Park City’s best-kept dining secret
The scene: Last week the celebrities and paparazzi descended on Park City for the annual Hollywood extravaganza known as the Sundance Film Festival. Now that they have gone, Park City returns to its normal clientele: skiers, snowboarders, cyclists, hikers and nature lovers. Easily reached from Salt Lake City, the longtime ski town is an increasingly year-round vacation destination, and has been in the limelight a lot lately, with new hotels, a new golf course and most of all, the largest ski resort in the United States, which opened here earlier this winter. There are lots of good reasons to visit Park City, but one of the best-kept secrets among them is the Silver Star Cafe, wildly popular with locals and worth seeking out.
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One reason the restaurant has remained off the tourist radar is its location, in the plaza at the base of Park City ski resort’s Silver Star lift. The lift is one of the less-used lifts at the huge resort, serving mainly homeowners in the development where the slopeside eatery is located. This makes it a great lunch alternative to the resort-owned spots on the mountain, as well as for après happy hour. It adjoins the cross country trail system, and in summer sits right on popular mountain bike paths, as well as the public Park City golf course. Whether they are in Lycra shorts, ski boots or golf shirts, the crowd here is often on their way to or from something fun.
The 50-seat restaurant (plus more outside in summer and sunny winter days, annually winning the town’s “Best Patio” award) has a cozy, alpine mountain feel, with wooden walls and crazily angled ceilings, exposed beams and heavy wooden trestle-style tables. The space is compact and warm. There is live music three nights weekly, and it is an especially alluring choice during any peak holiday time in Park City, such as the upcoming Presidents Day weekend, or during the Sundance Festival, when every spot on Main Street is jammed. But I would go anytime — it was the best of many meals I had in town, at much lower prices.
Reason to visit: Braised slab bacon, pork osso bucco, fried chicken, house burger, all desserts
The food: “American roots cuisine” is what the chef at Silver Star Cafe calls the food here, but it is basically comfort mountain fare using well-chosen flavor combinations and top-notch ingredients to up the wow factor considerably. For instance, the delicious slab bacon appetizer, a standard steakhouse offering, is braised for perfect consistency and uses heritage breed duroc pork. It is tender, rich and succulent. The creative house burger is a ground daily blend of short rib, flank steak and chuck topped with smoked onions and poblano peppers with Jack cheese on a toasted ciabatta bun. When Guy Fieri came here to do an episode of his show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, he featured the signature osso bucco pork shank, using meat from naturally raised purveyor Niman Ranch. Like some of the other standout eateries Great American Bites has visited over the years, Silver Star Cafe proves that springing for the best ingredients really makes a difference.
The osso bucco is excellent and probably the most popular item for first-time visitors, garnished with a zesty fresh tomatillo salsa that perfectly pairs with the meat, and set on a bed of unusual but utterly delicious coconut creamed corn. Regulars are more likely to gravitate to the exceptional fried chicken. A deboned half-bird from Colorado’s all-natural Red Bird Farms is soaked in buttermilk before frying, and the restaurant has a separate fryer that is only used for this dish. The rice flour (gluten-free) breading is very crunchy but exceptionally light, almost like Japanese tempura, and lightly finished with a perfectly matched persimmon-chile glaze. It is served over a bed of “dirty lentils,” a healthier take on traditional Cajun dirty rice, packing in flavor with many of the same ingredients, including chicken livers. I don’t even like lentils and I loved it.
Portions are generous and this food is not light by any stretch of the imagination, but because of the athletic nature of the regular clientele, it is done in a health-conscious fashion. “We take regional comfort food and lighten it up, with no trans fats or high fructose corn syrup, using as much meat as possible that is antibiotic- and hormone-free,” said Jeff Ward, who along with his wife Lisa owns the place. It might be best described as active gourmet cuisine. In this vein, they chose to offer all desserts in “mini” sizes, sold individually or as customizable trios. Sales have spiked ever since, because so many people were skipping dessert due to its size. The sweets here are fabulous, especially their take on the homemade peanut butter cup, using locally renowned chocolatier Ritual’s dark chocolate with sea salt and sunflower seed butter, which tastes just like the peanut version, but without the allergy potential. There is a fantastic oatmeal bacon cookie sandwich with cinnamon cream cheese ice cream and a Canadian-inspired spiced maple and brown sugar cake, among several others.
Lunch is less elaborate but still features dishes made entirely to order, including sandwiches, burgers and pizza. The extensive craft cocktail menu features exclusively local spirits, such as award-winning High West whiskies and Salt Lake’s Beehive gin and Sugar House Distillery vodka. They even have an array of custom house-labeled wines, using California-grown grapes blended and aged in Utah, with proceeds from these going to support a local children’s non-profit. Whether you go for lunch, dinner or après cocktails, it is hard to go wrong here — there’s a feel-good vibe and everything is excellent.
Pilgrimage-worthy?: Yes if you visit Park City, where it surpasses the flashier and better-known eateries in the town center.
Rating: OMG! (Scale: Blah, OK, Mmmm, Yum!, OMG!)
Price: $$ ($ cheap, $$ moderate, $$$ expensive)
Details: 1825 Three Kings Drive, Park City; 435-655-3456; thesilverstarcafe.com
Larry Olmsted has been writing about food and travel for more than 15 years. An avid eater and cook, he has attended cooking classes in Italy, judged a barbecue contest and once dined with Julia Child. Follow him on Twitter, @TravelFoodGuy, and if there's a unique American eatery you think he should visit, send him an email at travel@usatoday.com. Some of the venues reviewed by this column provided complimentary services.