Vista at Arrowhead offers guests a customizable upscale culinary experience

Vista at Arrowhead combines the best of both worlds: upscale dining brimming with memorable, sophisticated flavor profiles, with your choice of sides and sauces. Here, guests can order signature entrees just as the chef envisions them or they can pick a protein, sauce and side for a customized meal.

Chef Dave Collins pairs signature dishes like yellowfin tuna, seared rare, with wasabi mashed potatoes, stir-fried vegetables and soy ginger butter. But you can also customize any order with a choice of other sauces, different vegetables, and an assortment of potatoes, rice or pasta. Entrees range from seafood and steaks to duck breast, pork chops and a hearty veggie tower that is reminiscent of an exquisite Italian dish surrounded in a light tomato sauce. The braised Rocky Mountain lamb shank is a signature item, so tender you need only a fork. This season Chef Collins is serving it with butternut squash and brussels sprouts with pancetta — but as always, you can customize at will. 

Small plates and salads offer a wide range of options. The charcuterie platter is easy to share, or go for a salad — something demure like the traditional Caesar, or the more decadent burrata, poached pears and prosciutto. Butternut squash agnolotti, rack-of-lamb lollipops, tuna poke, mussels — consider mixing and matching for the table.

Each course, from starters to dessert, is artistically presented, like small sculptures on a plate, showcasing a variety of colors, textures and heights. It’s just one more aspect of creative dining at Vista that arouses all of the senses: Tastebuds tingle with a range of flavors, eyes feast on the snowcapped, rolling hillside and ears delight in Micky Poage’s piano playing. Poage plays anything from The Beatles to jazz standards to Broadway tunes. After entertaining folks for well over 35 years, he is known as Vail’s piano man; so if you want more of a concert experience from 6-9 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, reserve seats early, close to his grand piano — which also happens to be close to the warming fire.

Owner-operator Daryl DeYoung has a solid selection of libations, which really stand out. The extensive wine list has won Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence for many years. Cocktails might include lavender CBD bitters, local spirits, house-made specialties like blood orange limoncello or “tin cups” served in copper mugs with Fever Tree ginger beer. Perhaps try a Sawatch Spritz with house-made limoncello, Aperol, prosecco and orange. But, you’ll want to pace yourself: Dessert cocktails, wines, ports and cordials are mighty tempting, along with the desserts themselves. It might be hard to choose between the crème brulee with a smooth hazelnut flavor, or the homemade cinnamon bun with apple compote and locally made candied brown butter pecan gelato, topped with bourbon sauce. Perhaps opt for the sampler, and share with the whole table. Vista at Arrowhead delivers some of the finest dining in Vail Valley. And, with its flexible menu options (including vegetarian and gluten-free) and a kids’ menu that combines traditional picks with the likes of a petite steak or Atlantic salmon, it works for all sorts of groups. It is the perfect place to revel in a drink, dinner or a special occasion.