The inaugural “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” event unfolded on a summer evening in July. The setting was a long table beautifully set on the lawn right by the river at The Joy & Wylde Redstone Art Gallery. At the helm was the innovative Chef Matthew Betcher, whose “Dear Wild” punk dinner delivered an unconventional culinary journey. As the sun bathed the surrounding mountains in the evening summer light, guests immersed themselves in an experience that challenged traditional notions of fine dining. This wasn’t just a meal; it was a statement, a carefully orchestrated blend of local flavors and avant-garde techniques that set the tone for what promises to be a groundbreaking series in the world of experiential dining.
Dear Wild, is a love letter to everything wild, creative and nourishing to body and soul. Underground experiential supper clubs incorporate foraged wild foods, sustainable farming and ranching and a unique blend of techniques gathered from cuisines throughout the world. Food should go beyond just sustainable and create an experience. Dear Wild, pushes beyond the constraint of the usual dining experience to create something more cerebral and creative; incorporating new potential food paths, history and art. A sport of punk attitude through a fine dining lens.
Matthew Betcher
When Chef Matthew first mentioned his punk dinners, claiming they were “a thing” in L.A., my curiosity was immediately piqued. An online search yielded no results, adding an air of mystery to the concept. My imagination conjured up images of avant-garde diners adorned in tuxedo tails emblazoned with crystal skeletons, their bodies a canvas of piercings and tattoos, fingers tipped with black-polished nails. As for the punk food, all I knew was that the proposed menu was a delicate balance of complexity and simplicity, featuring locally foraged ingredients transformed through fermentation and tincturing. Each dish was to be paired not with sipping wines but with carefully selected vintages designed to complement the fermented flavors. This concept embodied my long-held dream of chefs unleashing their creativity beyond restaurant confines. Embracing the unknown, I was prepared to cast caution aside and immerse myself fully in this culinary adventure.
How did the dinner come to be? It all started in December when I received an invite from the Wise Women group to attend a Shopping Social at the new Joy & Wylde gallery. Upon entering the gallery and shop, beautifully decorated for the holidays with the scents of pine, natural candles, potpourri and incense, I felt stirred to have a culinary experience there. Joy expressed interest in my idea, and together, we worked on hosting a summer feast on her patio to create an unforgettable culinary experience.
While “manifestation” might be an overused term, it would be a mistake to dismiss the unison of Joy, Chef Matthew, and I as mere coincidence, three individuals with a shared creative vision, each playing our roles in the collaboration: Joy designing the aesthetics of the evening, Matthew creating the menu, and I finding the right guests to invite to the table. In our first meeting, they shared their vision for the look and feel of the evening, which included black tablecloths with black flowers. I suggested a splash of color, got shot down, and retreated to my lane, acquiescing to their expertise.
Dear Wild is for Chefs who desire more freedom to experiment outside of the normative restaurant paradigm. It’s an underground supper club by invitation only. It’s like the next iteration of gourmet food trucks but more high-end cuisine with no boundaries or pretense at all (even the food truck is too defined at this point). Interesting cerebral food in unique environments that reflect the avant-garde nature of the sourcing, preparation, and menu.
It’s like the next iteration of gourmet food trucks but more high-end cuisine with no boundaries or pretense at all (even the food truck is too defined at this point). Interesting cerebral food in unique environments that reflect the avant-garde nature of the sourcing, preparation, and menu.
Matthew Betcher
Dear Wild Dinner
On the evening of the Dear Wild dinner, dark thunderclouds threatened to drive us indoors, but mercifully, the rain didn’t come until we were already home and safe in our beds, and we could savor the whole experience as intended.
As Chef Matthew approached our table to introduce each course, he exuded an aura of understated sophistication reminiscent of John Malkovich’s screen presence – calm, enigmatic, and utterly captivating. His movements were deliberate, his words carefully chosen, each syllable infused with a passion for his craft. At our place settings, we discovered small books – an unexpected literary accompaniment to our culinary journey with Chef Matthew’s musings on nature’s abundance, reflections on the rhythmic dance of seasons and time’s relentless march, and contemplations on humanity’s complex relationship with the earth. These poetic offerings served as a philosophical framework for the eight courses to come, inviting us to engage with our food on both a sensory and intellectual level.
COAL
The first course, Coal, with Yuca and Hopi Blue Corn Chica, represented the coke oven ruins outside the Redstone entrance. We looked down at the painted wooden box with what appeared to be a lump of charcoal nestled on top of green onions and twigs. The Chicha was a fermented beverage made from maize, served in a small ceramic shot glass. But a perfectly roasted turnip was revealed when the lump of coal was sliced. Combined with the Chica, the tastes were fresh and soothing, launching us on our wild ride and returning us to Indigenous roots and exquisite tastes.
SUMMER BOUNTY
Stone Fruit, Fermented Tomato Dashi, Nettle Root Vinegar, and Nettle Tincture. This dish was so divine that we plate-lickers revealed ourselves and announced our urge to drink the juice left in the bowl.
VEILED
Lacto Fermented Pear, Burrata, and Duck “Ravioli” was a thinly sliced pear that had the texture of pasta, with the creamiest and freshest of ingredients with Duck and Burrata. The flowers had been gathered by his partner, Alysa.
REFLECTIONS
Trout, Dandelion, Apple, Sorrel Kosho. The Roe created pops of textures, and the flavors were divine, with a native sorrel as the ingredient for a citrus chili paste. The dandelions were fermented, fried, and powdered into salt.
HIDDEN TREASURES
Beef Heart Tartare, Quinoa, Huitlacoche. The Huitlacoche is also known as Mexican Truffle, Corn Smut, or fungi, and was served with a cured egg yolk and quinoa cracker. Of all the dishes, this was the one that I had my doubts about, but we had a hearty group, and everyone tried it, some unwittingly, as they had gone to the restroom while he was explaining the meal. Admittedly, even though I know that organ meat is high in nutrition, I couldn’t have eaten this without the Quinoa and Huitlacoche, but together the tastes surpassed my mental aversion.
LOST / DIVERSITY
Olathe Corn. For this course, Chef Matthew spoke of his passion for history, especially when it comes to sourcing the origins of food, “every civilization in America’s success was dependent on how they raised corn, which has become radically industrialized here, which is super sad. This dish is an homage to the corn we have in the valley; everything on the dish is corn and all the ingredients are corn, with a little bit of salt in the lacto fermented corn silk on top of the corn polenta. The soup had a little bit of Kosho, processed corn into a miso corn cob broth, and freshly squeezed corn on top of that. The accompanying dark liquid was toasted corn husk and water. “It’s a dish that may be a little bland, and it’s also when we go down the rabbit hole of, this is just fucking corn.”
THE HUNT
Elk, Potato, Cherry. The Hunt was Elk Tenderloin treated in a Karibushi manner, “inoculated with Koji, cured, dried and smoked about 12 days, it turns into a rock and then shaved, producing little flakes, like fancy jerky.” The Elk was presented with Cherry Gastrique and potatoes made with “a diastatic malt that is an enzyme that starts to process the complex carbohydrates of the potato, turning them into sugar similar to our bodies as we digest it. You’ll taste sweetness and butteriness, with only potatoes as the ingredient, no salt, no butter, no dairy, nothing.” When asked how he discovered these plates, Chef Matthew answered, “years of studying, exploring, thinking, and testing.”
SUMMER NIGHTS
The dinner ended with smoked spruce-tipped gelato topped with tomato jam and olive oil cake crumble—the perfect end to a glorious evening.
Aquila Cellars
Each course was paired with Aquila Cellars wine, poured by Kade Gianinetti, who houses the wine at his restaurant in Carbondale, the Painted Pig. Also pouring was Brandt Thibodeaux, Land Manager and Winemaker.
Aquila Cellars is Colorado’s natural winery with unfiltered wines that favor energy over power and freshness over richness. The wines are uniquely Coloradan, grown at the highest elevations of North America and produced with the highest vibrations. The wines served were the 2023 Vespa, 2022 and 2019, Grape Verjus, 2023 vernal, 2021 & 2022 Virga which means, when the rain falls but doesn’t hit the ground.”
Most of the wines are available at The Painted Pig’s bottle shop. You can grab a bottle for home or stick around and try a glass on our porch. To taste their entire lineup, book a wine tasting with them.
Aquila Cellars
… Most people pass through the valley without even knowing that Redstone exists. But those that stop are treated to this village stuck somewhere neither here nor in the past.
We sit in this valley with ranches on one side and farms, orchards and vineyards on the other. Some of the best practices in farming are taking place all around us. We continue to import crops, but have yet to revive the ancient and indigenous that grow so naturally here and once provided a strong identity for the native inhabitants…”
Matthew Betcher
Chef Matthew’s impressive culinary background includes time as a sous chef at Le Tour restaurant in Chicago and working with Chef Theresa LaValle to open Jaxx restaurant at the Park Hyatt at Watertower Place. He also staged at Charlie Trotter’s, working directly under Chef Trotter himself when Trotter’s was recognized among the world’s best 50 restaurants. If you follow his Dear Wild feed on Instagram, and I suggest that you do, you’ll see that he describes himself as an “ideator, brand builder, arguer, tinkerer, disruptor, raconteur, adrenaline junky, part-time chef, and coffee snob, with a supper club.”
During my time at the Park Hyatt, I threw private party events in an adjacent brownstone owned by Jack Pritzer (owner of the Park Hyatts and one of the premier contemporary art collectors) cooking under priceless works of contemporary art for Chicago celebrities and notable art world collectors and gallerists. Jack liked his parties. That’s where the concept of combining art and food into intimate events started germinating. I had also realized quite quickly that the restaurant scene as it was, was not for me. It seemed void of real creativity and reeked more of a bullshit machismo I couldn’t stand.
Matthew Betcher
So, Who Came to Dinner?
Dear Wild Dinners, do not allow dietary restrictions to give Chef Matthew a free license to create from the seasonal ingredients available. Surprisingly, not one of the 16 guests asked in advance what was on the menu. My vision was to find people who were ready for the adventure, and that is exactly what the dinner attracted. So who was there? To name a few; Heather Stone, an entrepreneur, a pioneer in the FinTech space, and the host of the Mentors and Moguls Podcast, Jacqueline Neuwirth, and her fashionable mother Elaine, who at 86 is still working at a home consignment store in San Rafael. Elaine was dressed in an oversized Italian cotton striped shirt tied in a knot at the waist, designed by Jacqueline and her daughter for Ours The Brand. Also there was Laurel Gilbert, a retired tech executive and a prominent & admired leader & philanthropist in the Aspen community, who also mentors career-aspiring women, and her friend Sarah Girgis, an Emmy award-winning writer, producer, and director, who is the Arts and Entertainment Editor and Magazine Editor for The Aspen Times. Diane & Randy Utz were also there. Diane is the Owner of Artemis Construction Management LLC, and she is a construction litigation attorney, and Randy is a Project Executive for Skanska USA. Gabriella Aratow is Aspen’s top and only matchmaker with Keeper Intro Services (KIS), Alice Francis is the COO of Scenset Travel, Megan Erwin Miller is a Visual Artist, Photographer & Real Property Estate Agent, and her boyfriend, Graham Frandson, is a multi-decade local business leader with expertise in culinary experiences & currently endeavoring a company that creates sustainable energy through reconversion systems in oil & gas. Marisa de Lempicka is the great-granddaughter of Tamara de Lempicka and maintains the Estate, Valery Kelly is the founder and creative director of SnowlightArts.com, and Michelle Hyken is an Energy Healer specializing in facilitating the flow of energy within the body to help release blockages and restore balance. A perfect blend of creatives, techs, philanthropists, and business owners.
Jacqueline Neuwirth
and Magazine Editor for The Aspen Times
The kickoff Culinary Adventure Series with “Dear Wild” educated us with every course. Each dish told a story, and every flavor tested our taste buds while stimulating our culinary imagination, exceeding what we thought possible in a dining experience.
I look forward to more culinary adventures with varying chefs to turn the tables on the current norms, making every experience worth paying for, where unique dishes will transcend typical restaurant fare and be presented in settings beyond conventional dining environments.
If you have an off-the-beaten-path venue, are a chef with a culinary adventure in mind, want to sponsor a dinner, or if you want to secure your spot for our next “Dear Wild” dinner in the fall, email Jillian at [email protected].
