Food News: The Peak treats with slope-side steak

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

By Ben Cannon

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-At The Peak restaurant, the Four Season Resort’s slope-side watering hole and eatery in Teton Village, there was early Sunday evening an eclectic but not unpredictable crowd of patrons.

Still in helmets and ski boots, a couple saddled up to the bar, glancing occasionally at the football game playing across large flat screen televisions. A family with young children finished dinner near the gas fireplace.

The Peak, the more casual sister restaurant to the Four Season’s West Bank Grill, reopened recently with a new dinner menu that aims to reinvent a restaurant located on Jackson Hole’s most prime winter realty.

It will continue to offer its upscale hot dogs during the lunch and afternoon ski hours and soon add a chilis and Bloody Marys to the mix. But when dinner starts at 5:30, the broiler should hot enough to sear to beautiful perfection some of the best cuts of beef this carnivorous cattle state has to offer. The Peak has become a steakhouse.

Chef Chris Taylor has been cooking with the resort for more than three years and left his sous chef position at West Bank to help helm the kitchen and its new broiler. 

“You really want a really high heat to give the meat a great caramelization on the outside,” he said, adding that it might be a bit of a faux pas to cook a steak above medium (thought he’ll probably do it anyway if you ask nicely).

The pride of the house could be the 16-ounce Guajillo chili-rubbed bone-in ribeye steak ($38), which came out juicy with a beautifully blackened spicy crust. But that beautiful piece of beef is running neck and neck with the 16-ounce Wyoming corn-fed natural T-bone steak ($32). It was broiled to medium-rare and sang tenderly in the mouth, with perfect syncopations of crispness and the ethereal blessings of marbelized fat.

The T-bone comes from Wyoming’s Wind River Farms, and the burger – topped with blue cheese, cured Utah Tomatoes and caramelized onions ($18) is made from American Wagyu Kobe beef of Boise’s Snake RIver Farms.

Every steak  comes with choice of sauce, from a béarnaise to a citrus Beurre blanc. But the rich, green chimmichurri, a zesty Argentine-style sauce, is  the house specialty. The sauces lend something interesting and unique to the occasion, but the steaks stand up thier own.

Sides are served a la carte and include (get ready): truffle mac and cheese; aged Vermont Cheddar mashed potatoes; a Brussels sprout and blue cheese gratin; and broccoli with a fresh ginger glaze.

For dessert, Taylor recommended either the bread pudding with chocolate chips covered in chocolate and toffee with caramelized macadamia nuts or the Bananas Foster cheesecake. Both were promised lighter than one would expect, and the bread pudding delivered on that claim, making for an airy, delicious dessert almost more like soft, moist cake than a heavy, rich pudding.

The Peak also pours a deep cellar of California Cabernets by the glass.
Drop by after a long day on the hill, or call ahead and make a dinner mission to the Village with thoughts of beef cuts dancing like sugar plums in your head.  
It’s well worth it.
PERMALINK:
Food News: The Peak treats with slope-side steak | Planet JH News Article: Restaurants And Dining

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