K Van Petten
Google
Walking into the restaurant felt like stepping back into a memory—one that hadn’t faded with time, but had only deepened. We were celebrating a birthday, and the atmosphere set the tone: nestled in a tiny Aspen grove, with twinkling lights overhead and the sun setting over the mountains. It felt like a secret moment suspended in time.
We started with their signature beet bread, warm and tender, served with a salted butter so good it stopped conversation. A barrel-aged Manhattan rounded it out—smooth, balanced, and just the right kind of celebratory.
Our server was not only warm and attentive, but deeply knowledgeable. He’d personally tried every wine on the list and had even visited many of the vineyards. He recommended the most perfect wine pairing—an incredible bottle from Oregon that matched the meal in both flavor and feeling.
I ordered the elk—just as I remembered it from nearly fifteen years ago. And remarkably, it was exactly the same. The kind of dish that imprints itself on you, so tender and perfectly prepared that it feels less like a meal and more like a homecoming.
To start, I had the asparagus mushroom salad—earthy hazel trumpet mushrooms and asparagus cooked with care, kissed with parsley and citrus zest. Delicate, simple, but vibrant. Then came the massaman curry: fall-apart tender, with a sauce so rich and layered it demanded silence between bites. The blackberry elk was the star, of course—sweet and tender, luxurious and wild all at once. The wine brought it all together like a chord resolving.
Though we insisted we were too full for dessert, the staff quietly brought out a warm brownie with a candle—rich, gooey, and full of warmth, just like the service. Classy, thoughtful, never overbearing. The kind of attentiveness that feels like care, not performance.
There’s something extraordinary about returning to a restaurant decades later and finding not just consistency, but evolution. In 35 years of service, they’ve kept their soul and their standard. A life-changing culinary experience, once again.