Cafe Terra Cotta | Log Haven

Cafe Terra Cotta
Tucson and Scottsdale
By M.F. Onderdonk

Restaurants come and go and never more so than in the fickle '90s--when yesterday's top trend is too easily today's fallen bistro, another victim in the endless stampede toward the ultimate dining experience.

All the better then that Arizona's Cafe Terra Cotta should soldier so colorfully on toward the next century--popular and imaginatively Southwestern, with locations in Tucson and Scottsdale.

The Tucson restaurant arose first, back in 1986, brilliant in the reflected glow of the rising star of Donna Nordin, who has gone on to achieve an international reputation as a chef and teacher. The Scottsdale restaurant made its debut six years later, in 1992. Today, the wood-burning pizza ovens and inventively cosmopolitan fare and jazzy decor that made these restaurants so drop-dead with-it back on the frontiers of contemporary cuisine are classic rather than chic. Thus Cafe Terra Cotta endures, an amiable watering hole with fabled food.

Both restaurants still dish up the signature items that garnered her a nomination for a James Beard Award in 1993. Rounded out by entrees from the hungry-cowpoke school, such as pork tenderloin adobado with apricot-chile conserve, the fare is conceived in day-into-evening mode.

There are soups, sandwiches, and mix-and-match goodies of the "grazing" school. Chicken quesadillas are a well conceived example--boneless grilled breast with a lively combo of herbed goat cheese, caramelized onions, black beans, and papaya salsa. Tortilla soup, another house specialty, is floated with a spicy wash of avocado and salsa in a colorful and clever reinterpretation of the humble classic.

Amid the dry mountains and vast armies of long-armed saguaro, oyster stew does seem a bit lost--even if it does have corn in it. Shrimp dishes, such as flautas served with savory roasted tomatillo sauce, are delicious. Salmon and ahi tuna are regularly featured on the menu, along with daily seafood specials. Signature entrees showcase other choices--duck breast with chipotle sauce or peppercorn-spiced medallions of ostrich, to mention a few.

Cheerful service and user-friendly pricing (most entrees are under $20) help attract a varied crowd.

Those who intend to dine eternally on peppers, beans, and corn might question the authenticity of dishes such as tomato-basil ravioli with green-lip mussels and saffron-guajillo beurre blanc. But it is good that the desert motif in food should widen thus to encompass pesto, orzo, and even crawfish ravioli--all those wild taste sensations yesteryear's Indians and cowboys never dreamt of having. Created by culinary stars such as Nordin, Southwestern cuisine is, ultimately, full of wonderful, new possibilities.

Log Haven
Salt Lake City

By Chase Reynolds Ewald

Wildflowers, wilderness, water;
nature, nourishment, nostalgia

Here, nature tries hard to take center stage. Set on the edge of near-wilderness less than half an hour from downtown Salt Lake City, the restaurant's 40 private acres are surrounded by the Wasatch National Forest and graced by waterfalls, a duck pond, and snowmelt-laden Mill Creek.

Nourishment and nostalgia go hand-in-hand with nature at Log Haven. Nourishment takes the form of cutting-edge fusion cuisine prepared by Chef David Jones, a skiing and fly-fishing zealot with impressive credentials from the California culinary scene. Nostalgia lies in the structure itself--a log mansion built in 1920 by steel baron L.H. Rains, and renovated by current owners Wayne and Margo Provost in 1994.

Stone steps lead up to the log- and wood-shingle building perched on a knoll. It commands lovely views of the water-and-wilderness scenery. Then there's the backdrop of a glowing fire (even in summer, to ward off that mountain chill); an inviting sitting area with an adjoining bar; and country antiques (in winter, it's a wooden sleigh).

The setting includes fine linens, beautiful table settings, flickering candlelight, and an attractive outdoor patio with a waterfall cascading right to its edge. Delightful as they are, these amenities tend to fade into a pleasant background once you get down to the serious business of eating.

While guests mull over a menu promising the most sophisticated spin on American food--a fusion of influences from the Mediterranean to the South Pacific--the waiter brings chewy, house-baked Kalamata olive bread and a remarkable mixture of dahl. This hummous-like, East Indian dish of baby lima beans, olive oil, and seasonings is presented surmounted by vertical spears of lavosh, a type of flatbread that has been baked with jalapeño jelly. It is truly wonderful, especially set off against the sweet bite of jalapeño jelly.

The menu offers combinations that would surprise, say, a trapper who's been up in the mountains catching beaver for the past few years and doesn't know jicama from jackalopes. The ahi tuna, for instance, is seared in a coriander rub, served with pink-guava lime sauce and a sweet and spicy soy-ginger glaze, then garnished with mango salsa and a fried nori (seaweed) and rice roll with macadamias. Most people, for instance, would consider three sauces on a plate at least one too many, but in this case it works.

The food is sublime-tasting and refreshingly innovative. If the mustard-crusted Sonoma duck--served with carrot risotto, wilted mustard greens and apple-smoked bacon, finished with a Zinfandel-thyme reduction sauce and garnished with fried carrots--is suffering an identity crisis, it's not apparent. The enormous mesquite-grilled T-bone steak, served with cheddar-roasted new potatoes and a fresh corn salad, would make any rancher feel at home, despite its high-falutin' details.

The meal ends with a struggle: choosing between crème brûlée, a macadamia-nut tart, chocolate bread pudding, and homemade mango sorbet.

Wildflowers, wilderness, water; nature, nourishment, nostalgia. It's definitely a winning combination. Log Haven
Four miles up Millcreek Canyon
Salt Lake City, Utah 84109
(801) 272-8255
www.log-haven.com
Entrees $15.50 to $29.50
Appetizers $3.75 to $11.50
Desserts $6.50

House Made Dahl Spread from Log Haven 2 cups cooked and drained baby lima beans 1/2 cup reduced chicken stock 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 1/2 cup sweated or slightly sautéed onions 8 cloves blanched or roasted garlic 1/2 cup black olives 2 tablespoons Hungarian paprika 6-8 sprigs of fresh oregano 3 sprigs fresh thyme fresh ground pepper to taste sea salt to taste Purée all the ingredients together in a food processor and adjust seasoning to taste. Serve with lavosh crackers (flatbread) baked in jalapeño jelly.

Copyright ©1998 Cowboys & Indians

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