Eats: Home-Cooking Away From Home

Nineteen years ago, Tom Ricci and Joe Honnessy borrowed a concept from a restaurant in Australia and opened the doors on a Minturn tradition: the Minturn Country Club, a sociable bar and grill just east of Beaver Creek that makes up in atmosphere what it lacks in glitz. Dinner goes like this: You grab a mug of Anchor Steam at the old wood bar, secure a table, then mosey over to the “Butcher Shop” in the back. Ordering off blackboard menus, you choose slabs of beef (12-ounce New York steaks, dry-aged ribeyes, bacon-wrapped filets), freshly cut seafood (Alaskan salmon, yellowfin tuna, ruby trout), lemon-dill chicken or shish kebabs. A “butcher” hands your order over-uncooked-and points you to the lava-rock grill. Eagerly, you proceed to sizzle your selections to perfection, pick up sides of garlic mashers, steak fries and sautéed veggies, hit the ample salad bar, then rush back to your table to devour what might be the best-darn meal you’ve ever cooked.