From Dishwasher in Whitefish to James Beard Nominee on the National Stage: Chef Earl James Reynolds

What does it take to go from washing dishes at 16 to becoming a James Beard Award finalist in the Montana mountains? In this episode of Side Tracks, Daily Inter Lake reporter Taylor Inman sits down with Chef Earl Reynolds inside his downtown Whitefish restaurant, Herb & Omni for a hands-on conversation over a churro dessert you'll have to watch them eat.

Earl is a Whitefish native, avid snowboarder, and proud dad. He opens up about the winding culinary road that took him from a scrappy Pescado Blanco prep kitchen to culinary school in Seattle, fishing vessels in Southeast Alaska, a mountain restaurant in Truckee, a San Francisco hotel kitchen, and finally back home to the Flathead Valley. Earl shares what it was like to compete on Beat Bobby Flay, the gut-punch of missing his first James Beard nomination, the life-changing moment he found out he made the list for a second time while on vacation in Mexico, and why being celebrated by a restaurant full of strangers in Puerto Vallarta finally made it feel real.

Along the way, Earl gets real about seasonality in a state with hard winters, why he sources from local mushroom growers and Idaho farms, what cooking for his daughter Matilda has done for his creativity, and the advice he'd give to anyone thinking about a life in the kitchen: the passion has to be there, you can't fake it.

Watch this full episode on our YouTube channel! Read Taylor's article on dailyinterlake.com

This episode is proudly sponsored by Heritage Knife Shop. A speakeasy-inspired knife boutique located in downtown Whitefish, built for people who appreciate true craftsmanship. From culinary knives to hunting and everyday carry blades, every piece is thoughtfully selected with purpose and style. They also teamed up with Chef Earl Reynolds and bladesmith Corey Dunlap to create “The Earl,” a limited-edition knife crafted with the same intention and artistry Earl brings to the kitchen. Learn more at heritageknifeshop.com

Northwest Montana deserves strong news reporting. Your donation helps continue work like this possible. Learn more at dailyinterlake.com/support

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hey Taylor Edman here with the Daily Interlake. We're heading into Urban Ami here in downtown Whitefish this morning to have a chat with Chef Earl Reynolds. He's gonna make us a dessert this morning. We don't know what, so we're pretty pumped to find out. Earl's a James Beer nominated chef. He's a hometown boy, born and raised here in Whitefish. An avid snowboarder, a family man. Uh, he actually won the Pines game a couple weekends ago, too, so we have a lot to talk about today. Both Earl and Urban Ami are dedicated to showcasing our region's local ingredients in these really fun, creative ways. So I'm excited to learn more. Let's go!

SPEAKER_04 0:48

I usually just pretend like I was eight years old and ask eight-year-old Earl what he thinks would be delicious on a dessert. Oh, it's hot. Why is it hot?

SPEAKER_03 0:58

Who knows?

SPEAKER_04 1:02

Like I often get asked, like, what's your favorite thing to cook? And um my favorite thing to cook is is dinner for my daughter and my wife. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

Hey Earl!

SPEAKER_04 1:16

Hello, welcome. Good to see you again. So, what are we making? So, today we're gonna make our churro dessert. Um, I love it because I just A, love churros. Uh, I love burnt bananas, and we have a really cool horchata ice cream that we use uh wild rice that's coming from Idaho to give it another dimension of flavor.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Oh, that sounds so great. Yeah. The ice cream sounds awesome. Alright, well, what's the first step?

SPEAKER_04 1:44

So, first step is to make our churro dough. Um, it is just like uh padashew dough, uh which is fun to say. Do you want to say it?

SPEAKER_03 1:53

Padaschut dough.

SPEAKER_04 1:54

Padashoo.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

When it comes to desserts here at Urban Omni, like what's your your ethos behind coming up with a dessert? Yeah, so um I personally love making desserts.

SPEAKER_04 2:05

Um I'm not a pastry chef, but when I'm uh in the creative process of making a dessert, I usually just pretend like I was eight years old and ask eight-year-old Earl what he thinks would be delicious on a dessert.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

So, like, what do you want with churros? Ice cream. What else would you like with churros? Chocolate. Let's load it up. I like to keep it whimsical, and it's usually the last plate that the guest um gets to have. So for me, it's a great opportunity to um give them something that sticks with them and gives them uh something to think about for the next couple days.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:44

I like to keep it whimsical.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

I can totally tell. There's like little jars of like candy around here, some gummy, gummy bearing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:51

We in this kitchen we eat an incredible amount of candy. It's a good thing we have dental insurance through the restaurant. So we're just gonna melt this down, and once the butter is all melted, we're gonna add our flour and start stirring until the dough is starting to clean the edges of the pot, and that's the sign that we're gonna be looking for to know that our patachou dough is ready to rip.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

In terms of like the rest of the menu here at Urban Omni, um what inspires you with that?

SPEAKER_04 3:20

I pull a lot of inspiration from nostalgic memories from my childhood. Um I'm often inspired by cookbooks. Um stepping into the kitchen with other chefs can be really inspiring for me. I'm definitely like a pack animal, and when I get to start talking about food with other chefs, I get really excited and it kind of ignites this creative uh spark within me. So at this point, we're gonna add our flour.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

Is there anything tricky about churros compared to like any other kind of dough?

SPEAKER_04 3:56

If you add the flour too slowly, the dough ends up too wet. So you gotta add all the flour at once and just um stir like heck. And then when you add them to the fryer, it's really important to agitate them and roll them a little bit because if they just cook on one side, the side that is uh sticking out of the oil will split. So it's really important to kind of get them moving and swimming around in the oil right away. Now we're just gonna stir, stir. Eventually we're gonna start cleaning the sides of our pot.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

Oh, okay, it comes together kind of fast.

SPEAKER_04 4:28

Yeah, it really does. So a couple things have to happen now. Uh now that the dough is is cooked enough, we've cooked enough of the moisture out to where we're gonna add it to our mixer, and then we're gonna start paddling it until the steam stops rolling off of it, and at which point we'll add our eggs to finish off the dough. So we're gonna hop right over here. So our steam has slowed down. Um, so we're just gonna add one egg at a time with a few seconds in between each addition.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Why is it important to do it just a little at a time?

SPEAKER_04 5:17

So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

That's just what you're supposed to do.

SPEAKER_04 5:23

Yeah, that was just the on the recipe that Mickey Mouse gave me. At this point, I'm just gonna scrape the dough off the sides of the bowl so it can all continue to incorporate evenly.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

You're talking about cooking with the seasons. What is in season in the wintertime in Montana? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:41

That's a great question. So uh obviously we don't get to grow things outside in the wintertime here. So we try to do as much preservation as we can in the in the summer. Um, you know, making kimchi and sauerkraut and dehydrating, um, making sorbet bases out of beautiful strawberries when the strawberries are are uh firing, and um that way we have little whispers of summer to carry us through the winter. Also, for me, seasonality uh isn't just ingredients but kind of energy or the vibe of a dish. I like to braise meats in the wintertime and and offer a little bit more comforting, like roasted, warming, spiced food that just makes your soul feel like you're sitting in front of a nice warm fire with a big wool blanket. Putting the dough in a piping bag, um don't forget to put the star tip in before you put the dough in because it's hard to undo. I've never done that. Maybe once.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

So kind of moving into spring here. What are you looking forward to cooking in the spring? Switch up some flavors.

SPEAKER_04 6:59

I'm I'm just looking forward to cooking with locally grown produce and lots of green, lots of green herbs, and I'm just excited to switch the energy of the food to light, bright, playful. I couldn't name a specific one that I'm not excited about. Get as much of the air out as we can. True dough complete. Go check on our fryer temp and get her going. Oh, perfect! We're ready to fry. Sometimes you get to splash a little hot oil onto the insides of your arms, which just reminds you that you're alive.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

Yeah. Like I said, you get to.

SPEAKER_04 7:48

You get to a privilege. It is. We're just gonna slowly let them swim around so they can fry nice and evenly. The dough is getting those little blisters. Blister dough. There's really nothing better. The only way to really know if if they're done is to just crack one open. Oh, it's hot. Why is it hot?

SPEAKER_03 8:13

Who knows?

SPEAKER_04 8:15

Just a couple more seconds and we're there. Dose them with the cinnamon and the sugar. Boom.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Ah, that smells so good.

SPEAKER_04 8:28

For me, I always love the combination of chocolate and banana. So a lot of times the desserts I make in the winter time involve that flavor combo.

SPEAKER_03 8:43

Oh, you can't beat it. So, what are we doing with the bananas here?

SPEAKER_04 8:46

We are going to brulee them. So we're just giving them a little dusting of sugar, and then we're gonna torch the daylights out of them. We've actually never burnt anything here at Urban Omni. We've only over-caramelized. Now we're going to find the plate. So a nice little puddle of mescal ganache at the base of the dessert. And then we're gonna have some puffed rice to rest the ice cream on.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

Plating is such an interesting part to me. Is there like a rhyme or reason behind it or is it just till it looks?

SPEAKER_04 9:25

You know, I think there's always a rhyme and reason to it. Usually it takes a few times plating it before I find an arrangement that I'm excited about. So I always plate things as if I were the guest, and um six o'clock always points towards my belly button, so it always needs to point towards the guest's belly button too. Horchata ice cream. Also made with the Idaho black rice.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

That looks so good.

SPEAKER_04 10:00

And a nice crispy little rice tweel.

SPEAKER_03 10:02

Should we head upstairs and dig in?

SPEAKER_04 10:04

Sure, let's do it.

SPEAKER_03 10:05

Alright, Earl, thank you so much. I'm so excited to dig into this. Um, is it proper to go in with a spoon or a fork?

SPEAKER_04 10:11

So we have a spoon, a fork, a knife, and I think you'll need one of those tools at some point. So there's no wrong way to do it.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

Alright, let's dig in.

SPEAKER_04 10:20

Alright. That crunch.

SPEAKER_03 10:24

Yeah. Oh, this ice cream looks amazing. Wow. That's chocolate. Like, nothing's really coming through.

SPEAKER_04 10:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

Adding something in a really cool lamp.

SPEAKER_04 10:46

It's nice to have little surprises that you kind of work your way towards when you eat a dish at a restaurant, I feel like.

SPEAKER_03 10:52

Yeah, there's a lot of textures at play here.

SPEAKER_04 10:54

Mm-hmm. That's kind of um one of my favorite parts about being a chef is the medium that is food is not only visual, it's you can smell it, taste it, and and feel it. So texture is a really fun thing for me to play with when I get to create a dish.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

Yeah, you're really engaging all five senses, you know. Let me get a little bite of this rice cracker here.

SPEAKER_04 11:22

Yeah, it stays crunchy even though it's swimming in ice cream.

SPEAKER_03 11:25

Yeah, it is. It's really holding its own.

SPEAKER_04 11:27

I wish I was swimming in ice cream.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

So I want to go all the way back to the beginning.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

With you. Um, how did you get into cooking?

SPEAKER_04 11:36

So I I got into cooking by washing dishes just as a summer job at the Whitefish Lake Golf Course restaurant here in town. And I just saw the chefs cooking, playing with fire, sharpening their knives, and to me it just looked like a pirate ship. And it was interesting to me, so I just kept washing dishes and um eventually started peeling potatoes and taking baby steps towards cooking. Ended up taking a prep cook job at restaurant Pescado Blanco, and it was there where I really started enjoying cooking things from scratch and the pace of the kitchen, the tickets. Uh I was learning a ton every day. And at the time I wanted to be an oil painter. My uncle is an artist and I always loved art, was taking oil painting classes at the local college here, and then there was this day where I was plating a bison enchilada with ancho mole, crema, and toasted sesame seeds and uh cilantro, and I put it all on the plate and I was just like, dang, this is art. I realized that cuisine is just an art form that has no limits.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

Yeah. Yeah. How old were you when you started the dishwasher job?

SPEAKER_04 12:54

I was 16.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

So doing line cook stuff by 18. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 13:00

Yeah. Yeah, cooking on the line at 18, and um I have so many great memories from the kitchen at Pescado Blanco. I um we did a bananas foster dessert, which might be a reason why bananas keep subconsciously keep coming on to these desserts in the wintertime. We would flambé the bananas with rum, and uh one time I caught a bottle of rum on fire and it turned into a rocket. Oh. It was exciting. Um but uh a very good teaching opportunity for my chef and a learning opportunity for me.

SPEAKER_03 13:40

The teaching opportunity was don't do that.

SPEAKER_04 13:43

Well, the key is to remove the the hot pan from the flame when you add the flammable liquor and then reintroduce it to the flame when you have control of the bottle and the fire.

SPEAKER_03 13:58

Oh my gosh, that definitely harkens back to that pirate ship thing you said earlier. It's like seems like a ruckus, which I mean, kitchens are always like that. Kitchens are a super fun place to be.

SPEAKER_04 14:07

There's no shortage of excitement.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

Oh, definitely not. And also fun people.

SPEAKER_04 14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:12

I do feel like the work attracts fun people.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

So you're going to culinary school in Seattle. What is that time in your life like?

SPEAKER_04 14:21

It was super exciting. I was obviously thrilled to be in the city. Uh coming from a small landlock, landlocked town. Um I was just so excited about the energy, the buzz, the restaurants, the pike place market, the farmers, the fishermen, the cheesemongers. It was just so colorful and so vibrant and so electric. And I was just happy to be there. I got a job as an intern at a restaurant called Canless, which is one of Seattle's flagship restaurants. It's Seattle's oldest restaurant, and uh I got to work for Chef Jason Franey there for about two years and while going to school. So I was learning things at work, learning things at school, and getting to just put it all together. It was a very exciting time for me to just download technique.

SPEAKER_03 15:18

What were some other lessons that you took from I mean, college or working in the restaurant at that time?

SPEAKER_04 15:24

I'm not sure I was learning too many lessons for better or worse.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:29

I was just redlining in fifth gear and and going.

SPEAKER_03 15:33

So after Seattle, oh, how long did you live in Seattle?

SPEAKER_04 15:36

I lived in Seattle for a total of six years. In that six years, I spent two summers cooking and working on a uh a fishing vessel in southeast Alaska.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Oh, fun! Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:48

Again, like being from a landlocked state and being out in the middle of the ocean, um, you know, catching steelhead, the most beautiful salmon I've ever seen, setting uh shrimp pots and pulling spot prawns out of the ocean. It was there's almost no words for it. I was just in it and absorbing it, and um it was really hard work and and uh at times kind of dangerous.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

Where do you go after Seattle?

SPEAKER_04 16:17

After Seattle, I basically flipped a coin between moving to Maui or North Lake Tahoe. Um I had some friends in both places, and I was just wanting to kind of change up the landscape. So I ended up moving to Truckee, California, and it was there I discovered a restaurant called Troquet and worked for a chef named John Weatherson for a number of years. Beautiful restaurant, beautiful cuisine. The chef there was a computer programmer turned chef. So he was brilliant and had an annoyingly good memory. Um, but I I got to work through all the stations there, um including pastry, and I got to learn a lot of technique there and um being nestled right into the mountains. I got to, you know, ski alpine meadows before work, which was sick, and then just go back to absorbing technique every night. We worked hard and and uh we partied hard too. It was just a nut like electric.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

That's awesome. So you hang out in California for a minute. When do you come back to the flathead?

SPEAKER_04 17:24

After Truckee, I went to San Francisco to be a sous chef at a restaurant called Villain, the San Francisco Proper Hotel. We opened that restaurant. Uh Chef Jason Frany, uh, who I had worked for at Canlis, was uh the executive chef of that project. So he brought me uh brought me on as a sous chef there, and that was really cool because I got to be there for the ground level of everything in what went into opening the restaurant, you know, picking out the plates and the silverware and being involved in that whole process as we watched the kitchen be does be built was really cool. But eventually I got burnt out just from uh working too much, and the city was just harsh, especially in that neighborhood. Uh, it just started to wear on me and uh I knew I needed to return home. Serendipitously, the Belton Chalet in West Glacier happened to be looking for an executive chef. Okay. So I applied for that job, put everything in my Jeep that I could fit, um, put everything else out on the street. Everything that I put out on the street was gone in a matter of hours, and um I left later that night and started started my journey back through a heavy snowstorm in February 2017.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 18:44

Yeah, but yeah, ended up cooking a tasting for the ownership at the Belton Chalet. I did five courses and didn't hear back from them for four or five weeks. I ended up getting the job and um got to cook there at the gateway to Glacier National Park for two summers before COVID hit.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Oh, cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:05

Such a cool uh energy out there. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:09

It has like a summer camp energy to me at least. Like so many seasonal workers and everyone's working hard and everyone's doing their thing outdoors. It was cool. It was a great experience. It was a really tough kitchen to work in. I went from a brand new kitchen with combi ovens and sous-beed machines and and all these different fancy shiny toys to like a lean two with no ventilation in that oven that was an old water heater.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

Oh okay.

SPEAKER_04 19:39

Yeah, it was a really uh really unique kitchen. Um we cooked some rad food in there, and even looking back, I'm like, whoa, young girl was throwing down still. Um, and I got to work with one of my best friends, Sam Bassett. He was my sous-chef, and we had a lot of fun together and and to this day have um a really amazing chemistry when it comes to cooking together.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

Well, sounds rustic at the Belton.

SPEAKER_04 20:03

Yeah, it was rustic, rustic for sure.

SPEAKER_03 20:05

When you're talking about coming back and the snowstorm and like just kind of being done with the city.

SPEAKER_04 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

How did it feel just to come back home?

SPEAKER_04 20:13

It felt so good. I felt this giant lift. Um, I knew it was the right thing on paper before I left. Um, but as soon as I got into the mountains in uh in Idaho, I could only see about 10 feet in front of my Jeep, and I wasn't worried about a thing. I just felt good. I felt like a big weight had been pulled off of my head.

SPEAKER_03 20:41

Yeah. And then come back and hang out at the Belton for a while again, like a restaurant that's so established here. It's a very, you know, hometown thing.

SPEAKER_04 20:50

It was a really cool venue for my first executive chef job.

SPEAKER_03 20:54

Was the dream always to be an executive chef?

SPEAKER_04 20:56

I'd I'd say so. Once I started pursuing culinary school, I was dreaming big from the get-go. I knew I wanted to be an executive chef. I knew I wanted to, you know, have experiences on TV and the Food Network and all of that has always been really interesting to me, and I'm I'm still super excited about those opportunities.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Yeah. Um you went on Bobby Flay, didn't you? Or chef?

SPEAKER_04 21:23

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I got to uh film an episode of Beat Bobby Flay a few years ago, and um it was just a great experience. It was such an honor to share a kitchen with with Chef Bobby Flay, and uh yeah, he's just as cool in person as he is on camera.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

Did you get to talk to him much?

SPEAKER_04 21:42

I did. We had a lot of banter as we were cooking against each other, which was really fun, you know, talking like uh an appropriate amount of smack to each other, and um, we laughed a lot. Uh, and after after we were done filming, we did get to talk for a couple minutes.

SPEAKER_03 21:59

Is it hard to? Work under that like timed, like pressure environment?

SPEAKER_04 22:03

Yeah, so I've been doing this for 22 years and I have a really good sense of what a minute is and and what five minutes is. But in that moment where I had to cook three appetizers with a mystery ingredient in 20 minutes, that was definitely the fastest 20 minutes of my life. I got the glyzas that I made for the competition into the steamer with eight minutes and 30 seconds to go. And um, I still think it was some sort of magic at play uh for them to be cooked in time.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:36

But they needed every every last second in there, and yeah, the time just flies by, even though there's digital clocks all around the kitchen, and you can see them, but you look down for what seems like 10 seconds and three minutes has elapsed, you know.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:52

Um, and then the cameras on the booms just swooshing around your head and the lights and the heat, and it was it was just an incredible experience.

SPEAKER_03 23:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:02

I was terrified.

SPEAKER_03 23:03

I was about to say, I never I I don't think of all those other pieces of like the cameras and the mics and stuff. That's nerve-wracking.

SPEAKER_04 23:10

It sure was, yeah, it sure was. And then um, it was almost a relief, you know, when the clock started, and it was like, okay, I get to cook now.

SPEAKER_03 23:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:19

And I get to go into my comfort zone and hone in on what I do. Um, but terrifying leading up.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

Yeah, it's like, okay, this is what I know.

SPEAKER_04 23:27

Yeah. Like, all right, I'm in my zone.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:30

Um, let your boy cook.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

Let me cook. Do you think you'll ever go back and do TV again?

SPEAKER_04 23:36

Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_03 23:38

Yeah. That'll be so cool. So after the Belton, I know at some point you go to Stonehill, right? Was there anything in between?

SPEAKER_04 23:44

Nothing official. COVID hit. I was doing a lot of renegade pop-up dinners um at Johnny Shockey's ranch where the Under the Big Sky Festival is held. We just did beautiful, plated, and paired dinners out there and put together some really magical, memorable evenings. Did lots of in-home catering and and cooking for people just um, you know, just to keep my knives sharp and and stay in.

SPEAKER_03 24:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

Even though I wasn't at a restaurant, I was just, you know, I was camping a ton, cooking over fire a bunch, um, and also putting together some really playful renegade dinners out on that property.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

That's cool. I mean it was COVID, all the restaurants were closed.

SPEAKER_04 24:28

Yeah, they were.

SPEAKER_03 24:29

Were you sort of spooked when that happened before these other opportunities?

SPEAKER_04 24:32

I was a bit, um, you know, I was either gonna go back to the Belt and Chalet for my third season there, but I didn't really love the idea of working in a restaurant until I understood what COVID was gonna be. Um, because they did end up choosing to open the restaurant, and um I just wanted to see how it was all gonna play out and didn't want to be um in a situation that I didn't like.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:01

So I um, you know, declined the do going into the third season at the Belt In and and just pivoted and honestly had one of the best summers ever, camped a ton and just played.

SPEAKER_03 25:13

At what point did you meet your wife Lauren?

SPEAKER_04 25:15

I always knew of Spotted Bear Spirits, of course, because it's the best, and I've always loved their gin since the first time I tasted it. So we all I always knew her like peripherally. Uh, and then she and Spotted Bear threw a cocktail competition here when it was Casey's upstairs, and I entered the competition with a coffee liqueur and pomegranate drink, and ended up winning the competition. And that night I remember having um a really great conversation with Lauren just about spirits and and what Spotted Bear is bringing to the community um as far as really polished, dialed, delicious cocktails go. Yeah, so that was the first time I actually talked to her, I think.

SPEAKER_03 26:06

You guys are such a power couple, I love it.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

Ah, thanks.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Well, it sounds like you were already like getting some recognition at the Belton, but I I know like I heard of you first from Stone Hill. Um maybe if you could just tell me a little bit about what that time was like in your life and how it felt to get some recognition from hometown.

SPEAKER_04 26:24

Sure, yeah. Stonehill was amazing. The the whole experience was was really great, the kitchen was beautiful. Um, it was really hard to find staff and finding people to work in the kitchen and finding people that wanted to drive to Big Fork was a a real challenge. But um the cuisine we did there was was so dialed and so cool. Um two of my chefs there that I worked with, they're still with me here.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_04 26:54

So um it's been really cool to see um the evolution of of two cooks that I've known for a number of years now and and see where they're at now, and they're both sous chefs for me here. But yeah, Stone Hill was was amazing. It was off the beaten path a little bit, but uh the cuisine we were able to do there was was really sharp and really playful.

SPEAKER_03 27:17

Was there anything that you took from Stone Hill that you kind of brought with you to Urban Omni?

SPEAKER_04 27:21

The biggest thing is probably um getting recognized by the James Beard Foundation.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 27:26

That was massive, and that came as a complete surprise. Yeah, we were doing uh a beer dinner, a beer pairing dinner with Mountains Walking, um, which is my favorite brewery in the state. Really playful beers, and we did like five or seven courses with all these really cool beers, and we were joking in the kitchen, like, oh, it's an Earl James Beard dinner, um, which sounds like James Beard dinner. And oddly enough, my phone started blowing up, hey, congratulations chef, on your James Beard nomination. And I was like, Oh, they must be confused. It's like a joke that we've been talking about for a couple days, like, and then um sure enough, we we looked it up, and my name was um on the list of 20 chefs in the mountain region, so it was a really beautiful moment in the sun um for me and my team there. Um, even though we were a really small team, we were very mighty.

SPEAKER_03 28:22

I mean, to know that that's something that you've always kind of dreamed of, you know, to get that kind of national recognition. How did that feel?

SPEAKER_04 28:29

It felt unreal. And even, you know, being a finalist today feels really unreal to me. Um, but it was a beautiful moment in the sun, and you know, kind of put Montana on the map as far as cuisine goes. Like these mountains are offering a lot, and um, it's nice to to showcase that and and to be recognized by like the James Beard Foundation is insane.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:00

So totally yeah, it was it was amazing.

SPEAKER_03 29:02

Yeah. Well, and not long after that, Stone Hill closed, right?

SPEAKER_04 29:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:08

Um, so kind of high, high, low, lows. Yeah. What was that like? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:13

Um it it hurt for sure. It was it was sad, and um, you know, eventually just kind of had to um, you know, it just wasn't the right time, and I just had to trust the universe and trust uh what was happening and just you know continue to move forward and um it definitely hurt. Um but you know, there's nothing I could could have done and just kind of had to keep it moving forward.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

Yeah, keep trucking, you know.

SPEAKER_04 29:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:44

Well, I mean it led you to here.

SPEAKER_04 29:45

It did, yes.

SPEAKER_03 29:46

You know, Urban Omni is you know it's beautiful in here, and it seems like you have a lot of creative freedom.

SPEAKER_04 29:51

Yes, I do. Yeah, it's a it's really a dream come true. Um Jamie supported me from the very beginning and in everything I do and everything I cook. So yeah, as a chef, to be able to have that unbridled creative freedom is is the dream, right? And then I get to be in the heart of the town I grew up in. I can literally throw a tennis ball and hit the middle school that I went to. Yeah, I just really loved growing up here, and um it's nice, I think, you know, for people, you know, to have a hometown boy become a chef at a restaurant like this. It's a special story.

SPEAKER_03 30:29

I was kind of wondering if you could go over like the ethos that you guys have here.

SPEAKER_04 30:32

The name of the restaurant is uh short for herbivore and omnivore, and the idea is that um you know, both people with plant-based dietary preferences um they can come in and not get cornered to, you know, like the side dishes or or whatever. Um, so we we really pride ourselves in offering um really thoughtful plant-based dishes. And for me it's been really fun and challenging. I like to try to create these plant-based dishes and and make them tempting to the people who came in wanting a steak.

SPEAKER_03 31:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:12

So that's been a really fun um challenge for me, but also keeps me really engaged. Um, and especially when it comes to, you know, creating a dessert that's plant-based is is fun, and there's lots of really cool technique out there to to uh involve in that process.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:31

Um and you know, I just try to cook seasonally and and uh utilize all the beautiful local produce and and lamb and beef um and trout that that this area provides. So um they make my job pretty easy. There's so many solid um organic farms in this valley and um it's it's amazing. It's incredible. I wouldn't rather be cooking anywhere else.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

Yeah, you guys do some foraging too, right?

SPEAKER_04 32:01

Yeah, we do lots of foraging, um, especially for spruce tips. We like to run a spruce tip and huckleberry uh dessert in the summertime. We do a creme brulee that's infused with spruce tip, and then uh we brulee it and top it with some fresh plump huckleberries. So that's been a hit and that's been a flavor combination I've been I've been employing since the built-in.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

You guys get some mushrooms too. Do you forage those or do you work with somebody that to get those?

SPEAKER_04 32:29

Yeah, we work with people to get those. The um the licensing around it is is taken really seriously. We do have um our mushroom grower. Uh he cultivates all these beautiful mushrooms for us, and he's also um licensed to forage and sell to restaurants, so um we're really grateful for for him and his products are always stunning.

SPEAKER_03 32:52

I'm forgetting the restaurant names, but it's Sun something farm, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:55

Sun Hands Farm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

Yeah, I've talked to them. They're really cool.

SPEAKER_04 32:58

Yeah, they are amazing, and I've been working with Sean uh since my time at Stonehill, and he's hoping to grow new things for us, and pretty sure we're the only restaurant in the valley that's getting the golden Inoki mushrooms from him right now, which we batter, tempera batter, and fry, and honestly, one of the most poetic mushrooms I've ever tasted. I'm super stoked to be working with Sean, he's great.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

Poetic mushrooms.

SPEAKER_04 33:23

Yeah, it's just like yeah, once you fry it, like just the aroma and the nuttiness, and then um super light aerated tempera batter, it's it just hits.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

So, when did you find out you were nominated for another James Beard Award?

SPEAKER_04 33:37

I was in Mexico with my family, and I was well aware um that the list of 20 chefs in the mountain regions was going to be released that morning, and I was just kind of ignoring it, and I didn't want to look at the list. Um, I didn't want to hone in on it. Um, and I think partially because last year I was really wrapped up in chasing that nomination again, and I kind of lost like part of me along the way. I was, you know, trying to show all the techniques in my menu and trying to show everything that I could do and running a tasting menu and this and that, and was just trying to do a little too much, and then we airballed the list, and I was like, oof, ouch. And then so for me it was a really big learning um opportunity to just kind of step back into what I do and why I do it, and to really be me through that process and cook things that really sing to me. And um, you know, we have things like a trout corndog and um a celery root dino nugget on the menu. So um I was like doing me 100%, like no holding back and having fun with the food, and everything felt really natural. What I had written in the menu was just translating, and my cooks were translating it, and they were executing it and taking it steps further than I could have ever imagined. We just showed up. It felt like Urban Omni showed up and we showed up as a team. So that was, I was just feeling good. I was like, you know, if we get recognized by the foundation this year, then that's awesome. But I was kind of prepared to not be, you know.

SPEAKER_03 35:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:27

Um so eventually that morning when I knew the list was being released, my phone just started blowing up. Um my sous-chef Shane called me, and um, you know, it was it it was clear right away that we made the list, and um yeah, just it was such a um a trip to be out of the country and get that news. Um it didn't feel real, and I guess also when you receive news like that in the country from me, uh it still doesn't seem real, so I guess kind of no matter what, it doesn't seem real. Yeah. It's just exciting.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

Mexico, United States.

SPEAKER_04 36:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:02

Doesn't feel real?

SPEAKER_04 36:03

Yeah. But then I had this crazy moment. We made reservation uh at a restaurant called Rubra in um just north of Puerto Vallarta. Um, incredible, incredible chef, incredible menu, one of the most beautiful restaurants I've ever been to. Um I didn't mention the James Beard nomination to anyone along the way, and um their team immediately congratulated me for the nomination when we got there, and I was just like, oh my gosh, it is real. And then I walked by the kitchen to go to the bathroom, and when I came out with the whole staff just started cheering for me. And I was just like, you know, staring at my feet, and then I just hear this roar, and I look up and like like it was just so cool to see um, you know, other chefs um just I don't know, I just felt really seen in all the work that we do. Um it's just awesome. It was an awesome moment. I cried a little bit. Um, it was really special to be recognized by um such a talented crew. And um it at that moment it finally did feel real. Yeah, it was an unforgettable moment.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:26

Um but yeah, super excited to be um on this journey right now with um with this team and and um the James Beard journey. Um it's just exciting. It's like um, yeah, it's been my dream for a long time and finally getting to experience it and it's um it's breathtaking, it's uh it's a lot of things.

SPEAKER_03 37:57

Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine. I mean, I was getting emotional when you were telling the story because I mean it's something you've just worked so hard for.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Right.

SPEAKER_03 38:05

Um and then the first opportunity um, you know, didn't really work out, so it's you know, to to have a second chance and to see it kind of come to fruition in such a special way. I mean, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 38:18

Yeah, it's been it's been really fun, and I I just feel so lucky that um, you know, I have these individuals who choose to spend their time here at 101 Central and also you know, trust me as a leader and a teacher and um a fellow comey.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

So when like the nomination process is happening, do they look at your menu? Does somebody come here and taste the food before you get the nomination?

SPEAKER_04 38:52

Uh I'm pretty sure that they come into the restaurants and secret shop and no one knows who they are and they eat the food, and I don't really know how many times they do that or when. Um I don't know what other research they do. Um it's yeah, it's all a little mysterious to me, but um sounds like a pretty sweet job.

SPEAKER_03 39:14

Yeah, it does. It sounds like an awesome job.

SPEAKER_04 39:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:18

And the next step is that there's another secret shopper.

SPEAKER_04 39:20

I think so. Yeah, I think so. I think they might come in and eat again. Um, and then yeah, they're gonna announce the winners in June, the day after my birthday.

SPEAKER_03 39:32

Yeah, I heard about that. So 41?

SPEAKER_04 39:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

Awesome. And you're going to Chicago.

SPEAKER_04 39:38

Going to Chicago. I've never been, I'm excited.

SPEAKER_03 39:41

Can you tell us a little bit about what that's gonna be or like what you've heard, what you're to expect, you know?

SPEAKER_04 39:47

I I had a chance to talk to a bartender uh when I was in San Francisco lastly, who had been invited to the party because of the bar program that that he was a part of, got invited, and uh he said it was just amazing. The food at the reception was amazing, and um just one of the most like pinnacle nights of our industry. Um everyone's just there and and we're celebrating each other, and it's just so awesome to celebrate humans um who share a craft. So I'm just really looking forward to to that and I'm sure I'll be seeing chefs that I'd been that I've been admiring for decades, you know, which will be incredible. I'll just be a little fan. Yeah. And yeah, also to be in the conversation with with those other chefs is is such an honor. I'm yeah, I don't even know if excited scratches the surface of how I feel when I think about it.

SPEAKER_03 40:48

Yeah, oh my gosh, well congrats. This is so cool.

SPEAKER_04 40:51

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 40:51

And also congrats on Nate Shoot and Pond Skim. So bagged those two.

SPEAKER_04 40:57

Yeah, I yeah, I love snowboarding, and I just love also the snowboarding community in this town. It's always, you know, held me and been there for me, and it's you know, it's again, we all just love floating down the mountains weightlessly, and we have like that certain language in common, and um it's just kind of a beautiful activity, and also the people um that do it around here, it's it's just fun, you know. You can go up to the mountain with no plans and just see a couple homies at the summit, and next thing you know, you're just making memories throwing snow into the air.

SPEAKER_03 41:39

So, what does it mean to you, especially because you grew up here, you know, to live and work in a mountain community like this?

SPEAKER_04 41:47

I love that I get to be home and where I grew up, there's no place like home, so I'm I'm happy here. As far as running a kitchen in a mountain community, I think it comes with with challenges, but I feel like I've been cooking in this valley for long enough and have a clear style of food that I like to do. I think that I'm able to attract people who are really passionate about cuisine and they really want to be here. So um it hasn't always been like that, but now we have you know a small army of people who are all passionate about what they do and proud of what they do, and um, we're all learning, we're all growing, and um I get to meet a lot of different people at different stages of their career, and we all get to keep rising together, which is um really cool. This is a place is um it's kind of like like an institution as much as it is a restaurant. Um it's a place where we can learn about food and put smiles on people's faces as they're celebrating each other up in the dining room.

SPEAKER_03 43:10

Yeah. Is there anybody that you're working with now or just somebody like young in their career that like reminds you of you when you're young? And I guess also kind of an offshoot question from that, like, what would you say to somebody who's interested in this kind of career?

SPEAKER_04 43:26

You know, I definitely have moments where um I see myself in in a number of cooks or just like um, you know, behaviors or or whatever it is. I have moments like that. I think I was maybe a little harder to to manage than most of my cooks are.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

Lighting bottles of rum on fire, you mean?

SPEAKER_04 43:50

Yeah. This industry is is brutal in a lot of ways, and it's really magical in a lot of ways, and um, you know, I think historically. The work-life balance isn't always there for chefs and cooks alike. But I think that's slowly starting to shift. But you know, as far as um like advice that I would give to someone, I I think like anything, if you love it and you're passionate about it, ready to put the work in and you want to go certain places, there's there's not much stopping you. But yeah, the passion has to be there. You can't fake it.

SPEAKER_03 44:31

How has being a dad changed things for you?

SPEAKER_04 44:34

The first year, um, I didn't sleep very well at all. And um, that was also my first year here. So um I got to survive. Yeah, and that was basically all I could do. My life at home was really precious, and I really had to um try to be present um through just being exhausted. But as um she started sleeping through the night, I became um more energized, and as we put systems in place here, things just started to get smoother. Yeah, Matilda has just fully re-enchanted my world and the way I see the world through her lens, and um it's also you know really put into perspective how important it is to um be really present when I'm with her and and Lauren because two and a half years has shot by and I don't want to continue moving through that, um, not feeling like I was giving it my full attention. Um, and it's also offered some really beautiful space between me and and cooking. Um, I can get so obsessed with cooking that I'm just in it, in it, in it, and almost like smothering the creativity. Yeah. Um, but to take a half a step back and breathe and reapproach my cuisine with just a different energy has been really cool and offered a lot of space for um creativity and enchantment and being playful and finding the plate with um all of that kind of just pulsing through my hands. Like I often get asked, like, what's your favorite thing to cook? And um, my favorite thing to cook is is dinner for my daughter and my wife.

SPEAKER_03 46:29

What's Matilda's favorite meal from dad?

SPEAKER_04 46:32

She loves shrimp cooked in butter.

SPEAKER_03 46:36

Heck yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:37

And yeah, shrimp cooked in butter. Um, she's a big fan of quesadillas and uh smoothies.

SPEAKER_03 46:45

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:46

Huckleberry smoothies for the wind.

SPEAKER_03 46:49

Well, I think that's all I got. Is there anything that I didn't ask about that you want to mention?

SPEAKER_04 46:56

No, I um no, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

For three people dead or alive, who would be a good one?

SPEAKER_03 47:06

Oh, that's a great thing.

SPEAKER_04 47:07

Three people dead or alive, who would they be? Wow, that's tough. I mean, I feel like I gotta cook for Jesus. Let's like say I did, and we wouldn't have to bring any wine, because he could just turn all the water into wine. Um, I would want to throw like a wild card in there, like Nick Cage, and then one more person at the table.

unknown 47:43

Shh.

SPEAKER_04 47:44

Probably A-Robb.

SPEAKER_03 47:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:47

Yeah, I'd like to cook for uh for my best friend who's no longer walking around the earth just to show him what I've been doing.

SPEAKER_03 47:56

Yeah. Oh, that's so sweet.

SPEAKER_04 47:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:59

That's awesome. Alright, well, we just want to say thanks to Chef Earl one more time for having us here today. It's always a treat to come down to Urban Omni. Um, he made us some super good heroes, they were delicious. Um, it's no surprise to me how he's nominated for a James Beard Award, and we're really excited to see how he's gonna do in June.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

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