New Vail restaurant, Flame, sizzles

Editor’s note: The Vail Daily doesn’t write straight restaurant reviews, but instead, we run restaurant features. We cannot guarantee you’ll have the same experience we did.

It’s called Flame for good reason. The centerpiece of the kitchen at the Four Season’s restaurant is an 1,800-degree infrared boiler. That tidbit likely won’t mean anything to you until you bite into the dry-aged bison ribyeye, which has a succulent crust thanks to that “flame.”

“It puts an amazing char on the outside, keeping the inside moist and juicy,” said the Four Season’s Executive Chef Jason Harrison.

Add a smudge of black-pepper relish, one of six sauces Harrison and his crew make in-house, (there’s also red-wine sauce, chimichurri, maitre d’hotel butter, horseradish cream and a sinful bearnaise), and it’s hard not to sigh out loud.

The grill is used to cook everything from lamb and veal chops to the monster 32-ounce bone-in Wagyu ribeye (meant to be shared) at the restaurant, a sleek, contemporary mountain steakhouse. The restaurant opened in December and serves breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week.

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Harrison, who previously worked at the Bellagio in Las Vegas for six years, said he had his eye on Vail for quite a while and when he heard a Four Seasons was opening here, he picked up the phone.

“I started calling everybody and everyone I knew who had worked for the Four Seasons, chasing after them and doing everything I could because normally they don’t hire people from outside the company for this job,” he said. “I had to go above and beyond to get them to look at me.”

Harrison’s persistence paid off. He interviewed with Hans Willimann, the resort’s general manager, last Easter and then flew to L.A. to whip up a 10-course tasting menu for a few managers before he was offered the job, which he calls “a perfect fit.”

“I love it. It’s fantastic. I spent seven years in the Canadian Rockies before and fell in love with the lifestyle,” said Harrison, who is Canadian and attended culinary school at Algonquin College in Ottawa, Canada.

Flame is the latest restaurant around town to design its menu based on Colorado-grown products. Much of the meat and seafood offerings, as well as the vegetables (which are mostly organic), are sourced from within 150 miles of the kitchen. The beef comes from Durango and the black bass from north of Denver, Harrison said.

Willimann and Harrison worked together to come up with the menu. And while the standard menu will change roughly six times a year, Harrison and his crew comes up with a new chef’s tasting menu each week, which keeps life fun and exciting.

“It was a fun, creative process,” Harrison said about developing the menu. “It involved looking at what quality items the valley was missing and what items we thought would make people get that warm feeling of home coming to our hotel.”

For Harrison, it’s the giant, 14-ounce prime short rib that gives him the warm fuzzies. He marinates the meat overnight in red wine before braising for at least eight hours.

“I always crave braised, slow-cooked meats in the winter,” said Harrison, who said as the weather gets warmer, the menu will include lighter fare.

But for now, lighter fare be damned. The fork-tender rib is served with a savory and uber-rich Gorgonzola bread pudding and buttery French green beans. You’d be remiss not to take Manager Steven Teaver’s spot-on advice and sip on a glass of the oh-so-sexy 2003 Chateau Dasvin-Bel-Air, Haut-Medoc Bordeaux alongside.

Other standouts on the menu include the Kobe beef tartare, which tastes incredibly fresh and is lovely when spread atop the crunchy hearth bread served alongside; likewise, the butternut squash bisque teases your mouth with contrasting textures. The coconut-infused, Thai-influenced soup is rife with hunks of butter-poached lobster and topped with crunchy, candied walnuts.

If you can squeeze another bite into your belly, try the mascarpone cheesecake, which is topped with a roasted pineapple compote. When served with another of Teaver’s inspired pairings, the Inniskillin Vidal Gold icewine, it is divine.

High Life Editor Caramie Schnell can be reached at 748-2984 or cschnell@vaildaily.com.