Supper Club

Dinner at Dornans, just outside of Grand Teton National Park, is always special, but some winter dinners are more special than others. 

// By lila edythe   
// Photography by Derek Stal

“Usually, I build the menus on food that I like and I want to eat,” says chef Sean Dietz about the themed multicourse dinners he curates and executes at Dornans in Moose in the winter. At a five-course wine dinner at Dornans last January, Dietz wanted to eat—and so the approximately 40 diners got to eat—oxtail stew, lobster cacio e pepe, and lamb shank. Dietz himself was most excited for the oxtail stew, but I loved the lamb shank, which was the last course before dessert (maritozzi, which I had never before had outside of Rome and is one of my favorite Roman pastries, and not only because its name loosely translates to “fat husband”). 

I loved the lamb shank so much that when a waitress came to clear it from our table, which was equally divided between people I knew and people I didn’t know but had seen around town for years, I didn’t think twice about asking two of my table mates who barely touched theirs—it was the fourth course—and weren’t interested in taking it home themselves if I could. (My husband was mildly appalled, but I enjoyed lamb shank for dinner for almost a week.) “Our regular menu is usually very set,” Dietz says. “These special dinners give me a chance to be creative and to change things up, which makes my job interesting.” Half of the year, Dornans is so busy there aren’t any desserts on the menu. “We just don’t have the time,” Dietz says.

Dornans Wine Shop opened in 1976, and the wine dinners started in 1982. “I think we always looked at the wine dinners as ways to introduce people to wines and regions that they wouldn’t necessarily buy on their own,” says Jennifer Dietz, the shop’s wine buyer (and Chef Dietz’s wife). With more than 1,500 bottles from approximately 19 different countries and 600 different producers, Dornans has a selection of wines that ranges as widely in price as it does in obscurity. “I like to have wines that I know are popular, but I also like to have wines that, if people are willing to take a chance, might surprise them in a good way,” Ms. Dietz says. (Dornans Wine Shop is well-known by oenophiles across the country for the depth and diversity of its bottles; Wine Enthusiast has recognized it as one of the best wine shops in the Rocky Mountain West.)

“I inherited a line, ‘In our wine shop, we have a wine for everyone,’ and I feel strongly about that.” 

—Jennifer Dietz, Dornans wine buyer

Starting last winter, Mr. Dietz was given additional opportunities to stretch his creativity: in addition to five-course wine dinners, there were several “supper club” dinners. Supper clubs are back this winter and are more casual than the reservations-required wine dinners. Supper clubs are three courses instead of five and are more like Dornans’ usual dinner scene—you walk in and grab a table. And supper clubs, although each course comes with a wine pairing, are not 100 percent wine-centric. “We do specialty cocktails that pair with the cuisine,” Ms. Dietz says. 

It wasn’t planned that the supper clubs feature international cuisine, but they did last winter, and Ms. Dietz says that will likely stay the same this winter. “As a community, Jackson Hole is very well-traveled,” she says. “And we don’t have restaurants where people can go and get something that they might have had when they were in Morocco or South Korea.” Last winter’s three supper clubs featured menus inspired by three countries: Morocco, India, and South Korea. “These menus were fun for me because they’re not necessarily cuisine you’d pair with wine,” Ms. Dietz says. 

Even though the supper clubs are distinctly different from the wine dinners, Ms. Dietz approaches the wine pairings similarly—a mix of known wines and regions with lesser-known ones. At last winter’s Moroccan supper club, Ms. Dietz paired a Chateau d’Etroyes white burgundy with baked cod, potatoes, and olives. “That seems like a classic pairing,” she says. At the Korean supper club, she paired pa muchim (scallion salad) with a Grüner Veltliner. “This is classic in the sense that grüner often pairs well with green veggies that are hard to pair with other wines,” Ms. Dietz says. “But I wouldn’t think Austrian wine with Korean food initially.”  

Ms. Dietz’s thinking on what she paired the lamb shank with at the wine dinner I attended was spot on: 2016 Johann Michel Cornas. This smokey, voluptuous Rhone-style red blend so perfectly paired with the lamb that, after dinner, I wandered into the Wine Shop and bought two bottles to enjoy with my leftovers at home.

At the time this issue went to press, Dornans hadn’t yet set the schedule for this winter’s multicourse dinners. Go to dornans.com for this winter’s dates. Its restaurant is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., and you can always buy a bottle in the wine shop, which is adjacent to the restaurant, and drink it with your meal in the restaurant. On non-specialty-dinner nights, Dornans’ menu features pizzas and pastas. JH