Mary Brown Malouf

All the Sundancing I did this year was to spend a day with Alice Waters—ChefDance featured the famous chef and food advocate for a lunch and a dinner and I went to both. To be honest, ChefDance (well, Sundance in general) is a surprisingly loosely organized event for something that’s been going on as long as it has. Communication seems to be lacking and this year, friends Blake Spalding and Jen Castle, owners of the famous Utah organic farm and restaurant, who were here for a photo shoot, were called in on an emergency basis because of organization problems in the kitchen and dining room. Little things—when we entered, Spalding was filling water glasses from a Lexan pan with a ladle—that should be automatically thought of by experienced caterers, had been left undone.

But Waters is a true icon. Beginning with her advocacy of eating locally and seasonally, she has changed the mindset of professional chefs all over the world and inspired the  restaurant business to start becoming a force for good in agriculture, nutrition and taste. She has sparked awareness of how broken the American food system is and her arguably most important cause, The Edible Schoolyard Project, was the theme of her ChefDance appearances.

The idea that what children eat is an important national concern is difficult to convert to reality—the American public school system has so many layers of bureaucracy and budgetary constraints that the simple idea of serving fresh food to children tends to get smothered in red tape.

But Waters continues to advocate.

Asked to imagine we were eating in a school cafeteria—not a pleasant memory for most of us—Waters served the ultimately simple nutritious meal. Based on the Native American tradition of the “Three Sisters,” an ancient agricultural trick of growing corn, beans and squash together, the menu eschewed all the fancy chef tricks and garnishes we’ve seen from ChefDancing chefs in the past, only breaking its own rules with a distinctly out of season strawberry dessert.

I have a sister in Texas, formerly a fine dining chef, who now directs the food program at an entire school district,and tries to follow the overall tenets laid out by Waters: a garden at every school, an attempt to integrate nutrition and food knowledge into the curriculum. The concepts are difficult to scale up. Year-round seasonal organic food is hard to find in climates outside bountiful state of California. There is a cost factor to overcome.

Even Waters had trouble finding enough organic beans in Utah to serve for lunch. But with this kind of ideal, it’s important to keep your eyes and energy focused on the goal, not the challenges. Waters’ stardom and the respect she commands help keep the message in front of us: Everyone deserves healthy, balanced and delicious food to eat. Our planet is crying out for more thoughtful sustainable growing practices.

Her message was less glittery than the usual Sundance glamor. But her voice might have been the most important voice at the Festival.

You don’t have to get your hands dirty to help. Just give to the Edible Schoolyard Project: edibleschoolyard.org.

The big news is that Jean-Georges has left the building.

His world-renowned name is no longer associated with St. Regis Deer Valley. Who knows exactly why? Maybe he just got sick and tired of never coming to his namesake restaurant.

More to the point, who cares? The notion of chefs becoming brands is so ’80s, anyway. Remember Wolfgang Puck? Once he was more than a pizza label.

We like restaurants with chefs in their own kitchens, hands-on, passionate, part of the community they live in. Of course, a resort like St. Regis has a jet-set community—the world is their home and they can afford $1500 per night rooms. They’re part of the club. But restaurants, even at high-flying resorts like St. Regis, need local custom, especially ski resorts in the summer.

So everything has changed and after last night’s dinner at Rime, I’d say for the better. I loved the former sous-chef in JG’s kitchen; Chef Rachel Wiener was a force of perfection and originality, but I was happy to meet one of the new chefs, Austin Hamilton and to see Chef Matthew Harris, chef-owner of Tupelo, in the driver’s seat. Meaning he, to use a loathed but commonly-used word, “concepted” the new restaurants at St. Regis.

Rime is the first to open. Originally planned as a Main Street restaurant, but blocked by the outrageous rent, Rime was an experiment up on the slopes last year, it proved so popular that it’s been given a full-fledged home in the main resort building where even non-swooshers can enjoy it. Harris says the menu is an homage to the first-rate purveyors he’s worked with over his career—oysters from Sue in Maine, elk from Delta, Utah, pasta from Bartolo’s, micro-greens from Brickhouse. What it boils down to is the tried-and-true steak and seafood combination but executed with great precision and elegance.

Three types of oysters, from East coast to Northwest, were presented on ice in big rock salt bins before dinner, first with an Alpine gin old-fashioned type of cocktail, then more pleasantly with champagne. Elk loin and dry-aged Desert Mountain Ranch porterhouse were ceremoniously carved in front of guests so the aromas hit the senses before the plate was even presented, starkly, with just the sliced meat and a slight puddle of sauce.

The complication was in the sides: romanescu with a parsnip puree and hazelnut crumble; Brussels sprouts roasted to dark caramelization with pickled carrots and a hint of chile; roasted heirloom carrots with a pecan romesco. No potato—the starch of the meal was a bowl of fantastic and simple clam spaghetti, served as a second course and luxuriously topped with winter truffle. Dessert, a complicated and beautiful take on the St. Regis signature s’more, was a superfluous delight.

But Rime is not all: a French brasserie-style menu will be served in another part of the vast space that was once Jean-George’s kingdom and a third concept is planned for the terrace.

So. Stay tuned. But in the meantime, stop in for surf-n-turf at Rime.

And don’t worry—the famous Bloody Mary is still on the bar menu.

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To judge from the plate, Italy is taking over Utah. Every time a restaurant closes, an Italian restaurant takes its place.

Yes, I’m exaggerating. Yes, you’ve likely read my complaints about this before. But imagine how dismal it feels, after 35 years of extolling and promoting creative regional cuisine, to be faced with so few new choices: a fast-casual restaurant, an Italian restaurant or a combination of the two. Food should be satisfying. Food should be comforting. Food should never be boring. Authentic Italian cuisine isn’t. But by the time Italian dishes reach Utah kitchens, they have usually been altered to suit the middle of bell curve’s palate and we end up with overcooked lasagne and over-cheesed pasta.

So, when one of the best Greek restaurants in town closed, I was not surprised to see that an Italian restaurant was taking its place: Osteria Amore opened up the interior space beautifully, established a bar area to the right of the entrance and my friends and I didn’t get any further than that. We sat at the bar, ordered a bottle of Italian white and didn’t leave for several hours after consuming antipasti, primi and a secondi and another bottle. It was a great way to dine—and very Italian.

Amore is owned by Marco Cuttai, from Palermo, and Sicilia Mia refugee, Eduardo Daja, and thankfully, he has left a lot of the cheesiness behind. The Sicilia restaurants are friendly and popular and belly-filling, but they verge on the stereotype of heavy, oversauced Italian food that Americans loved in the ‘50s and 60’s.

Sitting at the bar, we ordered items from all over the menu: deep-fried artichoke hearts with shishito peppers, housemade ricotta and toasted bread, fried octopus with potato cream and carpaccio, thin-sliced beef with lots of  arugula and grana cheese. Quibbling, the beef could have been a little thinner, but the unusual addition of pesto and mushrooms brought flavor and texture to the dish. We loved the ravioli with pear, gorgonzola and sage. Carbonara here was made with a good balance of cheese—no fiery show, no tricks, just a lot of style.

For more information about Osteria Amore, click here.

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Not that long ago, Americans didn’t know what poutine was and if they did know, the reaction was simple: “That sounds gross.” It does sound gross—a pile of french fries topped with cheese curds and gravy, a dish that defies garnish and prettification and seems to have been invented as a cold person’s desperate need for as many hot calories as could be consumed at once. Or maybe it started as a Quebecois dare.

Actually, maybe all that is true. Nevertheless, Utahns have fallen in love with poutine and lots of different restaurants serve their own versions of it.

The one pictured here is from Avenues Proper. 376 8th Avenue., SLC, 385-227-8628

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Starting tonight, the walls at Oquirrh, one of Salt Lake’s shining new dining stars, will be covered with the genius images of photographer, urbanist, visionary John McCarthy. Ever since Salt Lake City broke ground on the mammoth development called City Creek, McCarthy has been on the streets with his camera, documenting the city’s skyline’s rebirth in stages of steel, rebar, cement and people. Then using a special magical process (meaning I don’t understand it, he has transformed the original images into semi-abstractions that reflect the structural imagination architecture requires.

In 2019, Salt Lake magazine featured the project as it was then—take a look, it’s grown, as the city has. These photographs have so much depth and detail, it’ll take longer than one dinner to absorb them all. Maybe you’d better make two reservations at Oquirrh.

To see John’s work online, go to jofutahphoto.com/gallery

I think everyone will breathe a sigh of relief when 2019 is over.

And most of us will want to toast to the new one, fearfully, hopefully, gratefully.

That means most of us will want a glassful of sparkles to toast with.

I recently went to a “trial” New Year’s Eve dinner at Pallet, one of my favorite restaurants. The creative menu featured five courses, all but one paired with a grower Champagne, the latest bubbly baby of oenophiles. And probably anyone else who likes sparkling wine.

(The first two courses came with a cava, Spanish sparkling.)

Most of the big Champagne houses—Laurent Perrier, Veuve Clicquot, Moet & Chandon, Taittinger, etc.—have a developed style. Grower Champagne is wine made by the grape growers and the blends (cuvees) reflect terroir and winemaker preference. Only five percent of the Champagne imported into the U.S. is grower Champagne.

If proposed tariffs go through, we’ll likely see much less of it, so now is a good year to enjoy.

Here’s the Pallet menu:

Fried oysters with blood orange, pomegranate and crispy kale with Conquilla Cava Brut Rose (100 percent pinot noir.) Available in Utah. Scallops with carrots, saffron and caviar were paired with this one also.

Robiola-frisee salad with pears, chickpeas and prosciutto with Gimonnet Oger Grand Cru

Ocean trout with rye, walnut, leeks and mascarpone with Gaston Chiquet Special Club Brut

Wagyu tartare with peppercorn creme fraiche, fingerling potatoes and caviar with Jean Lallemont Brut Verzenay Grand Cru

Well. I was ready for 2020 to start right away.

P.S. There are some good takeaways from this for your own NYEve dinner:

*Fish, especially trout or salmon—cold-smoked, hot-smoked or poached—goes great with sparkling wine and can be prepared ahead.

*For a seated dinner, scallops are quick, versatile, look pretty on greens and are great with a blood orange aioli (chat by using a good quality mayo) garnished with pomegranate seeds.

*Blend fresh goat cheese with good quality cream cheese and some thyme and olive olive for a creamy dip with croutons.

*If you must have beef, serve it very rare, sliced thin, with rye rounds

*Skip chocolate for a sweet. Instead, serve pound cake fingers with a caramel dip

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