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Food

Meet the Chef: Rob Clagett

The executive chef at the Flathead Lake Lodge, Rob Clagett’s latest venture is a seasonal restaurant serving up a Spanish tapas-inspired menu

By Mike Kordenbrock
Braised oxtail from Quarter Circle restaurant at Flathead Lake Lodge in Bigfork. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon

In Bigfork this winter, not far from the shores of Flathead Lake, diners can experience a tapas-inspired restaurant where one Flathead Valley chef envisions shared plates providing the foundation for crafting memorable meals best enjoyed in the company of others. 

Quarter Circle, a new seasonal restaurant at the Flathead Lake Lodge, is the latest culinary project of executive chef Rob Clagett, who plans on offering everything from tender braised oxtail with polenta, to salty, savory gilda skewers, meatball-like albondigas, and a blood orange crema take on crème brûlée. 

For Clagett, the range of small plates on the menu, as well as the entrée offerings, dessert options, and wine and cocktail list, allow for diners to script out some truly unique experiences depending on what path they choose to take. 

Intentionality in dining is something that Clagett learned to value during his own professional journey, from more “modest” restaurants to culinary school and the world of haute cuisine. His desire to learn more and more about why things are done the way they are in any given kitchen, and to get beyond “tradition” as a catch-all answer, pushed him toward a formal culinary education at the Culinary Institute of America in New York City.

Growing up in a Navy family as the son of a pilot, Clagett said that the simplest way to explain where he’s from is to say Virginia. Montana, a place that seemed perfectly catered to his love of hiking and fishing, was a fixation for him going back to his younger years. It’s family lore that at the age of 12 or 13 he told his parents he would move there. 

“And then, kind of accidentally, I did it,” Clagett said. 

The move came around 2019. By that time Clagett was beginning to feel like he was reaching his ceiling at Lemaire, a restaurant in Richmond, Va., where Clagett fondly remembers a mix of top-notch hospitality and fun, creative cooking. 

He saw that the Flathead Lake Lodge was hiring an executive chef in the Flathead and applied for the job. That meant a tryout, where he flew to Montana, was picked up from the airport and headed straight to the grocery store before cooking a meal.

Executive Chef Rob Clagett of Quarter Circle restaurant at Flathead Lake Lodge in Bigfork. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon
Serrano croquettes. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon

“I kind of had to make it up on the fly,” Clagett said. “On the fly” for him meant prosciutto-wrapped apple slices seared and served with pimento cheese, pimento croquettes with red pepper jelly, braised short ribs with polenta, roasted broccoli and a jus lié, and a dessert of stewed apples, puff pastry and a French egg-based dessert sauce called sabayon.

That ability to react, adapt, and create in the moment with what he could get his hands on, is a skill that ties into one of Clagett’s favorite tales about the groundbreaking French chef Auguste Escoffier, and how as a cook for the French Army he could create meals for thousands of people with essentially nothing. 

“To me, that might not be the thing that attracts cooks to being a chef, but if it’s not a big point of pride, then you’re missing something,” Clagett said. “Because I think what successful chefs actually are excellent at, is just being able to look at what you have and turning it into something fantastic.”

Quarter Circle is being undertaken alongside Chase Averill and front-of-house manager Loretta Westcott. The restaurant will be open to the public December through March, Wednesday through Saturday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. The dining room will be reservation only, and the bar and lounge space will be available for walk-ins with a limited menu. 

While the Lodge and its amenities are available only to guests for the rest of the year, Clagett is excited to open Quarter Circle up to the community.

“After that, it’s back to the drawing board in terms of what suits or fancies next year,” Clagett said of the menu, adding that it could be “wildly” different on any given year.  

“Sitting down with whoever I’m with, and ordering a bunch of small plates, I think that that’s a really enjoyable way to try someone’s menu and to share with one another,” Clagett said. “So, tapas is a really natural first menu for this concept, so that we can introduce it in that way where I’d like for that type of fun culture to be a part of our community.”

Trumpet mushroom confit, butternut squash risotto, and mushroom bordelaise. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon
Marinated olives. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon

The following interview excerpt has been edited for length and clarity.  

FLATHEAD LIVING: Is there a story behind the name Quarter Circle?

ROB CLAGETT: So, Les Averill, Chase’s grandfather, his brand is that quarter circle. And you know, it ended up feeling right to name the restaurant just given the fact that we’re operating for about a quarter of the year. And something that’s always been important to me is keeping that eye on the seasons. So, having the name kind of forces our minds back to what time of year were operating in. I think any excuse to be mindful of those sorts of things is very positive.

FL: When people are ordering tapas, is there conventional wisdom about the types of things you want to pair together? 

RC: I would say that it certainly depends on the tapas. The way we’ve built the menu, I don’t think there’s a way for you to go wrong. I don’t believe in having a huge, long menu. I think that specialization is the key to any great restaurant. And I think that we’ve built this menu in such a way that it really depends on the type of experience that you are looking for. I would say where your selections really start to matter is with the wine list we’ve put together. If it were me, I’m going to be ordering in a way that’s coursed out, and our staff is going to be very knowledgeable about making suggestions on how to do that. But I think there’s also nothing wrong with not coursing it out.

FL: Is there anything on the dessert end of the menu that jumps out at you?

RC: There’s a cocktail — I just had one with my front-of-house manager, Loretta, the other night and we were kind of blown away. It’s called a barraquito, and it’s just this really delicious kind of dessert cocktail that is sweetened condensed milk, Licor 43, which is kind of a funky, traditional Spanish liqueur, a little bit of coffee and frothed milk, and it’s just a really cool, layered cocktail. And you mix it up and it’s just the most delicious kind of dessert drink that I can think of. It’s fantastic. 

FL: You mention that you read a lot to keep educating yourself as a chef. What are your favorite cookbooks? 

RC: I would say my biggest inspiration, especially for modern chefs, is Francis Mallmann. His book, “Mallman on Fire,” is probably the book that I have gone back to time and time again, more than any other. His style of cooking has influenced me in a huge way. I think he’s terrific, and he also just has really beautiful books, because he is somebody who really loves the aesthetics of cooking from start to finish. Everything in his kitchen while it’s happening looks beautiful, and it looks beautiful hitting the table. I think he’s terrific. The really geeky book that I spend a lot of time with is Harold McGee’s ‘On Food and Cooking.’ That’s maybe the most important book for a chef if you are curious about food at any level, and you want to understand food. Really, it’s the best book that there is. It really breaks down every type — there’s a section on dairy, for example, and it breaks it down from anthropologically, where you understand man’s history dealing with this product as far back as we can trace it. Then it breaks it down from a chemistry standpoint, of what’s actually happening to it. Then I would say, Sandor Ellix Katz’s “The Art of Fermentation” is another one that, especially for home cooks, who want to learn more about preserving, so you’re not always throwing away that produce you forgot about on the back of the shelf. 

Serrano crostini. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon