Mountain House back open

The restaurant closed because of COVID; and now a Michelin-star chef will take the helm, however, he doesn’t want to change the restaurant.

“I’m just trying to make it home and try to put our spin on what we think the Mountain House is,” he said. “For me personally, what intrigued me was the outdoors, the space I grew up hunting and fishing with my dad and that is how I first got into cooking and seeing where food comes from,” Roberts said.

The restaurant is on the curvy and often mist-covered Skyline Boulevard tucked amidst towering redwoods. It is close to civilization but remote enough to be a destination in itself, he said.

Mounted deer heads on the wood-planked walls add to the lodgelike ambiance. They all have a story and memory attached to them, he said. Most of them, he said, are moments he shared with his father.

“All the stuff has a story behind it, I shot and ate these animals with my dad,” Roberts said.

Growing up, he never imagined himself becoming a chef but hunting gave him an appreciation for food and from where it comes.

“Food equals pain, pain for the animal and it is something to be cherished, not wasted,” Roberts said.

His family always had big gatherings and lots of dinner parties. Hospitality is in his blood and he enjoyed being a part of those memories and tireless nights cooking for others, he said.

“Cooking can be so intimate, you are creating something that people put in their mouth, so it takes trust,” Roberts said.

The menu

His new menu, which he coined country coastal cuisine, is focused on game, venison, quail and sustainable trout. It’s more than food, it’s an experience, he said, creating a memory much like the ones he made with his father. Now, he plans to share those experiences to help his guests make their own memories.

The house-made sourdough is the product of chef and partner Dmitry Elperin, who worked with Roberts at the Michelin-star rated restaurant Village Pub in Woodside. During COVID, Elperin said he decided to make his own bread from scratch. In the beginning, he said he couldn’t get the dough to rise properly but soon realized it was because the temperature in the room wasn’t warm enough. It took a lot of trial and error but eventually he mastered it and could tell if the dough was right just from the feel of it.

“I could see it rise in front of my own eyes,” Elperin said while cutting loaves of bread in the restaurant’s kitchen before dinner service Sunday night.

The sourdough bread is offered on the appetizer menu with whipped butter for $4.

Some of the dishes are familiar but executed in a new way, like the tuna carpaccio plate. It comes with fresh yellowfin tuna, lemon zest and tomato confit, niçoise olives, cara cara oranges and crispy shallots for $22. One of the more popular appetizers is a southern classic with a twist, the southern fried quail. It comes with a portion of fried quail, homemade buttermilk biscuit, a local farm egg with a mushroom and sausage gravy for $26. Another nostalgic, yet inventive, dish is the seafood and shellfish potage. It comes with root vegetables and saffron fumet that is reminiscent of a chowder but lighter in viscosity. It’s offered for $26.

“You are giving people pleasure through food,” Roberts said. “And it is more about how you make people feel than the actual thing you did.”

The larger plates offer easy eats like a grass-fed burger with caramelized onions and housemade pickles for $19. However, one of the popular items, the red wine braised beef short rib, comes with Yukon gold mashed potatoes and charred baby carrots for $34. The roasted venison loin, is reminiscent of the memories Roberts made hunting with his father. It comes with two loins, vanilla scented parsnip puree and a lingonberry sauce for $44.

One of the lighter dishes offered, the Mount Lassen trout, comes with olive oil crushed potatoes, pickled mustard seeds, Brussels sprouts and a drizzled beet glacé and costs $34. The sustainable trout is some of the best in the area, Roberts said. The menu also features a Sonoma raised chicken dish and a pork loin, both offered in the mid-$30 range. Lastly, the menu offers a handmade pappardelle pasta dish with foraged mushrooms, a mascarpone cream and pecorino tartufo for $28.

He said a friend brought him some foraged chanterelle mushrooms from Woodside.

“You go out in the forest and you forage plants or mushrooms or foods and you have to protect them and honor it and not waste it … this location is special and we want to lean into that,” Roberts said.

He partnered with chef George Paleologos who he met at Dio Deka, a restaurant in Los Gatos that previously had a Michelin star. Now, Paleologos is back with Roberts as the sous chef. As he cut carrots and stirred a short rib reduction, the soft-spoken Paleologos said he lets his food do the talking but is excited to see what patrons want.

“We can’t just make what we want to make, we have to make what they will enjoy,” Paleologos said.

He said all the details of opening a new restaurant is exhausting but it’s been a fun experience. Like having a child, it’s been fun and exciting but exhausting, he added.

Making memories

Patrons Will Dayton and his wife Stephanie Boyar said the restaurant reopening meant a memory and tradition they are able to continue.

“We had our reception dinner here, three years ago,” Dayton said.

And the two were able to celebrate their anniversary together on Wednesday, excited to see how the menu and ambiance changed but hopeful the magic of the cabin amongst the leaping giant redwood trees is still magically the same as they remembered it to be.

Roberts explains he experienced some of that magic. During the Feb. 21 community opening, the storm that blew through the mountains wiped the power out the night before, a tree fell and it seemed like one thing after another. He and his team worked tirelessly through the night with lanterns and eventually were able to get a generator up for the following day. During the opening, the restaurant had no Wi-Fi or internet service and then it snowed.

“It was like a cool omen, it was really special,” Roberts said. “It hasn’t snowed like this in 40 years or something around that and we were in the midst of trying to open.”

The restaurant is open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Visit themountainhouse.com or call (650) 851-8541 to make reservations. If reservations are full guests are more than welcome to sit at the bar where there is open seating.