kate built the brand, media strategy and destination positioning. As President of Discover Naramata, she also led a destination rebrand that connected the Inn’s success to a wider story about the community.

Together, they helped turn a heritage property into a nationally recognized food and wine destination while raising Naramata’s profile with travellers across Canada and beyond.

Recognition

Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants. Western Living Foodies of the Year. Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards. Coverage from Air Canada enRoute and Food & Wine. Ratings of 4.5 to 5 stars across more than 3,500 guest reviews.

Kate Colley + Chef Ned Bell

Kate Colley:
Kate Colley has worked across nearly every format hospitality offers — destinations, resorts, hotels, restaurants, wineries, and major events — and she brings all of it to every engagement. She led the host property communications strategy for Canada’s G7 Leaders’ Summit at Kananaskis and spent a decade as Director of Communications for Four Seasons Vancouver and Whistler. She has also been an operator — co-owning Naramata Inn, tripling revenue during a pandemic, and doing the kinds of risky, exciting things that look obvious in hindsight. She is a strategist, a marketer, an operator, and an advisor — and oftentimes the person who walks into your business, spots the gap between where you are and where you could be, and helps close it.

Chef Ned Bell:
Ned Bell is currently Creative Advisor for Okanagan College’s $61.3M Centre for Food, Wine and Tourism, the face of two of Destination BC’s new iconic tourism brand videos, and the only Canadian chef on the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Blue Ribbon Task Force. His 30-year career spans fine dining, luxury hotel leadership, hospital food transformation, government partnership work, and two decades of sustainable seafood advocacy — including founding Chefs for Oceans and cooking for the United Nations. He works at the place where food, systems, and real change intersect.

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