Utah diners have a rare chance to indulge in the delights of Takibi, an award-winning Japanese restaurant from Portland, Ore.
The restaurant is opening a pop-up version, now through Sunday, June 25, at the Owl Bar at the Sundance Mountain Resort, up Provo Canyon. It’s a unique dining experience in the beautiful surroundings of the Wasatch.
Go to SundanceResort.com for hours of operation. (A one-night pop-up dinner on Sunday in The Tree Room, at $250 a person, is fully booked, but one can sign up for the waiting list in case of a cancellation.)
Takibi made Esquire’s list of the best bars in America in 2022, earned a Sunset Travel Award in 2022, and secured a spot on Portland Monthly’s Top 50 restaurants list.
Diners at the pop-up will get the chance to sample the most popular dishes created by Cody Auger, Takibi’s executive chef. Those include: Chicken karange, a Japanese fried chicken with shio koji and lemon; and sablefish, charcoal grilled with chickpea miso. There’s also a Japanese-inspired play on the Owl Bar’s poutine fries, tossed in Japanese curry with cheese curd and pickled ginger.
(Takibi) Cody Auger is executive chef at Takibi, an acclaimed Japanese-inspired restaurant in Portland, Ore. Auger is overseeing a pop-up version, opening June 15-25, 2023, at the Owl Bar at the Sundance Mountain Resort.
“We created a menu that gave some familiarity of what we do at Takibi, but also want people to feel they are still at the Owl Bar,” Auger said. “We kept the rustic vibe while incorporating some of the dishes we have done in Portland that we tweaked a little to fit the idea better. Most of what we do is fairly traditional while incorporating fun, playful dishes.”
There have been challenges in the adaptation, Auger said. Japanese ingredients aren’t as readily available in Utah as they are in Portland — so some items have been shipped in. Another obstacle, he said, is “we also had to figure out how to cook rice at the Utah elevation.”
Takibi’s food is matched by a top-notch bar menu, overseen by bar manager Alex Anderson. Her inventive cocktails use ingredients from Utah and Japan, adding to the unique flavor palate.
“Our cocktails at Takibi are always designed to reflect the natural environment that we are in, so we always have a Pacific Northwest ingredient in our cocktails in Oregon and a Japanese element to keep everything all tied together,” Anderson said. “For the Utah cocktails, we decided to use melons — we have a cantaloupe shrub with sashimi — and I utilized honey with Japanese gin in a martini variation.”
(Patrick Smith | Takibi) The Bee Kind — a cocktail made with Japanese gin, dry vermouth, local honey syrup and a hint of lemon and salt tincture — is one of the drinks being served at Takibi, a pop-up version of an acclaimed Portland, Ore., restaurant, opening June 15-25, 2023, at the Owl Bar at the Sundance Mountain Resort.
The exclusive pop-up is the first of several events scheduled in 2023, as the result of a partnership between Sundance and the Japanese camping gear company Snow Peak. The restaurant’s home location is in Snow Peak’s Portland headquarters.
“We have been slowly building a relationship with Snow Peak for a while,” said Kurt Berman, vice president of hospitality at Sundance. “We thought it would be a great opportunity for us to crystalize the relationship with an exciting food and beverage experience.”
Berman said the camping company “believes that the human spirit can be restored through time spent outdoors with friends.”
Takibi — the word means “bonfire” in Japanese — aims, its creators say, to create a space for friends to come together and connect over seasonal Japanese-inspired cuisine.
“People may question why a Japanese restaurant, but for me that’s where the excitement begins,” Berman said. “When two opposing ideas come together in unison, that’s when true magic happens. We have the precision and refinement of Takibi with Sundance’s authenticity and organic nature, which is a unique blend.”
Matt Liddle, Snow Peak’s chief future officer (that’s his actual title), said in a news release that at his company, “we believe that a meal drawn from nature’s bounty and enjoyed with friends outdoors is one of life’s simplest and greatest pleasures”
Liddle also praised Sundance, which, he said, “shares a lot of core values with Snow Peak … with a heritage of elevated culinary and recreation experiences in the mountains, and their dedication to the intersection of art, community, and nature.”
