Three-Star Michelin Restaurant Brings Hot Pots To Park City

One of California’s finest restaurant teams is relocating to Utah next month for a culinary pop-up worthy of the red-carpet treatment. Kyle and Katina Connaughton, the husband-and-wife chefs behind the three-star Michelin restaurant SingleThread Farms in Sonoma County are presenting a ten-day hot-pot dining experience during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, and hosted by the brand new Lodge at Blue Sky, Auberge Resorts Collection.

Usu-Zan by SingleThread pays homage to the Connaughton’s time spent living, learning and cooking in Hokkaido, Japan, as young chefs. The exclusive ten-day run is scheduled for January 20-30 at the new 46-room Auberge Resort that’s set on 3,500 acres near Deer Valley Resort.

“Our winters in Hokkaido were some of the most formative in our lives,” Kyle Connaughton says. “Katina and I would sit for hours fortifying the broth, sharing sake and talking. It was a way of cooking and a way of life that changed us forever. The experience of gathering around the table with friends and family while enjoying rich, soulful donabe hot pots inspired many of the ideas of what SingleThread would one day become.”

The entire SingleThread staff will be on hand during the engagement, staged inside a glamorously re-imagined barn at the resort called Arena. The seven-course dinner is centered around a handmade donabe hot pot with the options of Hokkaido king crab seafood miso, an A-5 Wagyu shabu-shabu hot pot, a roasted Duclair duck hot pot, or a Shojin -style vegetarian hot pot. Wine pairings include Dom Pérignon Champagne along with some of the finest producers from Sonoma County and around the world. Vegetables are from the SingleThread Farm and Gracie’s Farm at Blue Sky. After dinner, guests will retreat to a whiskey bar lounge for dessert bites and digestifs.

Only 25 tables are available per evening with seatings beginning each night at 5:00pm. Dinner packages are $800 or $900 per person (depending on main course selection) and include those high-flying beverage pairings. Booking information is here.

Although the Connaughton grew up in Southern California, their menus are inspired by their years living and cooking abroad in both the UK and Japan. Their Sonoma restaurant is known for its handmade custom dishes and donabe from 8th-generation master potters of Iga. In awarding SingleThread three stars, Michelin said, “Exquisite barely begins to describe a meal at this Healdsburg jewel, where every detail has been considered, from the moss and flowers cradling the amuse-bouche presentation to the packets of heirloom seeds that are sent home as parting gifts.”

Tucked into the Wasatch Mountains, The Lodge at Blue Sky, Auberge Resorts Collection is set on 3,500 private acres and is the area’s most luxurious new outpost for hiking, fly fishing, clay shooting, horseback riding and heli-skiing. The Lodge’s restaurant, YUTA, helmed by James Beard Award-Winning Executive Chef Galen Zamarra, serves cuisine created with ingredients sourced from an onsite organic farm. The resort has an on-site High West Whiskey distillery, and its own 30,000-square-foot indoor equestrian center and rescue sanctuary.