NEW YORK — Still raining in the city, the wet, overcast, sleepy Sunday morning obfuscated any awareness of time. It could be 8 a.m., it could be 5 p.m., didn’t matter — the Stein Eriksen Lodge brought a bloody mary-fueled brunch to the packed James Beard Platform venue.With quite possibly the booziest brunch in the city, guests were greeted with Alpine Distilling whiskey shots garnished with oat milk and coffee or orange liqueur. Sip or tip back, then wander to the bar where a Stein Eriksen Lodge x James Beard Foundation ice sculpture housed Sara Sergent of Alpine Distilling’s custom gin, Aquavit, made specially in small batches for Stein Eriksen Lodge.Grab a chilled glass of gin to enjoy while waiting in line for three types of Bloody Marys made by Jason Barrett, the beverage director at the lodge. A traditional, a fermented and a clarified style each used Alpine Distilling spirits, and most elements were made from tomatoes and peppers grown in Barrett’s own backyard in Utah. Each had an extravagant garnish — a skewer of a cherry tomato, biquinho pepper and a slice of red snapper fish topped their traditional; a cheese-stuffed celery balanced on the edge of the clarified version, transparent by using a tomato consommé instead of juice; the fermented style had a skewer of olive, pepper and a cube of yellow beet.Then find your seat, which had a glass of champagne at the ready, topped off generously throughout the meal. Needless to say, the event challenged Utah alcohol stereotypes.Credit: Katie Hatzfeld/Park RecordThe Stein Eriksen Lodge, named after the Olympic ski legend who later became director of skiing at Deer Valley Resort, is inspired by the man’s Norwegian heritage. A lot of the influence of flavors and dishes are from Norway and the Viking era, and over the years their brunch has become legend, too.“We are very well known for our Sunday brunch,” said Executive Chef Zane Holmquist. “People come far and wide for the last 20, 30 years for our Sunday brunch. So we just took some ideas of different things we do. The buffet menu rotates seasonally, works with our local vendors and then changes as the weather changes, so we just brought in some of those pieces.”Holmquist was front and center Sunday afternoon preparing an appetizer of elk tartare with Ski Queen cheese on a viking bread cracker and topped with rye-cured egg yolk shavings — a savory and transformative flavor experience that betrayed Holmquist’s creativity.“We did some Utah flavors and some Scandinavian flavors,” said Holmquist.But the seed of the five-course meal was a pork belly dish, he said. Using pork brought from Utah, the course served a tower of crispy, salty pork belly along with a coddled duck egg and potato-and-mushroom hash. From there, he worked with his team of chefs to put the rest of the menu together.A clear crowd pleaser was their take on a “fruit cup.”“I wanted to have that idea of a fruit cup when you were a kid, and they gave it to you in the cafeteria, you got the little fruit cup that you pulled (the lid) off,” Holquist said. “So I sat down with Jeremy and said, ‘I want a fruit cup, but it’s not a fruit cup, but it’s a fruit cup.’”The end result was a container shaped like a condensed milk can, filled with a dulce de leche cream, fresh berries like figs, cherries and raspberries, with freeze-dried peaches along the side.“When you see ‘fruit cup,’ everyone had a different vision of what that was going to be. I don’t think anyone thought that’s what it was going to be,” Holmquist said. “So I like it when the menu paints a picture for you, and then it’s different than that picture.” Credit: Katie Hatzfeld/Park RecordHe had a similar approach to a “Lobster and eggs” course, which used different types of caviar instead of traditional eggs.The meal also featured a bread selection with cinnamon knots; pear and rhubarb skolebrod, a Norwegian sweet bun; and a sechskornbrot, a style of rye bread. For dessert, a pistachio and fig cake, called a kransekake, was plated with whipped ricotta and Utah honey.Holmquist, born and raised in Park City, who’s worked as a chef all over the world before returning to the Wasatch Back, talked about how events like these help change the perception people have of the city.“I think people don’t realize — they think Park City’s kind of the country, the backwoods, if you will. And I think you’re missing out. I think our food is comparable with any other ski town, any other ski city. I think we have a group of talented chefs, and it’s really fun to be part of that community,” he said.The Sunday brunch by Stein Eriksen Lodge was the final event of the Park City run at Platform in New York City.The post Stein Eriksen Lodge brunch a boozy finale to Park City chefs’ visit to New York appeared first on Park Record.