30 Jan Dining Out: When Everyone is Family

The food at Teton Valley Lodge has to be phenomenal. Anything less and guests would stay out fly fishing until nightfall. Based near Driggs, Idaho, the lodge’s guides assist guests on three Blue Ribbon fisheries — the South Fork and Henry’s Fork of the Snake River and the Teton River. Any guests who have had their fill of fishing might return to the lodge wholly unconcerned about food, instead eating up the views from their cabin’s front porch — fish rising in the slow-moving Teton River, moose browsing the thousand-acre expanse of riparian and grasslands (owned and placed under a conservation easement by the lodge) on the river’s far side, and, in the distance, the Tetons.

Guests can fish for as long as they want or come back to the lodge early. If guests aren’t up for fishing, the lodge helps them find preferred alternatives, from paddleboarding or horseback riding to spending the day in nearby Jackson Hole.

“People mostly come here for the fishing, but I think the food is a close second,” says Ben Crowl, the lodge’s head chef since 2020. “There is always a lot of it, and it’s not the type most guests eat anywhere else. We want guests to feel like they’re coming home, or eating at Grandma’s house.”

Head Chef Ben Crowl prepares his osso buco with cumin-fried carrots and braised Kurobuta pork.

Lodge owner Brian Berry elaborates. “Our guests come from much more sophisticated places than Teton Valley, Idaho, and they eat at great restaurants all the time. We don’t try to mimic that kind of food. We do the kind of homestyle food you want after a day on the river, and we do it at an elevated level.”

Stuffed pork belly epitomizes the Teton Valley Lodge’s elevated homestyle food program.

Oddly, Brussels sprouts provide the perfect example: “Even people who hate Brussels sprouts love ours,” Crowl says. They are fried in browned butter and maple balsamic with shallots, Dijon mustard, and sage, and then tossed with gorgonzola cheese and green apples. And this is just one of the four courses served nightly at dinner, one of three daily meals included with all lodge stays.

Seasonal vegetables are sourced from local farms.

Every day at the lodge — which was founded by Berry’s great-grandfather, Alma Kunz, in 1938 — guests wake up to a family-style breakfast served in the main lodge. Here, in a light-filled, airy room, where one wall is covered with guide photos, guests fill plates with everything from pancakes, waffles, bacon, and a variety of egg dishes to yogurt and fruit while chatting about where they want to fish that day. Lunches are made and packed up — to be eaten on the river — during breakfast service: Guests order sandwiches from the deli and grab as many snacks and sweet treats as they want. “The options are just out of this world,” says Crowl, who worked for several of Jackson Hole’s best restaurants before taking over the kitchen at the lodge.

Weather permitting, dinner at Teton Valley Lodge takes place out on a deck off the main dining room, overlooking the Teton River. “When the sun goes down, we throw open the dining room doors — a wall of glass opens completely — and everyone loves hanging out on the deck,” Berry says. “We didn’t eat outside before COVID, but that opened our eyes. With the Teton River right there, it’s really awesome.”

While the breakfast buffet and lunch options are similar every day, dinners are not. “My sous chef, Jake Mitchell, and I come up with the menu and then we make everything from scratch,” Crowl says. Not counting modifications made to accommodate specific dietary requirements, the same four courses are served to all 40 guests. “This challenges us to create a single menu that everyone will like,” Crowl says. Guests don’t see the evening menu — written on a chalkboard — until they’re back from the day’s fishing adventure.

The lodge sources all of its beef, including these Wagyu New York strip steaks, from Snake River Farms.

An additional challenge is that many guests have been coming to the lodge for years. Some are the third and fourth generations of their family to vacation at Teton Valley Lodge. “These guests have been coming for decades and have dinners that they remember,” Crowl says. “I want to honor these favorites but also want to introduce new things.” The fried Brussels sprouts are one of the new things Crowl introduced, while a bison short-rib pot roast with cinnamon, cloves, braised cabbage, carrots, onions, and peas is a longtime favorite.

Teton Valley Lodge’s dinner menus are informed by what’s available, but Crowl says he’s primarily trying to create a dinner that everyone will like. “Feeding 40 people who don’t get to order anything? It’s hard.”

Last summer, Crowl and Mitchell had a 21-entrée rotation they worked from. The third of the four dinner courses is always an animal protein of some sort — smoked rib eye topped with cowboy butter (“It’s a compound butter, but better,” Crowl says), bison pot roast, osso buco, huckleberry-glazed elk chops, herb-roasted airline chicken breast with rosemary cream, and bison Bolognese with homemade pasta — paired with two vegetables and a starch.

The entrées are preceded by first and second courses that Crowl says can be more experimental. Some of his favorites are the fried Brussels sprouts, smoked New Zealand lamb with pistachio pesto, duck breast crostini with Bourbon bacon jam, smoked trout dip, and bison sloppy joe sliders.

“We like being a homey place. The feeling is more like family than fancy,” Berry says. “A lot of guests have been coming for generations; and ones that haven’t, we still treat them like family. Our dining is at the heart of that — it’s good, and not stuffy.”

“My aim is to fill guests’ stomachs after a day of fishing,” Crowl says. “No matter what happened out on the river, I’m here to cheer them up and make them want to come back.”

Teton Valley Lodge’s Cowboy Butter

By Ben Crowl of Teton Valley Lodge

This quick and easy compound butter contributes rustic elegance to any steak. Leftovers can be stored in the refrigerator for about two weeks and enjoyed on bread, vegetables, or other meats.

½ pound unsalted butter at room temperature
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh sage, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
½ tablespoon shallots, chopped
½ tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon salt
½ tablespoon black pepper
½ tablespoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Combine all ingredients and place atop any prepared steak.

Dina Mishev, the editor-in-chief of Jackson Hole magazine, has lived and adventured in Wyoming since 1997. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Outside, The Washington Post, and Four Seasons Magazine. Her most recent book is Road Trip Yellowstone: Adventures Outside of America’s Favorite National Park.