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Park City • Todd Mark Miller, Mary Cech and Robert Valaika have learned from some of the world's greatest chefs, worked in some of the country's most prestigious restaurants and impressed diners in some of America's savviest food towns.
With these credentials, these three chefs could choose to work anywhere in the country. Yet Park City is where they've decided to put down roots and showcase their culinary know-how.
Hollywood directors, producers and actors will get to see these culinary stars perform during the 10-day Sundance Film Festival, which starts Thursday. Utahns, of course, have an invitation to enjoy their food all year long.
Here's a snapshot of where these Main Street chefs have been and what brought them to the Beehive.
TODD MARK MILLER
Utah keeps calling Todd Mark Miller home.
The 43-year-old, who most recently was the executive chef for STK in New York City and Miami Beach, has returned to his native state to be the chef at Silver.
After four months of renovating the centuries-old building at 508 Main and creating a new upscale menu for the restaurant and lounge, Silver still isn't the biggest endeavor in Miller's life. That honor belongs to Emmanuelle Monica Miller, his first child, born two weeks ago, complete with a full head of dark hair like her dad.
"If you're going to go big, go really big," Miller said.
Silver, whose name pays tribute to this mountain town's mining history, will host several private parties during Sundance, including InStyle magazine's famous celebrity photo shoots. Silver will officially open to the public in early February.
After working in New York City, Los Angles, Las Vegas and Miami Beach, as well as several foreign countries, Miller said he was ready to start a new chapter of his career in Park City.
"It's the best of the both worlds," he said. " You have the European clientele and visitors from the east and west coasts in the winter and then in the spring, summer and fall you can cater to the locals."
Miller, an East High graduate, got his first taste of the food world while working at Deer Valley Ski Resort. He ditched his college studies — psychology and sculpture — and went to work at Prime, Jean-Georges Vongerichten's award-winning restaurant in the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.
After stints at the Mandalay Bay and the Four Seasons in Las Vegas, Singapore and The Maldives, Miller returned to Utah to open Fresco Italian Café and Café Trio.
Then he was off again, this time to Philadelphia where he was the executive chef at the highly acclaimed Barclay Prime steakhouse. The $100 Kobe Philly Cheese Steak he created earned him national attention and local fame.
Miller returned to Utah again as the chef at Metropolitan before he was hired away by STK
While at STK New York, he once again took an American classic and gave it a bold twist when he created the mini-Big Mac appetizer, made of Wagyu beef, goat cheese, his signature sauce, plus house-made pickles and fresh truffles and truffle oil.
It's still too early to tell what he might create for Park City. But the Silver menu already includes The Silver Bar dessert, a panna cotta shaped like a silver bar coated with "silver" cocoa butter and chocolate "dirt."
MARY CECH
Some people plan to retire in a place where the weather is hot.
Others — like award-winning pastry chef and cookbook author Mary Cech — want a hot place to ski.
"We love to ski and we love the lifestyle," said Cech, who moved to Park City about six years ago with her husband, Elliott, a nuclear engineer.
A few months ago, Cech, considered one of the top pastry chefs in the country, began working for Talisker, where she is creating gourmet chocolates and high-end desserts. The offerings can be enjoyed on numerous Park City properties, from Talisker on Main to Spruce at Waldorf Astoria (formerly the Dakota Mountain Lodge).
Cech, a native of Ohio, got her big culinary break when she worked for two years as the pastry chef at Charlie Trotter's. She helped the famed restaurant in Chicago earn its 4-star rating.
Later, she helped open the Grand Wailea, a five-diamond resort in Maui and the iconic Cypress Club restaurant in San Francisco. She was twice named to the list of "Top Ten Pastry Chefs in America" by Chocolate magazine and was named "Pastry Chef of the Year" by Chefs in America.
More than just a master pastry artist, Cech also is a teacher. She was one of five instructors selected to launch the Culinary Institute of America's Greystone campus in Napa Valley. She helped design the curriculum as well as teach courses.
Cech has shared her pastry knowledge throughout her career, which has taken her to several foreign countries and to cities across the U.S.
Cech has compiled her best recipes into two cookbooks. Her first, The Wine Lover's Dessert Cookbook, was released in 2005, followed by Savory Baking in 2009.
While Cech and her husband say they're not ready to retire, a few years ago they began to think about places where they might want to live when their working days were through. They weren't interested in sunny Palm Springs, Calif., or Boca Raton, Fla. Their senior plan had to include mountains and snow.
"We were seeking a ski area where we could eventually retire," Cech said, and Vail, Colo., was an obvious choice. Then fate stepped in: Elliott was offered a job to continue his career at the University of Utah and the couple relocated to Park City. "Everything just kind of fell into place," said Cech.
ROBERT VALAIKA
A perfect day for chef Robert Valaika would be to ski Utah powder in the morning and cook his innovative Asian cuisine at night.
Not surprisingly, the 40-year-old has many perfect days each winter.
"It's the whole reason why I'm here," said Valaika, the chef and co-owner of Shabu Freestyle Asian Cuisine restaurant.
It's a long way from the Benihana in Chicago, where Valaika took an interest in cooking. He attended the top-rated culinary school at Kendall College and, after graduation, worked at Charlie Trotter's famed Chicago restaurant.
His cooking interests were further shaped when he went to work for legendary chef Nobu Matsuhisa. Valaika was instrumental in opening Nobu's restaurant in Aspen, Colo., in 1998, and worked for several years in Nobu's Los Angeles kitchens.
But Valaika missed the mountains, something he came to love as a child during family ski trips to Vail.
"I worked for Nobu for a long time and I admired his techniques and cooking," Valaika said. "But Los Angeles didn't have the skiing and the backpacking and the fishing, everything I love to do."
Besides the outdoor adventures, Park City offered Valaika a chance to go into business with his oldest brother, Kevin. The siblings started Park City Private Chefs in 2002 and launched Shabu in 2004. Thanks to Valaika's "freestyle" approach to Asian food, the restaurant was named one of the best new restaurants in America in by Conde Nast Traveler magazine.
Valaika's menu is an eclectic mix of sushi, Japanese hot pot — known as shabu shabu — and traditional meat-and-potatoes entrees with Asian flair: think grilled beef tenderloin with a Thai basil sauce served over kung pao potato puree.
In December, Shabu moved from its original location — inside the Main Street Mall — to 442 Main. The new basement location is smaller but more centrally located, and so far is bringing in more foot traffic, Valaika said.
While much of the menu remains the same, Valaika is always experimenting. Take for instance his new "hot rocks" entrée that allows diners to cook thinly sliced Wagyu beef on stones that are sizzling at 500 degrees.
"The stones were really hard to find," he said. "I had to research it forever and ever. But thanks to my Matsuhisa connections, I'm all set. I think I'm the only one doing hot rocks."
Valaika said in the kitchen — and on the slopes — he likes to push the boundaries a bit.
"It keeps people interested, and it makes my job more exciting," he said.
Food and Film
Here are five celebrity chefs that will be in Park City this week cooking for the stars:
Brian Malarkey • The fourth-place finisher on Bravo's "Top Chef" Season 3 will be at ChefDance, in the basement of Harry O's, on Friday Jan. 21.
Michael Voltaggio • Winner of "Top Chef" Season 6 will be at The Samsung Galaxy Tab Lift, 825 Main, on Saturday, Jan. 22.
Kerry Simon • Chef for Palms Palace in Las Vegas, cooking at ChefDance on Sunday, Jan. 23.
Michael Chiarello • Emmy-winning host of the Food Network's "Easy Entertaining" and Chef at Bottega, will be cooking at the Napa Valley Film Festival Launch Party at the St. Regis Deer Valley, Monday, Jan. 24.
Johnny Ciao • Personal chef to Michael Jackson and other Hollywood stars will be cooking at House of Blues Park City on Jan. 28 and 29.