111 EAST BROADWAY
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH 84111
(801) 355-3282
RYAN LOWDER, CHEF/OWNER
Every city in America claims a restaurant whose lore and legend exceed the hopes of the most ambitious of restaurateurs. Copper Onion is Salt Lake City’s urban treasure. Perhaps the restaurant’s greatest accomplishment surpasses simply filling the seats day after day and night after night. Many restaurants boast waiting lists and great reviews online. Copper Onion’s greatest achievement can be summarized in one simple dish: bone marrow.
Salt Lake City diners now eat bone marrow.
How did that happen? Through vision, brilliance, a great staff, and happenstance. The Copper Onion’s earlier days comprised more traditional items, though still compelling. By doing the more accessible things really well (hamburgers and such), chef/owner Ryan Lowder developed a fan base that trusts the menu.
Trust is Copper Onion’s most valuable currency, and Lowder has wisely spent time slowly turning up the volume on Utah’s burgeoning palate.
And now? Now Utahans are willing to try things they’ve never tried before. And they like it.
Darken Copper Onion’s doors, and you’ll likely meet a boisterous wine enthusiast named Jimmy Santangelo. He’s a tall distance runner with a Jersey accent who knows his way around the wine store. One of a handful of sommeliers in town, Santangelo’s wine list is sure to satisfy the range of tastes coming in and out of Copper Onion. As is par for the sommelier course, Jimmy also dabbles in cocktails, and he has settled in nicely to Salt Lake City’s emerging cocktail scene.
Utahans interested in moving beyond the typical local fare are proud of Copper Onion. Trust its menu; it will take you somewhere you never thought you’d go.
(SERVES 4 AS A MAIN COURSE)
For the beef:
1 pound chuck tail or chuck roast, cut into chunks
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup sliced celery
1 cup sliced carrot
4 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs thyme
Water or stock
For the stroganoff:
1 pound cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 small shallot, sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
½ cup heavy cream
1 cup braising liquid
Salt and pepper to taste
8 ounces pappardelle pasta
½ cup crème fraîche
¼ cup fresh chives
To prepare the beef: Brown the meat in a nonstick pan over high heat. Do not overcrowd pan; brown in batches if needed. Place the beef, onions, celery, carrots, garlic, bay leaves, and thyme in an oven-safe dish. Add enough water or stock to cover. Cover dish and cook in a 325°F oven for 3–5 hours. Check after a few hours and add more water or stock if necessary to keep meat and vegetables covered.
When meat is fork tender, remove it from the oven. Set the meat aside to cool and strain the liquid from the vegetables. Discard veggies. Cool liquid and skim most of the fat from the top. Reserve this braising liquid for later.
To prepare the stroganoff: Toss mushrooms with olive oil and a sprinkling of salt. Roast in a 375°F oven for 15–20 minutes.
In a sauté pan over medium heat, melt the butter, then add the shallot, garlic, and roasted mushrooms and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the beef, cream, and reserved braising liquid and cook until liquid is reduced and thickened, about 7 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until al dente. Drain the pasta, then add it to the sauté pan and cook for 2 minutes.
Serve stroganoff immediately with a dollop of crème fraîche and fresh chives.
WINE IN UTAH
One estate winery exists in Utah. One. One could easily conclude that the land in Utah can’t sustain a thriving vineyard churning out great fruit year after year, and that’s why only one estate stands on Utah soil. But it’s not the soil’s fault. Many experts conclude that the soil profiles are quite conducive to growing riesling, blaufrankisch, gruner veltliner, kerner, and other lesser-known varietals. If not the land, then what? It’s easy to swing to the opposite end of the pendulum and blame the government for its restrictions and obstacles for aspiring Utah viticulturists. That’s not it either. As is typical, the answer isn’t found in the extremes, it’s found in the balance.
Simply put, Utah is a burgeoning scene on every level, including wine. At the forefront of the forward charge stand two guys trumpeting a call to the locals to come taste the compelling fruit of the vine. But don’t stop at a taste. Understand it. Make a relationship with it. See that the metaphysical miracle in the glass warrants more than just a passive taste. Understanding wine opens the drinker up to other cultures, other soils, and other values worth exploring.
Locals know the men and their cause well: Evan Lewandowski of Ruth Lewandowski Wines and sommelier at Pago, and Jimmy Santangelo, sommelier at the Copper Onion and owner of the Utah Wine Academy. Each one tells a different story about wine, with dozens of converts to the slippery and pricey slope of wine affection.
Spend an evening at a table at the Copper Onion when Jimmy works the floor, and you’ll feel like you have a new best friend. He exudes a professionalism and casualness sure to satisfy the elitist wine snob and the average Joe who refers to wine solely as red or white, never mind the pink stuff. He reads his customers well and gauges their wine knowledge quickly, but he doesn’t judge them, even when it would be really easy and embarrassingly fun to do so.
This quality of embracing the person for where they’re at while pushing them deeper into wine culture summarizes Jimmy best. His Wine Academy of Utah exists to do just that: teach people about elements of wine previously unknown. Sitting in Jimmy’s classroom, you’ll find University of Utah Lifelong Learning Program students learning just for fun as well as career servers looking for more knowledge and understanding to better help them serve their wine list (most likely put together or influenced by Jimmy).
Perhaps the greatest and most interesting feather in Jimmy’s cap is his classes that teach non-alcohol-drinking servers how to sell a wine tableside. He doesn’t pretend he’s not in Utah. That’s a very real challenge here. Many servers observe a faith that doesn’t allow even a taste of an item they’re supposed to be able to sell. Rather than ignore the challenge, Jimmy came up with a class based on sight and smell, bringing fresh fruits of varying color and ripeness to aid in his explanation of the varying varietals of wine.
Much of the wine scene is in debt to Jimmy’s work behind the pulpit teaching the depth and complexity and beauty of wine. Without him Utah most certainly would still drink wine, but likely know less about it.
Take a look at Jimmy’s wine list and compare it to Evan’s list at Pago. Jimmy’s is like the Rolling Stones, and Evan’s is like that obscure band that you’ve never heard but after one listen you’re in love. Evan digs and finds winemakers and vintages from operations yielding small batches of complex, mostly atypical wines. No big, oaky cabs on his menu, though they can be crowd pleasers. Evan’s taste and understanding of pairing won’t let him phone it in with something that doesn’t do the greatest justice to the fruit in the vineyard and the land from which it comes.
Beyond developing Pago’s wine list and moving from table to table charming the diners, Evan makes wine. He spent years developing his love for wine and the art of making it in Alsace, Alto Adige, Tuscany, Argentina, California, New Zealand, and Australia to prepare for his return to make wine in Utah. His first vintage, 2012, came and went long before the 2013s released with great fanfare in Paris, New York, San Francisco, and most important, Utah.
If it isn’t already obvious, Evan’s winemaking is different than that of the average winemaker. He works in small batches and largely takes a laissez-faire approach to his wines. Don’t take that the wrong way. Though he fights tooth and nail to abstain from additives of any style, he monitors fermentation and aging closely. He’s no stranger to the microscope and spends hours geeking out on numbers and measurements hardly understood by the outside world. He believes the best way he can do justice to the fruit and the processes it naturally goes through is to do everything possible to ensure you only taste what naturally occurs.
The future of wine rests in able hands. Jimmy and Evan are only two of the sommeliers and wine brokers and wine drinkers elevating the wine scene in Utah. Of course, the job of establishing, sustaining, and elevating a wine program in Utah takes more than just two handsome guys. There are several folks in the industry also worth mentioning for their contribution.
Francis Fecteau operates Libation, a local wine broker responsible for many wines in the liquor stores and in restaurants. Louis Koppel from By the Glass, formerly of Spencer’s Steak and Chops, is a sommelier’s sommelier working the floor and moving wines with great passion and love. Finally, no story of wine is complete without Cara Schwindt. Her wine cellar runs deep at the Stein Eriksen Lodge in Deer Valley, boasting one of the most robust lists in the state.
Wine in Utah offers a snapshot of the cliché that it takes a village. No one person or entity could change the tide of a state on its own.