These lesser-known High West restaurants are open with summer flavors

While High West Distillery is best known for its award-winning whiskey and the bustling, year-round Saloon in Old Town Park City, its lesser-known dining experiences offer a more intimate and seasonal approach to food and spirits. 

Now guided by new Executive Chef Jordan Harvey, each dining outlet has shifted toward summer favorites, with flavors and menus that change with the local growing season. They give High West chefs the opportunity to play, trying out new dishes while staying true to the western flavor of the whiskey-centric brand.

Rotating, prix-fixe menus at the Nelson Cottage

A nondescript green home a few doors up from the flagship Saloon, the Nelson Cottage is more of a dinner experience than it is a restaurant. The home-turned-dining room hosts two seatings, 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., five days a week, centered around creative and guided whiskey pairings. The prix-fixe menu changes every two weeks, each iteration crafted by a small but talented kitchen team led by Chef de Cuisine Julia Sorroche.

Sorroche said when it comes to crafting her five-course menus, she’s always looking to infuse seasonal ingredients with her own personal inspirations, which is what makes summertime so fun.

“We get our hands on really cool ingredients, especially around the summer,” she said, joking that abundant, late-season harvests can mean an overwhelm of options. 

When it comes to designing a unique progression for the meal, she often adds flair by experimenting with flavors from her upbringing in Brazil, like an açai barbecue sauce for brisket. She said it also helps to find a throughline with relevant holidays. Like for the meal run during the weeks of Fourth of July, Sorroche had playful renditions of backyard barbecues and sweet corn, deconstructed throughout the dishes. 

Harvey said the Nelson Cottage is one area where they can get extra creative with the use of local farms like Gracie’s Farm, Madsnacks Produce and Gold Creek Farms, but also incorporate small-scale ingredients like hand-foraged stinging nettle.

“Our growing season may be kind of short, but we still want to work with as many people in the community as we can,” he said.

While the food is a standout at the cottage, the goal is for whiskey to be the star of the evening. To complement each course, whiskey ambassadors like Laura Coghlin create custom pairings from High West’s portfolio with access to a deeper library of whiskeys, some bottles that will never be made again, Harvey said. Guests are guided through one-ounce pours — not just to taste, but to experience the nuances in aroma and texture, and how the spirit interacts with food.

“With whiskey or gin, you always want to take at least two sips,” Coghlin explained. “First one is going to be just a small sip. That one, just move it around in your mouth, allow your mouth to acclimate and then swallow it. The second one, now that’s the one where I want you to actually taste it. That’s one where I want you to go: ‘Do I like this? What does it taste like? What does it remind me of?’”

Guests are then encouraged to alternate between bites and sips in a specific sequence: whiskey, whiskey, food, food, whiskey.

“Take a bite. That’s going to allow you to see what the whiskey or gin does for the food, and then have another bite. Clear your palate, you’re going to get the chef’s intention on the food. And then I invite you to have another sip. That’s going to allow you to see what the food does for the whiskey,” she said.

Even the technique of nosing the whiskey is a guided part of the evening. Coghlin demonstrates how to tilt the tulip-shaped glass, letting alcohol vapor dissipate before inhaling with an open mouth — which she compares to opening a window and a door in a house to create airflow. 

Whiskey pairings are totally optional, and guests can choose to sample the whiskeys through a la carte cocktails created seasonally by Mixologist Milana Powers. This season’s run of drinks is “A Toast to Summer & Campfire Dreams,” with six one-of-a-kind drinks that can only be tried at the Nelson Cottage, like a whiskey, apple and pear rendition of a Pisco Sour called the “Jolly Ranger,” or a peanut butter and black currant drink aptly called the “PB & J.” 

From the welcome drink on the patio, to the sun-setting ambiance of the cottage, it’s a High West experience like no other.

Ambitious buffets at the Refectory

About 25 minutes from downtown Park City, High West’s Wanship distillery campus is home to the Refectory — a high-ceilinged dining hall overlooking sage-covered hills, aspens and production stills, creating a more laid-back counterpart to the Nelson Cottage’s structured format.

Here, guests can enjoy à la carte lunches, occasional summer dinners and Sunday brunch, with a buffet line that serves anything from barbecue ribs and cheddar biscuits to smoked salmon and kale salads. 

“That is the only property that under-21 guests are allowed at, so I’ll try to make sure it’s a little more family-friendly,” said Harvey. “We don’t have a kids’ menu or go that far with it, but we do just take a little more consideration into those.”

Chef de Cuisine Cody East oversees the property’s culinary goals, changing the menu with the seasons as well. There are little creative touches, too, like whiskey butter for the biscuits or a cherry glaze for the ribs. East and his team experiment with techniques like pickling and fermenting to also give dishes extra character. 

Sunday Brunch is a regular affair, held weekly from 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. The buffet options seem to satisfy every palate, with meat carving stations, eggs Benedict, chilaquiles, sausage and bacon, as well as pancakes, danishes and yogurt bowls.

Eleven brunch cocktails, many only available at the Refectory, highlight the High West spirits made just across the patio, as well as guest spirits, like Sugarhouse Vodka in their “Bloody Mary.” There’s unusual pairings like the “Slow Train” made with banana, pear and cinnamon, and the “Seven Curses,” a pineapple and sour beer rum-and-whiskey drink topped with mezcal foam. But there’s also classics like their “Dead Man’s Boots,” a High West take on a Moscow Mule, or mimosas and old fashioneds, too.

While lunch is served to order on Wednesday-Saturday from 11 a.m.-3 p.m., dinners in the summer are a special option.

Called the Supper Club or the Summer Series, a one-off buffet dinner will be served on select Friday and Saturday nights in July and August, when the venue isn’t already booked for weddings or other events. These dinners come with a welcome cocktail and feature live music. Similar to buffet dinners during the winter months, these rare summer occurrences take advantage of the beautiful weather.

“What’s nice about the summer dinners is you can sit on the porch,” said Austin Thomas, the lead whiskey ambassador based at the Refectory.

It’s a smaller-scale format of the Sunday brunches, he said, but the live music and the setting sun make the evenings extra special. The cost is $75 for adults and $35 for kids, and right now only two Saturday nights are open for reservations: July 19 and Aug. 9.

Whether at the Nelson Cottage or the Refectory, Harvey said High West’s approach to dining is about creating space for people to slow down.

“I think enjoying good whiskeys and handcrafted products of any kind really comes down to time and place and the company you’re with,” Harvey said. “So we want to have a nice place to host people as well. We don’t want to just put whiskey in front of people and then send them out into the world. We want people to be able to stay and really enjoy the craftsmanship of it all.”

To make dining reservations, visit highwest.com/pages/experience.