Northward, ever northward, runs the road to Manitou, swooping over granite ridges, tunnelling through forest, swerving around shining lakes, pools full of cattails and cranberry bogs. And always, where a fragment of the wilderness has been scratched away, we glimpse the hand of Adam. Every farm and homestead, bait shop and service station has its flower bed or hanging baskets, its small patch of garden. Impatiens, marigolds, geraniums: brave little splashes of colour against the vast and looming darkness of green. Gardening in the north is an annual lesson in obstinacy. However glorious the shows of summers past, you must start all over each May.

And how much more difficult if you're transplanting people instead of petunias. That is the challenge that Ben and Sheila Wise have faced at the Inn at Manitou every spring for the last 26 years: to gather a fresh staff for their supremely luxurious resort up near McKellar, and have them working together flawlessly by the time the first guests arrive. There are always a handful of hardy perennials, but the great majority are new to the inn and to Canada, ambitious young professionals from Europe who know that a season at a top North American property will add sparkle to their resumés. The Wises' own taste and vision provides essential continuity, but it is their eye for talent that gives the whole enterprise a more than local meaning. Over the years, a good number of the chefs and cooks who have worked at the inn have chosen to stay in Canada, to the lasting enrichment of our gastronomic gene pool.

I have the list ready to recite as we check in, but the view from Room 19, high atop the ridge, drives all thoughts of business away. The lake glittering in the afternoon sun, forested promontories reaching to a far horizon, the inn's pontoon boat no bigger than a toy as it carries guests on the daily tea time cruise. Tea itself is served in the main lodge, in the room the Wises have furnished with exquisite Chinese antiques and fabrics, a salon in which to recover from the drive. They recently added a cocktail bar in the corner; the perfect place to meet for a martini and smoked salmon canapés before going in to dinner.

The Wises will be there, too. Tonight, as every night, les patrons mangent ici. They have eaten in enough Relais Gourmands and Michelin-starred restaurants to know exactly what they want to see on plate and menu, and even proud young French chefs acknowledge their expertise. The cooking at the in has always been French. “Why not?” says Ben Wise. “It's what I love. Other owners may offer something more North American, and they have a good argument, but I never wanted to reinvent the wheel.”

Ben Wise had three careers, pre-Manitou. As a student at the University of Toronto, show business was his passion, acting and directing at Hart House theatre. One of the young lions of television drama in its early golden years, he cued the first broadcast of CBC TV. “But it changed. The best people left for New York. Nepotism set in. Horrific. I was still in my early 20's, so I went back to school and studied law, became a lawyer. I wanted to be Clarence Darrow, but I found myself interviewing drunks in the Don jail. At the same time, we had bought some land up here and opened a summer camp for kids. In the end, that became our life.”

It wasn't your regular camp. Ben Wise believes in coaxing the best out of people, and the teenagers who came to Lake Manitouwabing found themselves plunged into the acts – painting, ballet, music, theatre. “There was nothing like it in Canada,” remembers Wise. “We did stuff you wouldn't believe: Chekhov, Shakespeare, French farce, a production of West Side Story with a full pit band. We brought in professionals from the States and the U.K. to teach the kids, theatre directors from the Bristol Old Vic; I still have LPs of the shows we produced. Then, in 1974, we opened the inn. It was the height of the tennis boom, and I had this insane inspiration to do a very small, exclusive tennis resort next door to the camp. Just 16 rooms and a small clubhouse. We had no experience of the hotel business, but our clientele was very sophisticated, and we knew we had to provide first-class accommodation and very fine cuisine. We got caught up in it. As we travelled in France and down to New York, seeing what was au courant, the cuisine side developed into a passion. Add you know, in the end, it's still show business. You really are creating a new production every summer with a set, lighting, ambience, music, a cast and rehearsals. I love that part of it.”

The other guests have gone in. A polite young Englishman in blazer and tie guides us to the dining room – a calm, airy space surrounding by windows, elegant in the fading light. Food and beverage manager Pascal Labrouche hovers, sommelier David Cricchio is formal in a black apron; behind them a small army of waiters are busy pampering. The inn is a conduit for gifted dining-room personnel as well as for chefs. The first time I came here, more that 10 years ago, Christophe Le Chatton was sommelier. He helped establish the inn's formidable wine cellar before moving on to Fenton's, the Courtyard Café and the Four Seasons; he is currently food and beverage manager at the Waldorf Astoria in the New York. The chef was Jean-Pierre Challet, now culinary laird of the Windsor Arms.

“I was working at L'Odéon in Montreal when I saw Ben and Sheila's advertisement,” Challet remembers. “It must have been 1986. I replied at once, but my handwriting was so bad they couldn't tell if I was available or not, so they hired someone else. I ended up there the following year and stayed for six seasons.”

We are sitting at a table in the Windsor Arms' Courtyard Café. In the interests of thorough professional research, it seemed like a good idea to have dinner here. The room has settled down nicely after the excitement of last year's opening, developing a discreet sense of permanence; J.P. Challet's cooking is better than ever. Highlights of an hors d'oeuvre plate include divine scallops dressed with flying-fish roe in a wasabi-spiked cream; beside them, plump shrimp are wrapped in nori, then phyllo, and fried with a dash of chilli. But the treat of the evening is a superb grilled fillet of fluke surrounded by a subtlety of well-herbed chopped tomatoes and crowned with a crisp slice of pissaladière. Sinfully rich mashed potatoes, à la Joël Robuchon, and a garniture of seasonal vegetables are served in separate dishes. For dessert, pastry chef Mark Cheese proposes a fabulous warm apple and raspberry charlotte with raspberry brandy sauce the pink of a La France rose, and a spoonful of green apple and vanilla tea sorbet.

“Make sure Mark's on your list,” says Challet. “He's another one who first came to Canada in order to work at the inn.”

And Olivier Boels, who became chef at Zola; and Philippe Coeurdassier, now executive chef at Hermitage in Vancouver; and Christophe Letard, chef at the Aerie on Vancouver Island. In an industry that seems stricken with a chronic shortage of experienced personnel, the Wises seem to have no problem finding talent. A major reason is the inn's 14-year membership in the prestigious French organization Relais & Châteaux. Until the categories were reorganized a couple of years ago, Manitou was one of 33 “gold” establishments around the world, alongside such glorious names at the Hotel Cipriani in Venice, the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris, Chewton Glen in England. Experienced travellers understand the level of service, comfort and cuisine that membership implies; so does the European hospitality industry. For many years, the Wises have left for Paris every November, staying at the Crillon and holding a casting call for cooks and dining-room staff. Only those who have worked at another Relais or a Michelin-starred restaurant need apply. “They interview you and discuss your experience,” explains Thomas Bellec, restaurant chef of Truffles and another Manitou alumnus. “They've been doing it so long they have an instinct for the people they want. Then two weeks later you get a letter.”

Bellec first came on board in 1995 as a chef de partie. Last year, he was executive chef, establishing a reputation that caught the attention of Georges Gurnon, owner of Pastis on Yonge Street. Bellec was all set to move there at season's end; then came the call from Truffles. In the interests of thorough professional research, I felt compelled to see what he was up to. The menu was contemporary French, full of lucid flavours and interesting ideas. Tender duck confit meat was the hidden treasure in a bowl of smooth green lentil soup, barely touched with truffle oil, the elements meticulously balanced. A fillet of turbot, meaty as lobster, was flattered by a horseradish custard, green beans with bacon and a rich red wine sauce. Every presentation had some subtle surprise, some moment of disciplined imagination. Choosing the wines for the memorable meal was sommelier Romuald Toulon, a young man with one of the most gifted palates in the city. He, too, had spent last summer, his first visit to the New World, at the Inn at Manitou.

“I know, I know,” sighs Ben Wise. “It's the story of my life, it seems. But what can I do? They acquire a name by working here. You can't stand in their way.”

It sounds like a father talking, and indeed some of the young men and women who have passed through the inn come to think of the Wises in loco parentis. All of them have fond memories of their season in the country. Scott Pennock, now chef at Pastis, was there for the summer of '98, the year when Emmanuel Guillet was chef and Thomas Bellec his sous. He was the only Canadian in the kitchen brigade of 11, “but it wasn't a problem. Everyone wanted to improve their English. It was a very busy summer, and very hot – we were all working double shifts, six days a week. Whenever we had a break, we'd dive into the lake.”

Days off are precious, and the Wises know it. At the recruitment interview, they try to weed out the candidates who can't do without clubs and bars, “but we have a staff van they can use,” says Wise, “to go off for an afternoon to Georgian Bay, or we'll organize day trips for them to Niagara, to Inniskillin or Cave Spring, or a night in a Relais in Quebec. The more of that the better it is for morale.” And there are other compensations: tennis and golf, boating, and waking up on a summer's morning to find a deer outside the cabin. Every member of the kitchen brigade gets to eat in the dining room twice, just to experience life on the other side, and for the last couple of years each chef de partie has had the opportunity to be chef for a night, planning the menu and ordering the ingredients, taking charge. The guests are told what is going on and are invited to comment and rate each dish from one to 10. Those evenings have proved immensely popular, such is the pride and the level of talent in the kitchen. Then there are the weekends when top chefs from Canada and the States take over the stoves as guest stars: junior members of the brigade are eager to make a good impression. Scott Pennock must have succeeded when J.P. Challet paid a visit in 1998: Challet asked Pennock to join his team at the new Windsor Arms, which was to open the following year. And then last fall, when Thomas Bellec suddenly chose Truffles over Pastis, Pennock's name came up again as the right man to solve the embarrassing situation. A happy ending all round.

In the interests of thorough professional research, I had dinner the other day at Pastis and was most impressed. A good lobster should speak for itself. Pennock understands this and cooks the creature perfectly, brushing the tender, juicy flesh with a mustard seed beurre and finding the ideal accompaniment in a separate salad of baby red potato, tomato and onion. He sautées sweetbreads more briefly than most, enhancing their delicate flavour, then surrounds them with riches: wilted greens, baby pink beets and asparagus, sweet little roasted onions and mushroom strudel, an intense Madeira reduction. He seems equally fluent on the bistro side of the menu, but then he would, for the Inn at Manitou alternates gourmet and bistro evenings, a notion introduced during the J.P. Challet era.

Back at the inn, the twilight has left for the coast; the resort glides silently through a warm summer night. Lights twinkle outside on the terrace, candles glimmer on silver and snowy linen, waiters pass by with an instinctive grace. Ben and Sheila Wise watch it all discreetly from their table. The guests are in merry mood, having spent the afternoon honing their appetites on the tennis courts and practice fairway or relaxing in the gorgeous new spa beneath the clubhouse. The old spa burned to the ground one Friday night two years ago, at the height of the season, while the guests stood by the pool and watched. Improvising as deftly as ever he did in the days of live television drama, Wise called in carpenters and painters and sent a truck to Toronto to buy or borrow equipment. The temporary facility was up and running within 24 hours, and barely a massage was missed.

This season's chef, Stephane Brallet, is not a spa sort of guy. To keep fit, he cycles to McKellar and back every afternoon, racing his own best time with characteristic intensity. A 30-year-old Frenchman form Lorraine, Brallet was not recruited directly from Europe. He came to Canada in 1989 and has worked with Didier Leroy at Auberge Gavroche, with Claude Bouillet et Le Bistingo and the J.P. Challet at Auberge du Pommier and the Windsor Arms, where he was executive sous-chef. Throw in three intermediary years in various. Michelin three-star establishments in France, and it's clear that he has the histoire. He also has the connections where suppliers are concerned, a vital consideration in the north country. The delivery truck from Toronto arrives four times a week, laden with fresh, never frozen, produce from impeccable sources. Sending back unsatisfactory produce is not an option the way it is in the city. The point becomes academic when dealing with the likes of La Ferme for foie gras, game birds and wonderful, ripe Quebec cheeses, or with Taro, a small, exceptionally conscientious Toronto company that supplies sushi-grade fish.

Brallet's cooking suits the property perfectly: light, modern, with clear flavours and an elegant but unfussy presentation that reminds me of Challet. He makes a masterful foie gras terrine and sets it between two extremes – a sweet, pure cider jelly and a julienne of apple and celeriac in a dashingly tart verjus dressing. Textures are exemplary in a duo of lobster and scallops, the latter topper with a dab of Canadian sturgeon caviar, the sauce an intense lobster emulsion; the vegetables he chooses echo the feel of that juicy flesh: peeled asparagus tips and mildly tangy white cattails that look like salsify and taste like fresh hearts of palm. Brallet resists the tendency that sometimes grips longtime sous-chefs when they come into their own, to overburden plates with ideas, and his restraint pays dividends. Having taken the trouble to source lamb from opposite sides of the world – a lean rack from New Zealand, a pré-salé leg from Quebec's Isle Verte – he serves the meat deliciously unencumbered by extraneous elements, just a simple jus and a subtle quartet of salsify, roast cherry tomato, cumin-scented carrots and sautéed green onions.

The Wises have done it again. Last year, they sold their camp after a 40-year run, but where the Inn at Manitou is concerned, the show goes on, constantly refreshed by some new finesse, some added treat or luxury. They are pleased with this year's company. Another season, another opening – another hit on their hands.