Copper Onion celebrated its 10th anniversary on Monday night. Everyone remember when it opened? It was a big deal. The ricotta dumplings, the carbonara, the mussels with black pepper, the mushrooms, the cacio e pepe and the burger…Chef-owner Ryan Lowder was in the kitchen, the dining room was always full but there was still room for you and the popular restaurant struck a comfortable but classy note that hadn’t been sounded in Salt Lake kitchens maybe ever. What goes up must come down and it wasn’t long before sniffy types were complaining about too much salt and fat,
but the main crowds never got that message and the restaurant’s proximity to Broadway Centre Cinemas, operated by the Salt Lake Film Society (not Centre!) ensures that conversation always has some highbrow tone.
Except for that last clause about the highbrow tone, Monday evening was a perfect recreation of Copper Onion’s heady early days and not very far from its heady present days. Everyone was there, reveling in the food, pleased to greet Ryan at the stove and Clint in an apron, and to remember the good old days when politics weren’t so painful.
Now we just have one question: What about Plum Alley, Ryan? Or the walkup window? Huh?
Oh, and congratulations. 
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