Eat & Drink

Enjoy Park City’s high life at affordable prices during this year’s “Dine About.” Featuring over 20 restaurants, the cost is just $10 or $15 per person for lunch and $20 or $40 per person for dinner. Each lunch will have two courses and each dinner will have three courses, which can be added to regular menu choices. This is The Park City Area Restaurant Association’s fourth annual “Dine About,” running from Saturday, October 1 to Sunday, October 9.

“No coupons, no punch cards, no strings attached – simply walk in, ask your server for a Dine About menu and enjoy,” PCARA executive director Ginger Ries said. “It’s such a great way for diners to check out new restaurants or revisit old favorites, and an excellent chance for restaurants to recruit a whole host of new fans.”

This year’s locations include Bistro 412, Grappa, Handle, Riverhorse on Main, Sushi Blue, Tupelo and many more. Providing more savings this year, “Dine About” has partnered with Stay Park City to provide special offers on hand-picked accommodations. With a selection varying from mountain cabins to Main Street condos to cozy Park City neighborhoods, visitors can comfortably stay and eat in Park City without breaking the bank.

The Park City Area Restaurant Association is a non-profit organization comprised of over 70 Park City restaurants. Focusing on getting the community to experience local cuisine, the association hosts a number of events throughout the year to celebrate the unique and award-winning dining scene in Park City.

For more information on Park City’s “Dine About,” click here. For more information on Stay Park City, click here.

-Brieanna Olds

Stopped by Stoneground Italian Kitchen last night to check out their Farm-to-Glass cocktail entry and as usual, found a a lot of other stuff going on.

First of all, the entrance from the parking lot, which was always a bit awkward and unlovely, has been restyled into a charming lounge area. Unfortunately, you can’t eat or drink out there—pesky laws!—but it’s a comfortable place to sit and wait for your table in the upstairs restaurant which is increasingly booked up.

The Lavender Buzz, a shake of rum, lavender and lemon served in a stemmed glass, is a delicious drink—a touch of sweetness and fragrance rounding out the rum.

My companion ordered the Kale Caesar, a familiar favorite spiked with bottarga, and I noshed on the braciolo crudo, a gorgeous rose of super-thin Wagyu beef, centered with arugula and drizzled with oil.

We split an order of foccacino, a big bubble of thin bread like a giant pita only better, with pomodoro for dipping. The server brings it on a slate, then pops the bubble and slashes it into strips.

This Italian kitchen, headed by Justin Shifflet, just gets better and better.

Speaking of eats, there will be LOTS at this year’s Cocktail Contest Finale,—Creminelli, cupcakes, crudites—along with 24 different drinks to try. Tickets are only $25.00!!

How soon will it be before all the cool stuff in Park City is owned by out-of-staters??

The beverage world is buzzing about a Bloomberg report yesterday that Pernod-Ricard is among the bidders in an auction for High West, the landmark Park City whiskey distillery, founded in 2009 by Dave Perkins.

Let me say right now that I have nothing new to report: Perkins isn’t talking and when I called Christa Graff, who handles High West’s publicity and marketing, she didn’t have a clue either. Pernod-Ricard is a brand gobbler, one of the top two companies in the wine and spirits industry. Think Chivas-Regal, Absolut, Ballantyne’s, Beefeater, Havana Club, Jameson, Kenwood, Kahlua, the Glenlivet…If you’ve drunk it, they probably own it.

High West, the first legal distillery in Utah since Prohibition, has been wildly successful with its Rendezvous Rye, Rocky Mountain Rye, Bourye and other specialty liquors, however, as at many other “craft distilleries,” High West’s products are based on the usual base from Indiana.

The original distillery/restaurant in the restored livery stable in Park City and the new distillery in Wanship have become beloved Utah icons—it’s sad to think of them becoming part of an international conglomerate…well, details to follow as people start talking.

West

My bad: I went to BTG wine bar last night to try their Farm to Glass Cocktail Contest Entry. Only after a confused encounter with a server did I realize the wine bar wasn’t participating in this year’s contest.

But there was an unexpected upside to this visit to my favorite bar which I will use to deflect embarrassment over my error: Sometime in the last few months, BTG has started offering an expanded menu. In the past, you could order food from Caffe Molise, right next door and also owned by Fred Moessinger, but somehow it was more than you wanted. Now there is a select menu just for BTG including pizza, mac and cheese and other wine-worthy food. We tried the eggplant meatballs in marinara

umami-rich, though somewhat lacking in texture. Maybe they should be fried like arancini? We also ordered focaccia with burrata, a delicious cold mushroom pate with baguette slices and a terrific hummus, smooth and creamy, with a swirl of basil oil.

There’s nothing like good noshes to extend bar time—we swirled and sipped through several flights and blew off cocktails in favor of wine for the evening.