Exotic Fare In North Idaho

What Clint Eastwood hath wrought, let Coeur d’Alene savor.

The actor gave Steve and Marilyn Nergord room to blossom when he hired them to run the banquet business on his Carmel, Calif., ranch 10 years ago. Their cooking and catering skills swelled like the walnut onion beer bread they’ve perfected.

Lucky for North Idaho, the Nergords tired of California, actors, ambassadors and free-flowing money. They’ve returned to their native Northwest and are about to open Capers, a restaurant featuring foods that fuel Mediterranean passions.

They specialize in dishes from France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and the Middle East. Lamb meatballs stuffed with pistachios. Feta cheese and parsley wrapped in phyllo pastry. Salads of marinated tomatoes, red peppers, cucumbers and red onions.

Pretty exotic fare from this salt-of-the-earth couple.

They learned to cook from the old masters. Steve began with biscotti at his Italian mother’s elbow. Marilyn watched her mother and grandmother throw dinner parties on a shoestring.

“They had to be creative,” she says.

Neither originally pursued cooking careers. Steve earned his college degree in art in 1972 and opened a pottery studio. Marilyn made wedding dresses.

Survival pressed them to find steadier jobs pouring beer in a pizza parlor, seating customers in an upscale restaurant. Steve’s instinctive understanding of the food business quickly propelled him into management.

He was district supervisor for Casa Blanca restaurants in 1981 when he met Marilyn at a job interview in Spokane. She wanted to manage the bar.

“She scored so high on the test, I had to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake,” he says. He still beams with admiration 16 years later.

They married in 1983 and Marilyn’s 9-year-old son, Elliot, made them a family. That same year, a friend wooed the Nergords to Alaska. Steve had a reputation as the wizard of restaurant design. Owners gave him a shell. He gave it life, character, a future.

An oil company hired Steve to design an entertainment center in Fairbanks, complete with restaurant, nightclub, ice rink, video arcade, bowling alley and specialty shops.

The $8 million project took a year and every bit of the Nergords’ expertise. They worked as a team and when they finished they traded Alaska’s cold for Carmel’s chic coastline.

Jobs were scarce there, but Steve found work on an old ranch Clint Eastwood had turned into a resort. He agreed to run the hotel for $6 an hour. Marilyn wasn’t pleased.

“I just lost it,” she says. “There was screaming.”

But Steve smelled opportunity. Eleven days into the job, Eastwood visited the hotel, introduced himself to Steve and asked if he knew anyone who could run a banquet facility. Steve offered his services.

He and Marilyn ran to buy cookbooks.

“Thank God for Martha Stewart,” Marilyn says.

They began with an appetizer buffet that went over well at weddings and class reunions. As business grew, they expanded into barbecue, tortas, Mediterranean fare. They liked Mediterranean because it consists of small amounts of many foods.

Eventually, they offered 400 menu items.

“We got into whole-roasted animals,” Marilyn says. “People would tell us what they wanted and we wouldn’t say no.”

They catered political affairs and movie parties, West Point reunions and U.S. State Department soirees. They cooked, decorated, hired entertainment, even launched a dinner theater. By 1990, the Nergords were tired.

Their savings bought them a tavern in downtown Portland that they remodeled into a restaurant and bar.

“Oh my God, did we work hard,” Marilyn says.

Hard enough to snatch the first opportunity to escape. A purchase offer in 1993 allowed Steve and Marilyn to return to the Inland Northwest. They settled in Coeur d’Alene.

“We thought we could find a tavern we could build into a food palace,” Steve says. “But we couldn’t find anything at the right price.”

They struggled in odd jobs for three years and were ready to move back to a big city last summer. Then Marilyn suggested they sell their international breads and soups at Kootenai County’s farmers’ market.

An hour after the market opened, the Nergord’s cupboard was bare. Catering orders poured in. Private parties pulled Steve and Marilyn through the holidays. Last month, they heard that a small restaurant, Papino’s, was moving.

They jumped on the space. At Capers the Nergords will offer homemade Mediterranean food and desserts from a refrigerated glass case.

But walk-up service won’t mean paper plates. The Nergords will use china, serve wine by the glass and beer once they have their license. They’ll reserve a portion of the store for retail sales of their ingredients.

They’ll also run their catering service and, eventually, cooking classes from their bistro.

“We hate the words ‘gourmet’ and ‘authentic,”’ Marilyn says. “We serve fresh, homemade. We specialize in bread. Mmmm, good bread is a wonderful thing.”

Capers is scheduled to open Feb. 20 at 315 Walnut Ave.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo