NEW YORK — The sun had already set as people wandered along the darkening Hudson River, turning into the Market at Pier 57 in pairs and quads. Through the stylized warehouse dining venue, large, illuminated letters toward the back read “PLATFORM,” underscored by “The James Beard Foundation.” The professional kitchen is on full display through walls of windows.Platform is the newest venue by James Beard, a space designed to support the nonprofit’s mission through events and classes that showcase the people and places behind America’s food culture.This week, Park City is taking the big city stage with five events showcasing the culinary accomplishments of the Wasatch Back and their chefs.Kris Moon, president and chief operating officer of the James Beard Foundation, welcomed the Park City delegates and spoke about the foundation’s mantra, “good food for good.”“We really operate in that intersection where deliciousness and gastronomy and the power of what happens when you put food and beverage on the table, where that intersects with our world,” he said. “Our work as a nonprofit is to create a better food world, one that’s more equitable, more sustainable, more resilient for the industry and certainly more delicious.”Delicious was especially the goal this week, as the Park City Area Restaurant Association had chosen five Park City chefs and two beverage makers to serve a series of Utah-focused meals.“It’s so nice to see this week come to fruition,” Moon said.To kick off the week, Seth Adams, the executive chef and owner of Riverhorse on Main, put together a taste of Riverhorse on Main, a dinner designed around the idea of “Park City meets New York City.”Wild game sausage meatballs and corn fritters started the evening as hors d’oeuvres, paired with Riverhorse Beverage Director Ashley Smith’s cocktail creation, “The Orange Olive,” showcasing Alpine Distilling’s Elevated Gin fat washed with Mountain Town Orange Olive oil, another Park City company.“What an honor to be here, to be invited. I think it’s a great foundation and couldn’t be happier with the staff and the people here. So it’s a great honor,” said Adams, who mingled with guests before the meal.He described the menu for the night as “busy.”“There’s a trio of everything on every dish — a trio of meat, trio of vegetables, trio of fish, trio of desserts. So there’s a lot of components, but making it very fun for the flavors and for us to plate it,” he said.The fish trio came out first with striped bass, the state fish of New York, clam and lobster. The clam was served like a deconstructed lobster roll, striped bass plated in a ceviche-like salad, and a lobster chowder was finished on the plate by pouring the chowder base over a small bowl of lobster and purple potato.Next was the garden trio, a light break of vegetables to keep pace for night. The three dishes were a layered potato cake with a parmesan crisp, a chard and artichoke salad and cauliflower dressed in a Thai chili glaze over a puffed rice cracker.The land trio was the meat lovers’ portion of the night, with Utah-raised lamb, a buffalo short rib and a New York duck. A Utah cherry sauce paired with the short rib, so tender it slipped off a crisp-white bone. The duck was served on top of cornbread caramelized with fois gras butter, a sweet-and-savory flavor explosion, but the lamb cutlet was the true star, a testament to Utah lamb as some of the best in the world. The trio of desserts called “New York Apples” incorporated apples into each bite and was the masterpiece of Riverhorse’s Pastry Chef Shirley Butler Bordas. A chocolate mousse sat on a drizzle of apple cider caramel, a square of apple whiskey cake, still warm, had an almost pecan-pie sweetness, and a custard tart was topped with a light pink sauce, light and tangy. Each course was paired with wines from Barlow Vineyard.At the end of the meal, Moon welcomed Adams back out for questions from the audience: How did the menu come together? Was the altitude change a challenge? Is there a difference between New York palate and mountain town palates? What was the enjoyment-to-stress-level ratio?“A lot of time when we do these dinners, it’s where menu items come from eventually at the restaurant. So we use it as kind of a platform, no pun intended, as something to really inspire us to change our menu,” Adams said. “We use it as an experiment, so most of it we’ve never even cooked before.”Transporting some of the menu items out from Park City posed challenges, he admitted, such as crab apples and a poblano “cup” not surviving the flight, packages getting lost in the mail. But adapting on the fly is part of the game, he said. A roar of applause showed the guests’ appreciation for the night’s meal and his team’s ingenuity. The hope now? Maybe some guests will be inspired to visit Park City for more.“We have a great food scene. We have great restaurants, and Park City is just a great place to be,” said Adams.There are four more events highlighting Park City chefs at the Platform venue — a cocktail party with High West Distillery, a lunch with Courchevel Bistro, a dinner with Tupelo Park City and a brunch with Stein Eriksen Lodge. Follow The Park Record on our social media for video recaps of each event, too.The post Riverhorse on Main kicks off series as Park City chefs visit New York City appeared first on Park Record.