Gateway To Heaven
By: Ted Scheffler From The Salt Lake City Weekly
It's no secret that big budget fancy restaurants get me excited. And although most don’t live up to the initial PR hype, those that do make suffering through meals at the other places worthwhile. But even as much as I enjoy dining in and writing about that type of high profile restaurant, the best thing about my job is the joy of discovering off-the-beaten-path, non-hyped, killer restaurants. The kind of places you’d want to keep to yourself, except that you want them to succeed and so you tell everyone about them. Restaurants like Snake Creek Grill in Heber, West Valley’s Q4U, Brick Oven Pizza in Provo, Wanship’s Spring Chicken Inn and Suzie’s in Coalville. That sort of thing.
In my travels through France, I delight in discovering out-of-the-way cafes and auberges, with typically unassuming names like Café de la Gare or Bistro du Parc. These gems more often than not are family run enterprises, which helps keep quality control high and faddish menu items in check. While they might not be models of efficiency, they also are not places where you want to rush through dinner. Most importantly these restaurants invariably evoke a sincere sense of hospitality. Snobby French restaurants these are not. They are temples, although unpretentious, of good food and the feeling of community that comes from enjoying that good food with friends and family. They are, in the best sense, “family restaurants”-places where three or even four generations can gather at one table to share a meal and to share their lives.
I mention these wonderful family-style restaurants because they are all too rare in this county. When we think of family dining we think mostly about fast food chains and franchises. We think of Chuck-A-Rama and The Training Table when we ought to be thinking of Lugano or Café Madrid. And as I said, many of the great family style restaurants are to be found off the beaten path like in Kamas.
Kamas’ Gateway Grille is one of those wonderful eateries that keeps food writers in the pursuit of hidden treasures. I happened upon Gateway Grille after visiting a buddy in Kamas a couple of years ago and was impressed enough to return. I’m still returning and I’m still impressed. At the same time, I’ve never been able to answer the question, Gateway to what? To Peoa? To Samak? And did it ever occur to you that Samak is Kamas spelled backwards? Or is it the other way around?
At any rate, a mere 10 minutes from Park City but in a world of its own, Gateway Grille is worth going out of your way. Like the aforementioned auberges of France, it’s a warm hodgepodge of decorations that actually work to create a cozy, informal environment. I do think, however, that covering the wooden tables with white table cloths would make the dining room look just a notch spiffier.
But Gateway grille isn’t about décor as much as dining. It’s a “something for everybody” kind of place, where you’ll find local ranchers and farmers sitting next to guys on fishing trips, tourists on ski vacations and even the occasional celebrity. Kids are more than welcome; and at Gateway Grille the little tykes can munch on hot dogs, hamburgers or chicken fingers while mom and dad share a bottle of Chardonnay and a dish of veal saltimbocca ($21.95) or the tangy and divine chicken picatta ($14.95) in a fresh-tasting lemon, butter and caper sauce.
If appetizers like mesquite quail with mixed greens and raspberry vinaigrette ($8.95) or Prudhomme-style blackened sea scallops with remoulade ($6.95) don’t quite fit your idea of Kamas cuisine, well, you can thank Sean Wharton for them. Wharton is the chef and owner of Gateway Grille and he brings his years of experience cooking at Deer Valley Resort with him to Kamas. Wisely, he covers a lot of bases. There are no less than 10 varieties of burgers on the Gateway Grille menu, from veggie to bleu cheese. But you can also enjoy Probencal red snapper, fusilli Puttanesca or heavenly New Zealand baby rack of lamb with rosemary au jus. Again, something for everyone.
I would never pass on one of Wharton’s soups at Gateway Grille, especially his delicious butternut squash soup ($4.95). On my last visit to Gateway, I was seated in a booth next to a couple of teenage girls who enjoyed burgers and fries while studying together for a social studies exam, while I dove into a dinner of pork loin with port sauce and warm apple chutney ($19.95). That’s as it should be, I like democracy in action and to me Gateway Grille seems like a very democratic kind of place. By the way, my pork was cooked perfectly—still slightly pink—and smothered with that heavenly port reduction and chunks of sweet apples, garnished with a tasty vegetable medley of zucchini, carrots, red onion, cauliflower and snow peas. I ate all my veggies.
One of my most memorable meals at Gateway involved duck and a bottle of Pinot Noir. Wines are very reasonably priced there, so why not take advantage? The duck in question is a dish that, unfortunately, doesn’t appear on the regular menu. It does pop up from time to time as a special and when it does, you should take advantage of that as well.“Two-way Duck” sounds sort of sexual, but it's actually duck two ways-duh. Tender Muscovy duck breast is paired with a leg (which Wharton somehow manages to stand on end) and, well, if you’re one of those people who thinks you don’t like duck, you’ve never had Sean Wharton’s Two-way Duck.
Gateway Grille is proof that you don’t have to resort to fast food to keep everyone happy. So for real family-style dining, why not pack up the kids and grandma and head out to Kamas? There’s plenty of parking.
