Appetizers
Whether it’s an appetizer or small plate, chefs create this course with special attention. Salads are anything but a pile of flavorless greens with cheap dressing and average cheese. Meat plates are certainly not ordinary, designed with locally made cheese, salami, and preserves, and are enjoying great national attention.
At Finca you can make a meal by ordering and passing around small plates of tasty bites, from smoked chicken croquettes to shishito peppers. It’s the best way to try it all and have an extended meal with good friends, the kind who don’t mind if you all plunge your forks into the same dish.
You won’t be able to pass the appetizer course at places like Fresco, Alamexo, or Pago as the options are just too tempting. Polenta with wild mushrooms and pomodoro, table-side guacamole spiced to your liking, and a tasting of carrots (raw, pickled, confit, and pureed with mascarpone) are just a few starters worth your attention.
Breakfasts
Breakfast is a meal celebrated in Salt Lake. Some take it with a mug of hot coffee, others with a tall glass of fresh-squeezed juice. Morning aficionados will find waffles made the way they used to in Bruges, huevos with house-made tomatillo salsa and farm-fresh eggs, rich hollandaise atop bacon and avocado, baked goods to give you a taste of France, and pancakes so dreamy and fluffy you may just give up making them at home.
On any given weekend or weekday morning, you’ll find a seemingly cheerful line out the door at Park Cafe. If you drive by 300 South near Pioneer Park, you’ll see folks lining down the street to get a crispy caramelized Bruges Waffle. And if you hope to hit up one of the favorite local bakeries like Tulie for a Morning Bun or Les Madeleines for a Kouing Aman, we’ll just say you better get there a little early.
Salt Lake City living, whether you’re a skier or a city dweller, requires a good breakfast.
Desserts
Salt Lake diners are powerless when it comes to desserts. From ice cream and gelato to elegant layered cakes and soufflés, desserts are the more common vice, whereas other large cities may have a stronger penchant for mixed drinks and full-bodied wines.
We live in a city where small cookie shops are worth fighting for, secret pastry recipes are prized and sometimes challenged, and ice cream shops are the most popular date destinations.
Amber Billingsly’s Butterscotch Budino perfectly follows any Italian meal at Vinto; Kelly Sue Pugh’s creativity is seen in her layered carrot cake served in mason jars or her homemade Ho Hos. And one visit to Jean Gorge’s grand pastry case at Gourmandise will certainly not be enough.
The locals’ appetite for dessert is well matched with valley chefs’ ability to invent sweet post-meal pleasures.
Entrees
Though small plates and desserts are currently hogging the spotlight in Salt Lake dining, entrees are anything but ignored. Local chefs fully embrace the freedoms of Salt Lake’s nonjudgmental restaurant scene to create fabulous dishes with local, seasonal, and quality ingredients.
While some larger dining cities are competitive and thus restrictive, Salt Lake proves to be one where risks are celebrated and creativity runs deep. We can’t forget that we live in the Wild West.
Tyler Stokes at Lugano pairs cauliflower with pancetta on top of spaghetti; Em’s turns shredded cabbage into creamy fettuccine, and beef stroganoff has never been so elegant and tasty than at Copper Onion.
Mexican entrees are well worth their price tags at Alamexo and Frida Bistro.
Thai curry, pho, and Indian masala are made naturally with fresh ingredients. Try the MSG-free pho at Oh Mai or the Gang Dang Curry filled with crisp veggies at Chanon Thai.
The entrees chefs create around the valley are one of the reasons Salt Lake is such a great city to live in.
Beverages
A handful of great bartenders, distillers, wine makers, sommeliers, and restaurant managers are changing the complexion of drinking in Utah. There’s something of an awakening for responsible, sophisticated drinkers more interested in the taste of their beverage than the effects of it. Sure, the head-lightening effects of a few good drinks are welcomed after a long week, but largely the new culture cares to know the difference between tequila and mezcal or what makes vermouth from France different from vermouth from Italy.
A culture demanding good booze is growing in Utah with some very capable hands at the helm. Church and State Spirits (Scott Gardner from Finca, Matt Pfohl from Pallet, and Sean Neves, the lone wolf bluetooth ringleader) along with the Bar X crew and a few others tell a story about Utah by way of mixed drink, another evolving chapter in the state’s culinary scene.
Bar X came along at a time when Utah needed a good drink. The prevalent well gin and tonics and Jack and Cokes belong more to a fraternity party than an evening on the town. The owners of Bar X took something really old (Bar X first began operation in 1933) and made it relevant again. The bar menu offers just about any cocktail from a bygone era and, with the same modus operandi, made it worth $9 a drink.
Bar X (re)opened its doors when just about every restaurant with a bit of creativity and entrepreneurial spirit could be a first of some kind. The first whiskey distillery, High West (post Valley Tan). The first drinking chocolate, Mezzo. The first artisan salami maker, Creminelli. The list goes on and on. To some a $9 drink is an insult. Why would Bar X charge so much for such a small quantity of beverage? The owners chose to elevate the cocktail scene and take a price-point risk, and Utah embraced it fully. In some armchair sociological and psychological terms, Bar X communicated to Utahans that they’re worth a $9 cocktail. It feels good to be worth a $9 cocktail.
In Utah we find our way around strange liquor laws and even come to celebrate them in a sense. While most of the unusual liquor laws have been done away with, one remains: You must order food with your drink if you’re having alcohol at a restaurant. Twist our arm. I guess we’ll have to pull up a chair at the bar and stay awhile. Some of the best foods are served at the places where you can get a good cocktail.
Sit at the bar at Copper Onion and you’ll get to see most of your food prepared. Their ricotta dumplings or the braised pork belly make great small bites to go along with one of their signature drinks.
At Pallet, dessert and drinks are a favored combo. The bar is lined with industrial lighting and rustic bar stools, a comfortable spot for a late-night date.
Sip sake while you watch how the masters make incredibly intricate sushi rolls at the bar at Naked Fish.
And you may be able to chat with the chef or sommelier at Pago if you get a spot at its bar.