A limited-time culinary collaboration is set to bring a Michelin-recognized beer and sushi experience to Park City next week.
The Goldener Hirsch, Auberge Collection is partnering with Chicago- and New York City-based Moody Tongue Brewing Company with sushi-and-beer paired tastings for a seasonal residency inside the hotel’s Wintergarten Alpenglobes.
The residency will run on select dates from March 15 through 29, offering guests a 13-course omakase tasting served inside the globes — heated, transparent domes designed for intimate winter dining. Each globe accommodates up to eight guests, with two nightly seatings scheduled at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. The prix-fixe menu is priced at $235 per person, with an optional curated beer pairing for an additional $110.
The visiting concept comes from Moody Tongue, a growing restaurant group known for its chef-driven, Michelin-starred brewing and dining program. The Park City residency will be led by Executive Chef Hiromi Iwakiri, whose more than two-decade career spans Japan and New York’s Michelin-recognized restaurant scene. He will travel to Utah with a few other chefs from the group’s New York sushi operation.
According to Goldener Hirsch Director of Food and Beverage Pierce Everett, the collaboration grew partly out of coincidence. Everett said while planning a trip to Chicago last spring, he had researched the restaurant but never visited — “but then, lo and behold, they reached out to us a few months after that,” he said.
Because of Moody Tongue’s focus on beer, Everett said the partnership felt like a good fit for the Austrian-inspired Deer Valley property, whose culinary identity has long embraced Alpine culture.
“Austrian, Bavarian very much leans heavily into the culture of beer,” Everett said. “And so we thought, well, that will be a great bridge between who they are and who we are.”
Co-founder Jared Rouben — a classically trained chef who oversees the company’s culinary, brewing and service operations — said his career has centered on bringing beer into fine-dining spaces traditionally dominated by wine.
“Starting from culinary school, I have always had this vision to bring beer and food a little bit closer together,” Rouben said, recalling that in the early 2000s beer rarely appeared on upscale menus. “And yet I saw so many different flavors and aromatics being represented in beers from all over the world.”
On a mission to change that, Rouben eventually pursued formal brewing studies in Chicago and Germany before launching Moody Tongue, centered around “chef-driven” brews.
“Moody Tongue just means someone with a discerning palate, someone who cares about what they consume,” the chef said. “Our style of brewing is culinary brewing, which is just taking a chef’s mindset to highlight flavors and aromatics and (create) balanced beer.”
The company first opened as a small tasting room serving oysters and a 12-layer German chocolate cake, later expanding into a full restaurant in 2018. Its flagship dining room earned a Michelin star in its first year and has retained the distinction annually since.
A few years later, the group opened Moody Tongue Sushi in New York’s West Village, where Rouben said the nature of sushi worked well with his beer.
“Pairing with sushi, you have to be very delicate. With fine dining, you have sauces — they’re fried, they’re sauteed, they’re grilled. With sushi, it’s very minimalist, which is just like beer,” he said. “Beer is, like, four ingredients, right? Malted barley, hops, yeast, water.”
It’s the Moody Tongue sushi concept, led by highly trained sushi chefs, that best works for these traveling residencies. But also, the chef said, it’s perfect for après.
“What I love about a ski town is coming off the slopes and having a beer, right? There’s nothing new about that, especially an establishment with such Austrian roots,” Rouben said. “The other thing that’s really nice after getting off the slopes and having a cold beer (is) to have something really light to enjoy. And I think that’s where sushi comes in.”
For the two weeks at the Goldener Hirsch, Rouben said they’re bringing some favorite pairings, like a Hokkaido scallop served with caviar matched with their Toasted Rice Lager, designed to echo the light, sweet-and-salty experience of a Champagne and caviar pairing.
Another course features madai with orange zest and sea salt paired with an Orange Blossom Belgian Blonde ale, and for the “carnivores,” a torched A-5 Miyazaki wagyu hand roll is paired with the Caramelized Chocolate Churro Porter, a sweetness that brings out the meat’s own caramelized flavors.
Rouben said his definition of a great beer mirrors his culinary approach: something balanced enough to enjoy more than once.
“We have the luxury of being the creator of beer and food, and so there’s a way we can communicate that really helps us out,” he said. “Instead of buying something in and trying to work backward, we talked from the very beginning: ‘Hey, these are the flavor profiles I’m looking to showcase.’”
While the omakase experience serves as the centerpiece, Everett said they’ve bought Moody Tongue beers for beer lovers to sample. A standalone guided tasting will be offered 5 to 6 p.m. Mondays and Fridays for $70 per person, which will come with a flight of selections such as the Toasted Rice Lager, Aperitif Pilsner, Orange Blossom Belgian Blonde, Juiced Lychee IPA and Caramelized Chocolate Churro Porter.
Everett said inviting Moody Tongue to the hotel reflects his dreams for the Goldener Hirsch.
“My goal is for Goldener Hirsch to be a food and beverage experiential destination,” he said. “So, while the restaurant is amazing … that’s why we collaborate and want to collaborate more with people, maybe outside of what we would normally do.”
Fish for the omakase will be flown in from Japan to maintain authenticity, while the Goldener Hirsch team is also exploring ways to incorporate local purveyors and ingredients where possible.
“It’s just such a treat for us as a service team, for our culinary team, to have world-renowned people come in and cook alongside them,” he said.
Rouben, who will be coming to Park City for the start of the residency, said he’s excited for what the future may bring.
“This is the beginning of our relationship. I think when you’re sharing your beer with a new community, it all starts with a distributor, someone who can take the beer in and then share it appropriately,” he said. “We’ve got a great home in the property. So this is just the beginning, and this is kind of the introduction.”
Following these two weeks in March, Everett said the Moody Tongue team will return in December for another two-week run. As for having the beers more regularly at the hotel, guests will have to wait and see.
To make a reservation, visit tinyurl.com/34uahjbf.