Remember how Carl Sandburg said fog comes on little cat feet? Well, Mist is coming like that.

Yes, a restaurant that is aiming at 3-star Michelin quality is quietly opening in our mist. Midst.

You may have seen it mentioned by a Facebook friend. Or heard rumors. But this is the scoop.

The Big Picture

 

First of all, get this straight: Gavin Baker thinks big. From his grandmother’s cooking in North Carolina to his stint at Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck, often called one of the best restaurants in the world (world), to kitchens all over Asia and the United States, he’s been gathering his ideas about restaurants and cooking and what he wants To Do With It All.

And this is it.

A guerrilla restaurant–a restaurant without a lease, without a dedicated space, without an address.

A temporary restaurant, only open for a limited time to a limited number of diners.

A fabulous restaurant, as good as any you could find in the world.

“I want to target locations with overlooked or undiscovered food traditions, and showcase the foods, customs and spirits of those areas. I want to take Michelin standards into areas and countries that don’t have exposure to it, and have it be inspirational for them,” he says.

Utah certainly fits that bill. But Utah is where Mist starts, not where it will end.

Chef Gavin’s idea is to take Mist across the globe. Told you he thinks big. And follows with meticulous attention to detail.

In Salt Lake, he’s assembled a team, found a location, commissioned custom plates and flatware and flowers. In the coming couple of months, he’ll be perfecting a 15-course, multi-sensory menu, training his kitchen and wait staff, and as he says, “starting with the best ingredients available, then working with them to find the absolute best that both the ingredients and the chef are capable of creating.”

Chef Gavin uses that word “best” a lot. Like if you ask him what he hopes for Mist, he says, “To be the best restaurant in the world.”

Wow.

I’m going to report on the process, step by step, until Mist opens on January 19, 2012. (Its last night is February 19, 2012. Mist’s next appearance will be in San Francisco, next summer.)

And then we’ll see.

You purchase tickets ahead of time here. http://themistproject.com/tickets

There will be one seating per evening and the meal will last 3 ½ to 4 ½ hours. But the (big) idea is that Mist is not just a meal; it’s an experience, an adventure.

As we used to say when I was a kid, a trip.

Read about it here, every Wednesday, and we’ll travel with Chef Gavin together.

Onward, through the Mist.