Our Favorite Food Features of 2024
From backcountry cooking with Chef Dan Moe to Swift Creek Cafe's Turkish eggs, here are a few entrees, restaurants and local chefs we dished on over the last year
By Beacon Staff
At the Flathead Beacon, we love to eat. We especially love local food and the chefs behind some of our favorite entrees, from the simple, yet perfect, jambon sandwich to the meticulously made pan-seared pheasant. Here are a few highlights from our cupboard of food features in 2024.
___________________________________________________________
A Flathead Valley Chef’s Guide to Gourmet Backcountry Cooking
With years of experience in the kitchen and on the trail, Chef Dan Moe shares how he likes to bring big flavor to some of northwest Montana’s wildest places
During a summer camping trip in northwest Montana’s backcountry, there typically comes a time during the sun’s long descent across the sky when the beauty of the day — or perhaps its brutality —starts to transmute into memory, and filling an empty stomach becomes life’s great priority.
Read the rest of the story here.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Meet the Chef: Jeans Matheros
The executive chef at the Hilton Garden Inn’s Freestone has helmed several restaurants in the Flathead since arriving during the pandemic with his wife, who is originally from here, and their two children
Cast a glance at the Freestone menu in south Kalispell, and you’re likely to catch a glimpse of something a little different for this corner of Montana. Adjoining the Hilton Garden Inn and styled after an upscale trout lodge with timber beams and paintings of fishing scenes, Freestone leans toward being regionally conventional in that sense. And it has its share of surf-and-turf offerings, like beef ribeye, tenderloin, bison strip loin, crabcakes, snapper, and seared scallops.
Read the rest of the story here.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Dish: Uptown Hearth’s Soba Bowl
The Columbia Falls café is serving up more than just coffee and pastries
When asked about the menu at Uptown Hearth, chef Jake Sorensen describes it as “something that’s a little more high-end without it being a white tablecloth type of thing.” Uptown Hearth is a coffee shop, café and coworking space in downtown Columbia Falls. Located in the heart of town, it’s a hub for locals and a favorite spot for tourists to grab a bite to eat on the way to Glacier National Park.
Read the rest of the story here.
___________________________________________________________
For Chef Earl Reynolds, Fall is a Season for Comfort, Creativity and Opportunity
A new job, fatherhood, and a brush with celebrity have made for a big year for Earl Reynolds, and the executive chef at Herb & Omni in Whitefish wants to keep the momentum going
Fall’s arrival in the Flathead Valley can bring a sigh of relief. Summer’s promise of freedom and relaxation always starts off sweet and nourishing, with the days unfurling their legs and letting the light stretch deep into the night. But eventually, when winter finally loosens its grip and all the damp is wrung out of spring, the pace picks up, and summer turns into a sprint. Vacationers arrive. Tourists flock. Commitments pile up. Camping trips beckon. The threat of work never goes away for very long. And all those friends and family, distant acquaintances, second cousins and long-lost best friends from first grade that have spread out far and wide beyond the Flathead suddenly find the time to make their way to this corner of Montana.
Read the rest of the story here.
___________________________________________________________
Meet the Chef: Beth Dix
A conversation with the founder and chef of the Salty Calf about creating dishes that are healthy, fresh and accessible in the Flathead Valley
Beth Dix boils down the ethos of her Kalispell eatery to three words: custom, comfort cuisine. Dix is the founder and chef at the Salty Calf, a grab-and-go style market in downtown Kalispell. In the Salty Calf’s kitchen, Dix and her team focus on preparing high-quality dishes that are both healthy and accessible to everyday families.
Read the rest of the story here.
___________________________________________________________
Dish: Backslope Brewing’s Veggie Burger
At this beloved Columbia Falls brewery, the fresh, seasonal veggie burger is a star on the menu
The veggie burger has, by and large, gotten a bad reputation. In the American burger psyche, veggie burgers are often seen as the frozen patty one pulls out of the back of the freezer for the sole non-carnivore at the cookout. On a menu like Backslope Brewing’s, which is chock-full of fried chicken sandwiches, barbecue pork and marinated flank steak, meat-eaters might see the veggie burger as a bottom-of-the-list choice.
Read the rest of the story here.
___________________________________________________________
Ten Years of Bonsai
As the Whitefish brewery gears up to celebrate a decade of pouring craft beers, its owners looked back on their local roots and the evolution of the Flathead Valley’s brewing industry
On a foggy Wednesday afternoon, Bonsai Brewing Project is a warm respite from the snow-less gloom of early December. A collection of multi-colored Christmas lights and local art plaster the wooden interior, and a few couples tuck themselves away at corner tables to share nachos and craft beers. There’s a familiar hum to the brewery. The bartenders know the patrons. The patrons know one another. Once a startup known to only friends and family, the Whitefish brewery has become a local establishment in the ever-changing resort town.
Read the rest of the story here.
___________________________________________________________
Meet the Chef: Jeremy Grossman
A conversation with the executive chef behind numerous restaurants spanning the Flathead Valley, including Abruzzo Italian Kitchen in Whitefish and Dusty Star Saloon in Kalispell
Jeremy Grossman doesn’t wear chef whites much these days. More often, the chef, who has an extensive history in the Flathead Valley restaurant business, can be found in jeans, a hoodie, and a hat.
Read the rest of the story here.
___________________________________________________________
Dish: Fleur’s Jambon Sandwich
This simple French sandwich is one of Whitefish’s most coveted lunch items
Like a bluebird Big Mountain powder day or a glimpse of a grizzly bear from the car window, Fleur Bake Shop’s Jambon sandwich is a Flathead Valley rarity. The French-style bakery pumps out between 15 and 30 coveted ham and cheese sandwiches per day. The sandwiches hit the pastry case some time around noon, and they can disappear into the hands of hungry customers in just minutes.
Read the rest of the story here.
___________________________________________________________
A Culinary Bridge Between Comfort and Creativity
Whitefish chef Adam Becker’s new restaurant “Beldi” aims to harness high-end culinary arts to create flavorful food that comforts and satisfies
Adam Becker doesn’t subscribe to the idea that food on a plate shouldn’t touch, or mingle, or be mixed together and scooped up in forkfuls that can amount to small celebrations of flavor and texture.
Read the rest of the story here.
___________________________________________________________
In Bigfork, The Sando Co. is Rising to the Occasion
At Bigfork’s newest sandwich shop, it all starts with freshly baked bread
The first loaf of homemade sourdough that Jacob O’Brien pulled out of the oven was almost perfect. The ones that came after? Not so much. But O’Brien, who started with sourdough, didn’t give up, and eventually honed his self-taught baking skills to the point where he and his wife Candace scaled up their bread production and started selling loaves at farmer’s markets in the Flathead Valley.
Read the rest of the story here.
___________________________________________________________
Dish: Swift Creek Café’s Turkish Eggs
At Christian Moreno’s café, a Mediterranean menu favorite is redefining breakfast in Whitefish
Christian Moreno calls Swift Creek Café’s Turkish Eggs a “super simple” dish. To make the plate, the chef layers on homemade hummus, cucumber yogurt, some shredded castelvetrano olives, pickled jalapeño, parsley, a little bit of green onion, flash seared lamb leg, za’atar seasoning, Aleppo pepper, two sunny-side-up eggs, a side of naan and, to top it off, “a lot, a lot of extra virgin olive oil.”