Peter Blatz Comes Full Circle at Cottonwood Grille

While the term “locavore” may be a new one, the concept is merely an extension of Peter’s training and inclinations.  “A cuisine sprouts from what is locally available to a chef, and those available proteins will be the determining factor as to what and how you cook.”

There are some restaurants that so define our local culinary scene that you can’t seem to think of a time that they weren’t a part of it.  Which is why it’s hard to believe that 2009 marked the 10th anniversary of the opening of Boise’s Cottonwood Grille.  Only ten years?  Really?  It was, in fact, 1999 when Chef Peter Blatz and his sommelier spouse, Hilary, moved to Boise from Denver.

Peter’s journey to the City of Trees was an even longer one than his move from Denver suggests.  He grew up on the East Coast, where his life in the restaurant business began during his last two years in high school.  Seven years, and many mentors later, Peter enrolled in culinary school in New York to study classical French cuisine.

“I aspired to be a world class chef in the classical French tradition,” Peter recalls, “but I gradually realized that the techniques I was learning – the core principles of efficiency in motion and preservation of flavor that you learn in a more traditional program – could be applied to whatever you have at hand locally.”

Presented with the opportunity to open a restaurant in partnership with Boise’s Hormaechea Family, Peter and Hilary did their research on the City of Trees…and fell in love (an experience so many of us can relate to).  Peter’s aim from the very beginning was to make his earlier culinary realization the starting point for the Cottonwood Grille’s mission.  “We called what we were doing ‘contemporary American’ because we were taking my classical French background, with techniques that had been repeated for a millennia, and applying them to whatever we could get indigenously – and that is how the Cottonwood Grille menu has evolved.”

Peter is at pains to point out that nurturing local relationships is more than a feel good policy.  For someone who truly loves food, especially a classically trained chef, knowing where your food comes from and how it was raised has a direct impact on what you do with it before it reaches the customer’s plate.

While the term “locavore” may be a new one, the concept is merely an extension of Peter’s training and inclinations.  “A cuisine sprouts from what is locally available to a chef, and those available proteins will be the determining factor as to what and how you cook.  I’ve simply drawn from my own resources – from things I’ve seen other chefs do or from my own experiences – and tried to apply attributes such as acid levels or mouth feel that have worked in past dishes to the different ingredients I find locally.”

As the Cottonwood Grille’s reputation grew, Peter spent less effort seeking out local producers; they began coming to him.  “Folks would show up at our back door and say, ‘I’ve got locally grown lamb’, or elk, or tomatoes, or strawberries…fresh herbs, you name it.  These local foods became the inspiration for what we would put on our menu,” Peter recounts.

Fortunately for the Cottonwood Grille menu, as Peter soon realized, there was a lot of local inspiration to be had.  “There are very few things that we need to procure from very far away, with the exception of our escargot, which I still get from France.  Even the black sturgeon caviar that we get from the Hagerman Valley is something that I would put up against any other source in the world.  It’s out there if we just look.”

Peter is at pains to point out that nurturing local relationships is more than a feel good policy.  For someone who truly loves food, especially a classically trained chef, knowing where your food comes from and how it was raised has a direct impact on what you do with it before it reaches the customer’s plate.  “We want to talk to the elk rancher about how his animals are raised, what they eat and when they eat it.  When you understand these things, you’ll understand where the flavors come from, how they should influence what you write on your menu, what your dishes should be paired with, and how you should prepare them.”

Peter’s culinary mission is most in evidence with his seafood and meat entrees.  The Cottonwood Grille buys fresh salmon and sturgeon from the Columbia River, and its pheasant and all-natural chicken are from local sources.  And when it comes to beef, Peter takes an almost fanatical approach to its preparation and use.

Partly because of Peter’s culinary upbringing, and partly because of his insistence on locally available products, simplicity is the operative concept underlying his menu.  “When you track down really good product, and handle it really carefully, you don’t need to do a lot to it to make it shine.  My training has gone full circle to an essential and very simple way of cooking, and trying to maximize the natural flavors of what I have to start with.”

Peter’s culinary mission is most in evidence with his seafood and meat entrees.  The Cottonwood Grille buys fresh salmon and sturgeon from the Columbia River, and its pheasant and all-natural chicken are from local sources.  And when it comes to beef, Peter takes an almost fanatical approach to its preparation and use.  “All of our beef comes from grass-fed sources, and all of it is prime, so any cut is basically the highest grade you can buy and aged in house.  Our steaks are seasoned with salt and pepper…that’s it.  Anything more isn’t fair to the beef.”

Peter oversees the butchering of the Cottonwood Grilles meats, with the goal of 100 percent utilization.  Take a delivery of elk from supplier Black Canyon Elk Ranch, for example:  “We end up with five different cuts, down to the creation of a stew meat that we use in our elk stroganoff.  We prepare it with onions and mushrooms, lightly dusting the meat with flour when we roast the garlic, then add fresh stock that we make here.  It slow cooks until you have the wonderful, savory, tender elk in this naturally thickened broth that is served over locally produced pasta from Ferranti Fresh Pasta.  We grind up what’s left of the meat, mix it with eggs, and make a type of schnitzel with onions, garlic, and capers that we roll with bread crumbs to create an entrée for under $10 dollars.”

While it would be forgivable to think of the Cottonwood as a “high end dining/special occasion” restaurant, to do so would completely miss the point of the experience that Peter and Hilary Blatz have created over the past decade.  Peter approaches that experience from the same perspective that he hopes his customers do: as a person who loves to eat and loves the dining experience.  “I want the person who comes in for light fare to have as satisfying an experience as the person who comes here to propose to their girlfriend – so we try to offer a menu that ranges from meatballs made with fresh elk and Oregon mushrooms that you can enjoy at the bar with a glass of wine, right up to a full course dinner.”

Asking any chef or restaurant owner to pick an exemplary dinner experience from their menu is a bit like asking a parent to pick their favorite child, but Peter has some basic suggestions when it comes to the Cottonwood Grille’s signature dishes.  “I have a bias toward seafood as a light appetizer,” Peter begins.  “I’d start off with a fresh Dungeness crab or oysters.  The Pacific Northwest has the best of both, and I’m confident that Hilary could pair a nice wine with either of those.  Our entrees typically include soup and salad, and we make a mean clam chowder if you’re looking for something creamy, while our broth soups change daily.  In the summer we could even go with a chilled gazpacho.”

Assuming you have room for dessert, Peter recommends his peanut butter chocolate torte, the staff favorite raspberry crème brulee, the red velvet cake, or for something a bit lighter, the chiffon-based coconut cake.  Like its breads, all Cottonwood dessert items are baked in-house.

With the preliminaries lovingly dispensed with, Peter warms to his subject.  “While it’s still cold outside, I’d lean toward something richer for our entree: the Tomahawk Chop, which we get from our local supplier, Double R Ranch.  I really like cooking on the bone for what it adds to the beef, and we treat this product like a great prime rib.  We age if for three weeks, cut it into portions, then let it sit for a day or two in a marinade of fresh thyme, a little rosemary, some sage, raw garlic, black peppercorns, and bay leaves under a canola and olive oil blend.”

“The Tomahawk Chop is a really tender beef, nicely marbled, and we sear it on a broiler with a 1,000 degree temperature, like the ones you’d see at a the really high- end steak houses, in order to get a good searing on the outside to lock in those flavors, and I’d recommend ordering it medium rare with a simple wild mushroom and cabernet sauce that we reduce from the bones to make a demi glace.  We offer six different sides to go with it: garlic mashed potatoes, Japanese snap peas, Minnesota wild rice pilaf, vegetable medley, and potatoes au gratin.  For a favorite like this, you can vary the sauce and the side to keep the experience fresh.”

Assuming you have room for dessert, Peter recommends his peanut butter chocolate torte, the staff favorite raspberry crème brulee, the red velvet cake, or for something a bit lighter, the chiffon-based coconut cake.  Like its breads, all Cottonwood dessert items are baked in-house.

Ten years…seven days a week…two meals a day.  Peter and Hilary Blatz continue to evolve a menu that honors Peter’s culinary heritage and the local relationships they’ve forged.  And while times have changed since 1999, their love for Boise remains undiminished.  “Ten years ago this was a very different town,” says Peter.  “It was small in scale but with massive potential.  Ten years later, if I think about how many things have changed and how much the area has grown, I still believe it has tremendous potential from a standard of living point of view.  There is something very special about this area.”

For the past decade, the Cottonwood Grille has made its own unique culinary contribution to what makes this town so special.  Here’s to at least another ten years of great food.

The Cottonwood Grille is located at 913 W. River St. in Boise.  For reservations, call (208) 333-9800, or go to the Cottonwood Grille website at www.cottonwoodgrille.com.  Click here to listen to the podcast interview with Peter Blatz that was the basis for this Behind the Menu story.