Savoring the Wyld with Earth to Table dinners at the Ritz Carlton Bachelor Gulch

What’s better than creating dishes with the bountiful produce from area farms this time of year? Having a talented chef and his staff come up with the best ways to showcase the harvest. Jasper Schneider, executive chef at the Ritz Carlton Bachelor Gulch and his team are hosting weekly Earth to Table dinners at Wyld and invite you to experience the flavors every Wednesday.

The Earth to Table Dinners have been a part of Wyld’s summer program for the past four years. The dinners were scheduled to start in August to wait for the produce to ripen and be ready to serve to diners.

“This year, things started a little bit later because it was colder and there was some frost, so it wasn’t until late July and early August that we started seeing corn, peaches, tomatoes, peppers and zucchinis,” Schneider said. “Later in October we’ll start to see all the winter squash, butternut squash, celery root, parsnips, sunchokes and all that, so we are looking forward to hosting these dinners all the way until the end of October.”  

Schneider said each week is like a blank canvas, allowing him and his team to get creative with the menu and flavor profiles based on what produce comes in and what inspires them.

“We give the cooks the night off on these Earth to Table nights, so it’s just me and my executive sous chef, chef de cuisine, my other restaurant chef, my pastry chef and we all get together and create the menu,” Schneider said. “This is our night to have fun and experiment and see what flavor profiles we like and go from there. We could even come up with something that spurs an idea for the winter menu.”

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One week it will be American style with plenty of barbecue dishes, or the next theme will be Mexican. Asian spices influenced the menu on Sept. 7 and that evening the chef and his crew were already thinking about what they’d do next.

“As we were sitting here tonight, we came up with the Israeli flavored menu for next week. We’ll even pull out the grill and have an action station outside and cook in front of you while we are actually serving you dinner, so I’m really looking forward to that,” Schneider said.

Each week about 50 to 60 people come to try out the new menu. Some came back week after week because the menu is never the same twice. The dinner is served family-style at big community tables, allowing new connections to be made over a great meal.

The Asian-themed dinner started with a few vegetable dishes such as heirloom tomatoes in a kimchi broth and cilantro. The conversation dish at the table was the corn chawanmushi. Chawanmushi is an egg custard dish in Japanese cuisine. Duck bao buns were also added to the table, but you only ate one because the entrees were next.

“Moving into the main course is where we’ll have steamed halibut with a nori vinaigrette because it’s Alaskan halibut season. Then we’re doing kalbi style steak, which is a Korean marinade so what we’ve done is marinade the steak in Asian pear, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, sesame oil, a little bit of orange juice. Lastly, we are doing a dry pepper chicken.”

Sides included roasted eggplant with gochujang sauce, green beans with a ginger miso sauce, and then rice with squash and chestnuts. It’s all so good, but you must save room for dessert.

“My pastry chef always comes up with the craziest desserts. We used to have a matcha traditional Japanese crepe at our Sakaba sushi restaurant, so she did a twist on that. She has made black sesame crepes with peach in between each layer and then she’s done an apple and miso tart and apple and miso ice cream,” Schneider said.

“These dinners are so whimsical and playful and what a great way to showcase the fresh produce,” Schneider said. “It’s a great time. It’s a different experience for people to see what we can create at Wyld.”