fresh faces

The Inland Northwest tastes different nowadays. Once dominated by the corporate restaurant culture, the local food scene now finds itself gorging on creative, chef-driven eateries where freshness and experimentation are the norm.

Not that our community doesn’t still devour the reliable uniformity served at popular chains – the Olive Garden still reigns as the most popular Italian restaurant in Spokane – but a growing number of inventive idealists continue to steer people’s palates toward fresh, independent ideas and local flavors.

7  sat down with a handful of the area’s culinary visionaries to survey the local landscape and better understand what it’s like to work in this market, where we are as a food culture and where we might be headed.

If you are what you eat, these folks know you pretty well.

Alexa Wilson of Wild Sage

Chef Alexa Wilson has no delusions of grandeur about working in a small-ish market like Spokane. But she sure prefers the local lifestyle to the 12 years she spent in the Seattle scene.

“I worked for some great chefs in Seattle, but only one or two of them actually had a successful marriage, or felt like they had a successful relationship with their partner, or with their kids,” Wilson said. “Most of ’em were overworked, 100 hours a week, neurotic, creative, but on a burnout cycle. … It’s easier to sustain your family here. It’s a smaller community. Pretty much nicer people.”

The laid-back culture provides for more relaxation, but it also leads to less risk-taking by restaurant owners. Wilson says people in this area have a reputation for being too reliant on corporate standbys like the O.G. and – coming soon to Spokane – Red Lobster.

“We were told we were fools three years ago to open (Wild Sage),” she said. “You have to put yourself out there and then wait for people to come in and like it or not like it. So it’s risky in this market for the owners to say, ‘We’re just going to do Chef Alexa’s food.’ It’s up to me to know what Spokane likes and make sure what I put in (the menu) appeals to enough people to pay our bills, and gives me creative and artistic freedom at the same time.”

It helps that similar restaurants, such as Scratch and Moxie, thrive only blocks away.

“I’m glad they’re there, because I think it boosts for all of us to have that kind of chef-driven presence, and shows people it’s a legitimate way to choose to dine,” she said.

What does Wilson think Spokane needs most?

Late-night options.

“I think there’s a market there,” she said. “You see that in Coeur d’Alene right now. Some of the newer restaurants that have opened are more geared toward late-night, small plates.”

Norman Six of Lovitt Restaurant

It was a big risk for Norman Six and his wife, Kristen, to leave behind their popular Chicago restaurant and open a similarly eclectic spot in pastoral Colville.

But for Six, a native of Ione, Wash., it was worth the risk for the chance to be so close to the stellar Stevens County suppliers and the flavors he remembers from his youth.

“The food here is amazing,” Six said. “…This is probably the only place in the world where loggers are going to show up at your doorstep with bucketloads of morels and give you a really good deal on them.”

Success wasn’t a given. The couple took up lodging above the restaurant – which operates in a former bed and breakfast – to help offset the risk of failure. Luckily, they found out that farmers make great customers when it comes to willingness to eat just about anything.

“The thing about opening a restaurant in the freakin’ frontier is that a lot of our clientele has a really close relationship with their food,” Six said. “A lot of them hunt, or grew up on farms, so liver or other organ meat doesn’t freak them out.”

The Sixes buy whole animals from small, local farms, utilizing the pastoral home’s significant space to preserve, cure and store food. It’d be easier just to go through mega-vendors in a big city, but then Six would have to compromise his vision.

“The restaurant industry’s a bloody salt mine if you don’t like what you’re doing,” he said. “There’s no reason to do anything that’s not risky in this business. It’s so much hard work, why bother doing it if you’re not totally striving for something?”

Tony Brown of Mizuna

The local restaurant scene has changed considerably since Tony Brown started at Mizuna nearly five years ago.

“There are definitely a lot more restaurants that are trying new things,” the 31-year-old chef said.

The smallness of the Spokane scene helps restaurants like Mizuna – which originally started as a vegetarian restaurant in the ’90s but adjusted its menu to include meat years ago – find a niche. Plus, working in the Inland Northwest allows for a little less stress in the workday.

“It’s more competitive in bigger cities,” he said. “I think you have to work harder there.”

One of the biggest hurdles Brown sees in the Spokane market is the number of chain restaurants in the area that draw business from independently owned eateries. But he says the trend is toward more willingness to branch out.

“The Food Network has probably helped,” he said. “People watch the Anthony Bourdain show and realize that people are eating everything, and that if it’s cooked right, it’s going to be good.”

Most of all, Brown sees a need for more shops like Saunders Cheese Market – “places that represent different cultures and different cuisines,” he says – if the scene is going to grow.

David Blaine of Latah Bistro

Self-described food purist David Blaine doesn’t spend energy thinking about industry trends like decorative waterfalls behind bars.

“I see a restaurant experience from the food’s point of view,” said Blaine, one of the more recognizable names in the local slow-food movement. “If the food’s good, I don’t care if they brought it out on a paper plate.”

And though recent local trends lean toward upscale eateries, Blaine sees another trend in Spokane’s future – one that fits into his food-first ideal and still relies heavily on local ingredients.

“New restaurants that will be opening up will be more casual,” he predicts. “The conventional wisdom about the economy (is that) people spend less on eating out whenever the economy tightens up a bit. But I think also, to me, if this happens, it’s what really should have happened in the first place in Spokane. I see Spokane as a more casual place anyway.”

Another ingredient in Spokane’s recipe for gastro-growth comes from recognizing the difference between fads and true progressive movements, or what Blaine calls “milestones in the progression of food in America.”

Like large communal tables, for instance.

“Everybody says communal tables won’t work in Spokane,” Blaine said. “But I don’t think human beings in Spokane are a different subspecies than human beings in Portland or Seattle. Cities with lots of places with communal tables, like San Francisco and Portland … years ago when they started popping up onto the scene, a lot of people probably said the same thing: ‘Our culture doesn’t really like sitting next to strangers.’ But for some reason, over the past five years, the number of restaurants that are using that concept is increasing because it works.”

Anna Vogel of Luna

When the Inland Northwest’s natural surroundings and low cost of living drew Switzerland-born Chef Anna Vogel away from a chef position in Seattle, people said she was crazy.

“People were like, ‘It’s horrible, nothing is happening in Spokane,’ ” she said. “And I was like, ‘It doesn’t matter, my partner and I are going to move here regardless.’ ”

Vogel will be quick to admit that Spokane has a lot of room for growth and experimentation, but she loves the freedom of working at Luna, where she constantly uses local ingredients to invent new dishes and flavor combinations.

Of course, the long-time South Hill staple’s clientele often sticks with established favorites such as the Coconut Curry Prawns. But that doesn’t bother Vogel.

“If they want to eat the same thing, then that’s fine with me,” she said. “Maybe the person they’re with wants to try something new … People are really eager to try new things as long as it’s not too shocking. You can slip little things in there and people are like, ‘Ooh, I like that.’ It’s not hitting them over the head with it.’ ”

What’s the one thing Vogel says Spokane lacks? Mediterranean cuisine. Particularly, in her view, good Italian.

Something, she said, to counterbalance the excellent Northwest and Asian influences we currently enjoy.

Adam Hegsted of Brix and Le Piastre

Success in a relatively virginal culinary scene comes down to trial and error.

That’s the philosophy employed by Adam Hegsted, who recently opened his own restaurant, Le Piastre, just down the street from Brix, where he still maintains an executive chef position.

“We just kind of do whatever we want,” Hegsted said. “If you don’t like it, that’s fine, we’ll stop selling it.”

A Spokane-area native, Hegsted decided to return to the region because of the natural beauty and because he can make a difference. See a pattern?

“You know when you go to the (Spokane) Valley and it’s like chain city? Well, it’s nice to get people to come out with local ingredients, something different,” he said. “Get people to love food.”

To that end, Hegsted likes to expand people’s palates by what he calls “sneaking” out-there ingredients, such as sweetbreads (pancreas), onto the plate with more pedestrian ingredients, such as salmon. People are willing to try something a little different if it’s used as an aside to something familiar.

“Part of it is having to train your customers,” he said. “I know it sounds a little weird, but it’s true.”