Editor’s Note: The author of this article is also a server at the Truckee Tavern and Grill.
Walking into the Truckee Tavern and Grill, your eyes are immediately drawn to the bar area. Douglas fir shelves proudly display row after row of glittering bottles full of clear and tobacco colored liquids, and the golden pine counter showcases jars of fresh herbs and citrus fruits. Moving seamlessly, the bartenders pull from a myriad of bottles while adding sprigs of herbs and hand-peeled citrus to a variety of antique glassware, occasionally lighting something on fire to both unlock flavors and for show (who doesn’t like pyrotechnics?).
The Tavern has been open since June of 2014 — in the location that used to house the Cal-Asian fusion Dragonfly restaurant — and is steadily making a name for its flavorful foods and beverages. Longtime bartenders at the Cottonwood Restaurant, Chris St. Martin and Ryan Dierks, opened the Tavern after years of brainstorming new business ideas. A year’s worth of planning, research, and physical labor later, St. Martin and Dierks opened the doors to the Tavern with an overarching goal to introduce guests to new flavors and products, all while fueling an active community.
Joined by executive chef Donovan Webb, formerly of the Ritz Carlton-Lake Tahoe and Cottonwood, the Tavern team maintains a simple yet flavor-rich menu that changes frequently to reflect seasonal ingredients and classic comfort food with a twist. The restaurant’s 7-foot Argentinian-style wood fire grill was custom-made by NorCal Oven Works, based in Sacramento. With a fire built in the back, it cooks the proteins and veggies over glowing coals versus leaping flames, imparting upon much of the Tavern food a signature smoky taste reminiscent of a winter night’s air heavy with smoke from a wood stove.
“From a food standpoint, our concept from the start has been to provide really nourishing food for an athletic environment,” Dierks said. “I had taken a trip to Argentina for a wedding [in 2013] and had some of the best meat of my life all cooked over wood fire and coals … We thought the wood fire grill could cook those quality ingredients and give them new flavor.”
The Tavern is deeply engrained with Truckee history, from the wood salvaged from an old pier on Tahoe used to build the bar to offering more than 50 whiskeys and 20 gins — which Dierks said speaks to Truckee’s past as one of the West’s biggest producers of gins and whiskeys during Prohibition. In homage to Truckee’s major ice harvesting days, the Tavern serves cocktails chilled by a single ice cube measuring a couple square inches, cut in-house by Dierks with an electric chainsaw. While St. Martin is focused on the front of house and on crafting a worldly wine program that highlights hard-to-find wines, Dierks has been building a drink menu that features specialty cocktails named after the actors and movies filmed in Truckee in the early 1900s.
“Everybody goes to a restaurant to taste a chef’s interpretation of food, but it seems like every bar has the same things on the back bar,” Dierks said, noting that the restaurant doesn’t serve certain standards, like Grey Goose or Smirnoff, in an effort to expose guests to the booming craft spirits market. Some people may be turned off by the fact that they can’t get their go-to-drink, but others enjoy the opportunity to try new spirits — like the vodka filtered through lava stones or the one distilled from quinoa.
“That’s why we try to bring new things … Some are familiar brands and many are smaller, artisanal distilleries,” Dierks said. “I am pretty exited to get an allocation of rare Angel’s Envy rye whiskey and Angel’s Envy cask strength bourbon. Definitely won’t be seeing those in too many places.”
Info: facebook.com/truckeetavern
