Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [242]
Utah
Capitol Reef Inn and Café
360 West Main St.
435–425–3271
Torrey, UT
BLD | $$
At the west end of the town of Torrey in the wilds of southcentral Utah, the Capitol Reef Inn and Café is a rare oasis of good food and elevated cultural consciousness. It is not only a restaurant, it is a lovely (and inexpensive) motel with hand-hewn furniture in the rooms; it is a bookstore featuring practical and meditative volumes about the West; and it is a trading post with some intriguing Native-American jewelry and rugs.
The restaurant serves three meals a day and appears to be as informal as any western motel dining room, except for the fact that you are likely to hear the gurgle of an espresso machine in the background and Bach played to set the mood. The house motto is “Local, Natural, Healthy,” and while it is entirely possible to sit down to a breakfast of bacon and eggs, you can also choose to have those eggs accompanied by smoked local trout, or you can have an omelet made with local cheeses, with fresh-squeezed juice to drink.
At lunch and dinner as well as breakfast, the Capitol Reef dining room is a blessing for traveling vegetarians. A few notable meatless menu items include spaghetti with marinara sauce (also available with meat), fettuccine primavera, and plates of steamed, stir-fried, or shish-kebabed vegetables. Beef, chicken, and seafood are always available for vegetable-frowners (that trout, broiled with rosemary, is what we recommend), and desserts include a hot-fudge sundae and/or apple pie.
Hires Big H
425 S. 700 East
801–364–4582
Salt Lake City, UT
LD | $
Ever since the success of nickel-a-glass root beer at A&W stands during Prohibition, “the temperance beverage” has been an axiomatic drive-in drink. At Hires Big H, with three curb-service outlets in Salt Lake City, Utah, it comes in five sizes, from “baby” to “large,” and of course there are root beer floats, or you can sip a limeade or a marshmallow-chocolate malt.
The juicy quarter-pound Big H burger is available plain or topped with bacon, ham, pastrami, Roquefort cheese, grilled onions, or a trio of crunchy onion rings and it is brought to the car in a wax paper bag that makes a handy mitt. The bun is a not-too-sour sourdough with a floury top (as opposed to what the combative menu describes as “some preservative-enhanced, wilted crust studded with obnoxious seeds”), and French fries and onion rings are served with dipping sauce reminiscent of French dressing. Hires even accommodates beef-phobes with its Harvest H, a mock hamburger made of oats, barley, and vegetables, but garnished like the real thing with sauce, lettuce, tomato, and melted American cheese.
Hires Big H also has locations at 835 E. Fort Union Blvd. in Midvale and 2900 W. 4700 S. in West Valley.
Idle Isle
24 S. Main St.
435–734–2468
Brigham City, UT
BLD | $
The third-oldest restaurant in Utah (since 1921), Idle Isle is the sort of cordial town dining room once found on Main Streets everywhere. In the twenty-first century, its charm is a rarity. Although the confectionery that was once part of the business has separated and moved across the street and the café has expanded and modernized to a small degree, dining here is a sweet trip back in time.
You can have a lovely burger and a malt at the marble and onyx soda fountain; and there is a slightly more boisterous back room with oilcloth-covered tables where regulars congregate at noon, but the choice seats, at least for us travelers, are in polished wood booths up front, each outfitted with a little ramekin of Idle Isle apricot marmalade for spooning onto the fleecy rolls that come alongside dinner. Before taking your order, a waitress sets down a little card that says, “Your Server Is…” with her name written on it, then she guides