Tony Gill

The restaurant business is notoriously volatile, as anyone who’s worked in food service or caught the first two seasons of “The Bear” can attest. That’s especially true in a mountain community like Park City where businesses are subject to feast and famine economics and the oscillating whims of tourist spending habits. In such an environment, the success of restaurants under the Bill White Enterprises umbrella is nothing short of remarkable. The first restaurant in the portfolio, Grappa, opened more than three decades ago in 1992. The team behind the latest addition, Pine Cone Ridge, aims to add to the successful lineage that’s come to define Park City’s fine dining identity. 

Chef Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen has curated a contemporary American concept fusing local cuisine concepts with influences from her past and the culture of her colleagues. Thorne-Thomsen is a veteran of Park City restaurants, having worked with Bill White restaurants for 15 years. During that time she served as the executive chef at Ghidotti’s in Kimball Junction for five years and frequently developed menus and cooked for the restaurant group’s extracurricular and special events. Now she’s channeling that creativity into Pine Cone Ridge. 

“When they asked if I was interested in starting a new restaurant on Main Street with the support of the biggest, most successful restaurant group in town, I jumped at the chance,” says Thorne-Thomsen. “This is the first restaurant opening I’ve been part of. Working with so many skilled people who have different strengths has allowed us to focus intently on the menu concept knowing all the details are getting proper attention.” 

The cuisine at Pine Cone Ridge is a reflection of Park City’s restaurant community. “We worked from a starting point of classic American cuisine and included local ingredients, regional comfort food components and a lot of Mexican-American influences. We’re really proud of that because of how influential the Mexican community has been to Park City’s identity,” Thorne-Thomsen says. “I’ve been able to bring some of my perspective coming from New England as well with unique proteins and a lot of seafood. The Miso Chilean Sea Bass is a dish I just love. We overnight live lobster from Gloucester, Mass., which isn’t something you see a lot in mountain towns.”

The menu rotates seasonally to highlight as many local ingredients as possible, as one of Thorne-Thomsen’s aims is to feature the freshest, most local produce from the Wasatch Back. Come to Pine Cone Ridge to taste the flavors of Utah as reimagined by Chef Gudrun and some of the finest, most experienced cooks in Park City. 577 Main St., 435-615-0300, pineconeridgepc.com.

Local Name, Local Game

The restaurant’s name is inspired by the eponymous two-mile ridge at Park City Mountain running from Scott’s Bowl off the Jupiter Chairlift to the mid-station of the Quicksilver Gondola. Just as Pinecone Ridge serves up some of the area’s best long, steep powder runs, Pine Cone Ridge dishes out some of the area’s finest ingredients like the local lamb T-bone chops and the seasonally rotating selection of produce.  

What is it about having that first drink of the day when the sun is highest in the sky? There’s a sneaking sense of self indulgence creeping in with each sip that’s hard to put a finger on. For me, it’s the not-so-secret longing of some manufactured idealistic feeling that’s vaguely European, or maybe it’s the comforting admission that nothing of consequence is getting done the rest of the day. Whatever it is, day drinking’s undeniable appeal is pretty ubiquitous, so it’s delightful to see a couple festivals—Deer Valley’s Mountain Beer Festival and the Park City Wine Festival—come to town, cribbing some customs from the Alps in a way our chalet-style architecture can only dream of. 

The Mountain Beer Festival kicks things off at Deer Valley September 16 and 17 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. with two days of suds and sun. The only beer festival in Park City features tastings from more than a dozen Beehive State breweries, including some hyperlocal Summit County brewers like Offset Bier, in a gorgeous setting outside Silver Lake Lodge.

 The venue is only accessible via a chairlift ride on Silver Lake Express, which is included in every ticket purchase. Tickets start at $45 for General Admission, which gets attendees three tasting tokens and the aforementioned lift ride. The $65 Reserve Package includes two additional tasting tokens and a commemorative mug, while the $85 Imperial Package tacks on a t-shirt, eight total tasting tokens and access to the VIP BBQ tent. For those seeking to maximize the afternoon eating and drinking, the ominously-named package may be just the ticket. 

For less bubbly taste preferences, the October 5-7 Park City Wine Festival is the way to go. In classic wine-culture tradition, the festival is far more than a “come enjoy some booze in the sun” event. The Grand Tastings at Canyons Village on Friday and Saturday from noon to 6:00 p.m. dig into the loose festival vibe with tastings available from more than 100 wineries, but the amateur sommeliers out there will find plenty more to suit them. 

Choose from all manner of wine and food pairings offered—the Portuguese Paradise Lunch sounds particularly appealing—in addition to aficionado-focused events like Wine is Blind. The late-night blind wine tasting will put those “expert” tastebuds to the test by asking participants to rate wines on *gasp* flavor alone. There are also experimental seminars with topics like “Art of Aperitif: Negroni 101” for those looking to gain some knowledge throughout the weekend. 

Full details and tickets for both events are available on festival websites. deervalley.com, parkcitywinefest.com

Snowbird Oktoberfest

Proper respect and mention is deserved for Utah’s original European-style beer festival, Snowbird’s Oktoberfest. Running each weekend from August through mid-October since its inaugural edition in 1972, the event features live music, authentic German fare and of course more than 50 varieties of beer. It’s still the standard against which the others are judged and is worth the trip around and through the Wasatch from Summit County. snowbird.com

The gargantuan metal apparatus was custom-made for the kitchen. Mixing seemingly incongruous rustic and elegant elements, the 14-foot-long grill is the centerpiece, both aesthetically and spiritually, of the restaurant. The four adjustable grilling stations and the 500-degree smoker in the center are visible from the dining area and all feature exclusively wood-fired heat. No gas. No electric. Just as it should be in a restaurant named Firewood. 

John Murcko is Firewood’s chef and owner. He opened the establishment at the end of 2016 after a prolific career that helped shape Park City’s dining scene. His first job after moving to Park City in the early 1990s was as a pastry chef at the Goldener Hirsch. “It was a challenge to learn how pastries worked at 8,000 feet, but it was an amazing experience with a lot of artistic freedom,” Murcko says. He then worked with famed area restaurateur Bill White before ultimately striking out on his own, working with Talisker and a group from the Grand America Hotel to open and oversee more than 20 restaurants in Park City and Sun Valley—Talisker on Main and The Farm to name a couple. “It was an amazing journey where I gained so much knowledge,” Murcko says. But ultimately, he wanted to start a restaurant to highlight his passion. 

“I have this remote place in Escalante. It’s so far in the national forest there are no electricity or gas lines, so your only option is to cook over fire or propane. It’s so beautiful there I always wanted to cook outside, so I built these huge pits with grills, dutch ovens and rotisseries and where we could bury vegetables in the coals. In the fall I’d have other chefs come down and we’d spend days cooking over wood. The food and the experience were incredible, and I started to dream of how I could scale the experience commercially. That’s Firewood,” Murcko explains. 

Everything hot at Firewood is cooked over wood. There are two induction burners for keeping sauces warm, but even those are made with wood-burning heat. “We’ll even put hot coals inside of oils to create these one-of-a-kind flavors,” Murcko says. It makes for a challenging environment, but that’s helped cultivate an incredible staff. “It’s definitely hot in there, and you start each shift carrying four tubs of firewood to the kitchen. But truly passionate cooks and people who want to learn continuously are drawn to it,” he explains.

We’ve gotten this far without mentioning the menu, which is as much a nod to Murcko’s methodology as it is an admission The cuts of meat, whether steaks, game birds or mountain trout are wonderful, but it’s the unique flavor profiles of something seemingly familiar that sets Firewood apart. Step inside, watch the team in action and taste for yourself. 

Seasons Change and so Does the Menu 

“I want the menu to reflect the rhythm of real life,” Murcko says of the ongoing menu evolution at Firewood. “We can be creative while still respecting traditions. In the summer our only game is bison, which is very lean, whereas in the fall and winter, when people typically go hunting and your body craves those richer, higher-fat meats, we have elk. For produce, we serve what’s in season at the local farmer’s market. Peas and morels in the spring, tomatoes and asparagus in the summer and more parsnips and rutabagas in the winter.”

306 Main St., 435-252-9900, firewoodonmain.com