Smart Meetings

Utah Flavors in a Grand Way

Author: Carla Breer Howard
July 2007

Chef's Table

Imagine our delight when eight top members of the 60-person culinary team of The Grand America Hotel—Salt Lake City’s only AAA Five-Diamond hotel—visited our Bay Area headquarters to talk about food! On a given day, The Grand’s kitchens can serve up to 5,000 meals. Last year, the grocery bill totaled $6.8 million, some of which was well spent, in my opinion, on 22,000 lbs of chocolate.

They had been in San Francisco for four days and had hit something like 19 of the area’s top restaurants to find out what was going on in this food-mad city. Their mission had left them pleased (but absolutely stuffed).

The Grand America’s team is led by Executive Chef Jeffrey Russell, Executive Banquet Chef Eric Finney and Executive Pastry Chef Kurtis Baguley, and they created this special dinner menu just for our readers. We had asked them for something that truly captured the flavors of Utah.

Jeff Russell, whose career include stints at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort and the Phoenician resort, led off the discussion. “Salt Lake is an upcoming culinary area, and when you think of a local specialty, it’s Morgan Valley lamb,” he says. Another local favorite cited was buffalo—either ribs or tenderloin. “It’s farm raised in the area and very lean,” he says.

While Utah is famous for its honey, the team also touted the small but growing group of artisan cheese makers. “Beehive Cheese Co. is one,” notes Eric Finney. “There are a number of delicious local cheeses; we taste them in different stages as they are aged. Right down to a year or two.”

Russell has taken a hands-on approach to securing local produce. “Bell Farms is an organic grower that grows for us. I went through with one of the farmers last year, going over what we would use this summer, so they’d plant for us.” The Grand also maintains an herb garden, all the better to make their own pesto. There’s golden oregano, four different basils, lavender and thyme, just waiting to be served with the lamb.

Utah-grown fruits are very much part of The Grand’s offerings, as well. Cherries are native, says Kurt Baguley, noting that he gets outstanding peaches and melons from Green River Valley. Baguley is new to Utah after 17 years working in the Bay Area, where he directed pastry creation at such spots as the Mandarin Oriental’s Silks and the Four Seasons Clift’s French Room. He has had to make some small adjustments. Utah’s seasons are very short, he’s discovered. “If you don’t jump on the cherries, in three weeks they’re gone!” he laments. Yet he finds Utah’s fleeting summer fruits very inspiring. “My whole drive in desserts is comfort,” he says. “I like to connect with the old tapes in everybody. Last summer we did a twist on Melba. When you’re picking up those fresh peaches that are chin-dripping sweet, you don’t need to embellish them; I like just to enhance them,” with a cool champagne zabaglione, that is.

Come June through September, The Grand America brings in farmers, local cheese-makers and cattle ranchers. “They’re cooking with us outside, grilling, making salads and conversing with the guests, says Finney. “The farmers will argue, ‘My products are better than yours!’ and when they see it in the professional chef genre, it inspires them. It’s important to support local growers, and it allows us to have fun.”

Baguley brings up his 4,200-square-foot work space. “I have a chocolate room,” he says out of the blue; he has my undivided attention. “I have water-dispensing units that have water in the right amount at the right temperature. A lot of times I tell my staff, at some point you need to work in a small shop, where you’ve got your cutting board on top of a trashcan to really appreciate this. The first time I walked into this area, I said to myself, ‘This is pastry paradise.’ ”

Baguley, who taught bread-making professionally, and his staff bake all of their artisan bread, as he puts it, “Old World” style. But they also make small individual pastries for the hotel’s famed High Tea, goodies like macaroons, and scones to go with Devonshire clotted cream and fresh lemon curd. Groups take to this. “We had a tea convention about two months ago,” says Baguley. “There was High Tea, afternoon teas, receptions with tea. It was for John Harney, which we used, of course,” surely a daunting crowd.

“We’re very proud of our artisan chocolate program,” he says. Baguley uses different chocolates for the subtly different flavors: Belgian, French and Venezuelan, even creating a “flight” of different hot chocolates to taste. “We do all of our chocolates in-house. We’re constantly progressing; they hold their own to anything in the country,” he says, and I believe him.

Russell observes that The Grand America—the area’s only Five-Diamond property—is just six years old. Working at such a young hotel, The Grand's current team gets to be creative, as they invent the hotel’s dining legacy. This includes personalizing the menu for every meeting they do. As Anthony Bartholomew, director of hotel operations puts it, “We’re really moving away from the cut-and-dry menu plan: i.e., ‘Here’s the list.’ The goal is to have 100% interaction from the food  and beverage team, to have personalized banquet service.”

Finney agrees. “We’re partners in this to make this the best event possible. Give us feedback; let us know right away. Anthony likes to call it ‘confronting the brutal truth.’ I say, ‘Give it to me straight,’ at the end of the function. We’re at 99-percent guest satisfaction.”

I’m still thinking about The Grand's darn chocolate room. 

MENU: GRAND AMERICA

• Chilled Lobster Gazpacho Salad
  Lobster Salad, Avocado Half, Micro Greens, Spicy Tomato Vinaigrette
  
  
• Roasted Rack of Local Morgan Valley Lamb
  Wild Mushroom-Potato “Cannoli,” Oven-Roasted Tomatoes, Garlic Lamb Jus
  
  
• The “Tahitian”
  Pine Nut Dacquoise, Vanilla Cream, Dark Chocolate Mousse Vanilla Jelly Coulis