Our Park City, Utah, trip started with FOMO. One of our companions excitedly told us they had seen a moose the day before, walking downtown like it was window-shopping. We felt an ignoble pang of jealousy. We wanted to see a moose—forest royalty—as well. Why wasn’t it we who saw him? We pined to see one. Life without a moose seemed, well… mooseless.
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Park City Chamber_ Bureau
Fly Fishing
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Park City Chamber_ Bureau
Fly Fishing
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Park City Chamber_ Bureau
Fly Fishing
Fly-fishing
Only thirty minutes from The Chateaux Deer Valley, our Park City hotel, we went fly-fishing with guide Lucas Pennington of All Seasons Adventures along the Middle Provo River. The fish were playing “hard to catch.” So hard, in fact, that they disdained every nymph we cast, undoubtedly rolling their eyes and talking smack about our pathetic attempts to hook them.
The difference between fishing and catching fish was never clearer. Yet, we discovered that putting on waders and overshoes and standing on the muddy bottom of a rambunctious stream on a tangy autumn day with the sun sparkling on the water while casting was its own reward—in a zen sort of way.
Le Depot Brasserie
Le Depot Food
Restaurants
Visit Park City
High West Distillery
So, we caught trout by an alternative means at High West Distillery, the only ski-in/ski-out gastro-distillery in the world, where we ate trophy-level smoked trout dip with steelhead caviar. We drank a Golden Hour cocktail, more than the sum of its parts, from Soju, yuzu, tarragon, honeysuckle, prosecco, and their own High West Bourbon.
Park City’s Main Street is a petri dish for outstanding restaurants. With small exceptions, no chain restaurants (or shops) are allowed. All are mom and pop in the best way. Their number and excellence are disproportionately great for the town’s size. Perhaps the fact that it has been home to the Sundance Festival is reason. We went to Union Patisserie, in the “French Quarter,” where we started dinner that night with a French Apero (Happy Hour). We ate oysters with sauce mignonette and slices of a rolled buckwheat crepe with chevre, smoked salmon and salmon eggs that popped pleasingly in our mouths. At neighboring Le Depot Brasserie, we continued with a smashing fresh lobster risotto and a classic Salade Lyonnaise—dressed frisée with lardons and a poached egg. We savored a Le Depot 75, a mixological masterpiece, essentially a French 75 with St Germain added.
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Stein Collection
Chateux at Deer Valley Courtyard
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Stein Collection
Chateux at Deer Valley Room
Back to Our Hotel and a Massage
The Chateaux Deer Valley is a richly paneled and beamed mountain redoubt with a caring staff. Hotel housekeeping is a strong indicator of a hotel’s heart. When we returned, not only was our room made up perfectly, but a delinquent computer cord was rewound and tied with a hotel-monogrammed ribbon. We sported in their heated outdoor swimming pool—fringed by flower baskets like floral Roman Candles—savoring the temperature difference with the nippy air. Nearby, there were gas barbecues where guests can make s’mores, ingredients provided. And in the morning, to our delight, heaping mounds of fresh, pristine berries, like semi-precious stones, adorned the buffet in the Chateaux’ breakfast room.
As written in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot, “Like a patient etherized upon a table,” was what we almost were by the end of our hour-long massages at the neighboring Spa at Stein Eriksen Lodge. One of us had a sore Achilles tendon. Rubbed with CBD oil, the pain evaporated. If only poor Achilles himself had had access to this.
Riverhorse on Main
Riverhorse on Main Interior
More Food
Raw brick, steel girders, an enormous skylight, Riverhorse has fancy digs. We wanted a drink not on their cocktail list, an Old Cuban (basically, a mojito made with champagne and a drop of Angostura bitters). No problem. They brought one, commendably made, and then another. Their seared lamb chops were precisely au point. Their sweet pea risotto was al dente, sure sign that it was not batch cooked, risotto’s bane. We tapped our fingers to the live music.
Deer Valley Resort
Beer Festival
Encounters With the Spirit World
We took a ski lift to the Deer Valley Mountain Beer Festival. So many craft beers these days seem to feel the need to outdo competitors with ever more IBU’s (International Bitterness Units). A Pilsner, in our view, is better suited to those who feel more settled in themselves. So, we love Moab Brewery’s suave Pilsner.
Second Summit Hard Cider Company was started by Vicki Bott, who worked her entire career in finance. Soulfully malnourished, she spontaneously decided to depart finance and start a cidery/indoor pickle ball facility with her charming son, Joe. We adored their Off Dry cider. Unlike so many ciders which taste confectionary—like jacked up, artificially carbonated apple juice—theirs had a prototypically funky cider taste, scent and sparkle, with only a wisp of sweetness.
We adored the music of The Brennan West Band. Their rendition of Ring of Fire with Brennan West playing two trumpets at once, knocked us silly. He looked remarkably like Dionysus, Greek god of music (and alcohol, sometimes credited with discovering beer, apropos for a brew festival), playing the aulos.
There were Avalanche Rescue Dogs (in red vests, but no brandy casks, alas) rolling, rambling and rascaling about who tugged at our pup-loving hearts.
Marc Piscotty
Downtown Park City
Downtown Park City
Park City Chamber_ Bureau
Park City art gallery
Park City started as a scantily populated silver-mining town. When the ore tapped out, it re-invented itself as a ski town. Early skiers took cold, wet ore trains to the top of the slopes. Now, there are ski lifts and ski runs everywhere, including “town runs,” many more abuilding.
We visited in Autumn before the snows. The air was nippy, but the sun was warm which gave the delightful sensation of being cool and warm at the same time. There was a faint seasonal scent of ferment. Main Street is where most of Park City’s enterprises do business, much like sea anemones pulling nutrients from the ocean stream. The town was at medium simmer. Folks strolled, fingers laced, walked dogs, and sat on benches watching the flow, drinking joe. Shops were full. Many folks wore their fashion feathers. If you come without your chapeau, we saw two hat kiosks where you could hat up, cowboy style, if you wished. Eyes keen for moose, we saw nary a one.
Park City has around 25 art galleries, at least 12 of them in one long block of upper Main Street. At David K. Beavis’s gallery of fine art photography, we were awed by the artistic heft from a medium we associate with quick shots on an iPhone. At the Thomas Anthony Gallery, we chatted with Rolinda Stotts who was painting outside, many of her pieces for sale inside. She calls her technique “Bella Rotta,” which means beautifully broken. The canvases upon which she painted looked to us like irregular, broken tiles grouted together.
Dendric Estate
Dendric Fall Orchard
More Cider
Brendan Coyle, formerly Master Distiller at High West Distillery, started Dendric Estate Cidery with his wife, Carly, four years ago. Their mission was to create cider in a manner consistent with the highest wine-making standards. Their debut cider, Dry Cut, is made from a blend of apples, including Virginia Hewes crabapples they grow (among others), flavor bombs, which were also grown by Benjamin Franklin. Made with Methode Charmat, the technique used for making Prosecco, the juice goes through three fermentations, has an infinitude of small bubbles, and a dry taste resembling champagne. It comes in corked champagne bottles because no can is strong enough to withstand its pressure. It is extraordinary. We purchased four bottles.
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Tory Lynn Creative
Ritual Chocolate bars
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Tory Lynn Creative
Ritual Chocolate Mixer
Chocolate, of Course
Eyes vainly seeking moose, we drove to Ritual Chocolate, in nearby Heber City, which makes small batch chocolate from ethically sourced beans imported from tropical zones including Ecuador, Guatemala and Peru. Their factory consists of massive machines that roast, shell and successively mix and micro-granularize the chocolate to a smooth consistency. One step in the process is called “conching” in which the chocolate mix runs back and forth through large stone rollers. This means that every bite of their final product contains an infinitesimal amount of stone dust, undoubtedly vital to its excellence. Their best-selling chocolate bar is Honeycomb Toffee.
Shalet_Dreamstime
Moose in Park City
Our Farewell
Last night of our trip, tired from our culinary and spirituous labors at Midway Mercantile (with Thai curry panko halibut), we drove an isolated mountain road back to our hotel. Ahead of us we saw a small traffic jam, puzzling on a road such as this. We came to a halt amid the aspen trees, looked over, and the reason for the stoppage was evident. A noble Moose! She (we surmise) had a “bell,” otherwise known as a “dewlap,” like a wattle (no one knows why moose have these). Right behind her was a noble Mooseling! Completely disinterested in mere humans, they dined on delicious foliage and crossed the road in front, disappearing into the trees.
We left wonderful Park City the next morning mirthfully, maximally mooseful.
Plan your trip to Park City, Utah, at visit parkcity.com.