If you like unique culinary experiences, there’s a recurring summer dining series coming up to check out. This one raises the bar by raising funds to help advance women’s careers in the fields of food, fine beverage, and hospitality.

The B.C. chapter of Les Dames Escoffier describes Summerdine as a concurrent provincewide dinner party.

On August 16, several intimate soirees will take place throughout the province at the same time.

Proceeds go toward scholarship and outreach programs for women who are either starting out in the fields of food, beverage, or hospitality or who have reached a turning point or development stage in their career.

The happenings include:

- 10 seats set on the rooftop patio at ARC in the Fairmont Waterfront

- A dinner for six by chef Chris Whitaker in the courtyard of Forage in the Listel Hotel

- A long-table dinner for 20 Pacific Yacht Charters’ three-level luxury yacht in Coal Harbour

- Six seats in the private library at Quails’ Gate Winery

- Dinner for six in Terrafina at Hester Creek by RauDZ

- Four seats at theTerrace Restaurant at Mission Hill Family Estate

- Four seats at The Restaurant at Watermark Beach Resort in Osoyoos

Tickets, $79, include dinner and wine. Bottles being poured at Metro Vancouver events include those from Haywire Winery, Joie Farm Winery, Painted Rock Estate Winery and Poplar Grove Winery.

Past scholarship recipients have trained everywhere from the Cordon Bleu in Paris to New York’s Culinary Institute of America; locally, women have advanced their knowledge by making wine in the Okanagan and learning new pastry techniques right here in Vancouver.

Earlier this year, the B.C. Dames gave out 28 scholarships, including one in honour of the late chef Tina Fineza. Co-sponsored by Two Rivers Specialty Meats, it involves education around the humane treatment of animals and the sourcing of local, sustainable ingredients. Two recipients, Kelowna chef Robyn Sigurdson and Victoria line cook Emily Poisson, will spend four days at the meat company’s Cache Creek ranch and its North Vancouver operation, their learning including a slaughter demonstration and nose-to-tail butchery.

See Les Dames d’Escoffier of B.C. for more details.