603: TASTE Travels: Eating and Drinking Really Well in Traverse City, Michigan

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0:32There's a lot of other things that Traverse City offers too. That culinary and really elegant experiences that are starting to be more and more available. You know, it's a hidden gem and we feel really lucky to get to be here year round. But the summer is pretty much the pinnacle of the experience.

0:53This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard. Today we have a very fun episode highlighting one of the country's emerging culinary cities, Traverse City, Michigan. Located in northern Michigan on the stunning shores of Lake Michigan, Traverse City has a restaurant and wine scene that attracts visitors from around the globe. And this August marks the debut of Traverse City Food and Wine, running August 20th through 24th. In this episode, we speak with some of the people who make Traverse City such a special place. First up, we speak with Sarah Welch, a top chef finalist who ran the acclaimed restaurant Mero in Detroit before moving to Traverse City to open a forthcoming restaurant with her husband, Cameron Rolka.

1:36Next up, we hear from Traverse City Food and Wine Festival director Whitney Wara about the amazing event with a lineup of chefs including Tyler Florence, Jihae Kim, Mei Lin, and Kate Williams. To close, we learn about Traverse City's growing wine region from Patrick Brise of Brise Estate Vineyard and Winery. This very special episode is supported by Traverse City Tourism and Pure Michigan. I hope you enjoy it.

2:07Sarah Welsh, welcome to This Is Taste. It's so great to speak with you. Yeah, I'm psyched to be here. Yeah, so you're in Traverse City, Michigan right now, where you'll be soon opening a restaurant, your own restaurant. You were previously a chef in Detroit, and we're going to talk all about Traverse City. But I want to just know, like, you're in town, getting things ready to open. What restaurants are you enjoying right now? Are there any wineries? I'd just love to get your take. Yeah, so my husband and I have been coming up here just kind of like extracurricularly for a really long time. And I think we've had the opportunity to kind of watch the food scene blossom a little bit.

2:42So when we first started coming up here years and years and years ago, we just like would come to Cook's house. That's like what you did. And that's still true. Like we definitely still do that. But it's been really nice over the past couple of years to have opportunities to go to Modern Bird where, you know, we got introduced to Andy and we're becoming friends with him and we get carry out from Crocodile Palace. I remember the first time we did that, we were like, oh, this is good. Very refreshing. And then, yeah, like the more time we've spent up here, obviously the wine industry is insane. There's so much to know.

3:14I think we've just kind of tapped into it, but recently made friends with the folks over at Folklore and are really obsessed with what they're doing. The co-fermentation they're doing of like grapes and cider has been really fun to experience. just, I don't know, kind of reminds us a little bit of what we're hoping to do, which is like take really traditional things and kind of push the boundaries a little bit and get people excited about something new. Such an exciting time. And I just really wanted to have you on because I've followed your amazing work at Mero in Detroit and as well as your time on Top Chef.

3:49You left Mero in April and you honestly, you know, you have this great platform. I mean, Mero is a well-regarded restaurant butch shop like nationally. You could have gone anywhere. You could have gone to L.A. You could have gone to Chicago. But you ended up in Traverse City, which is a really, really cool pick for such an emerging food scene. What drew you to the city? Yeah, I think initially we were we like joke about it all the time. But we have a dog. We're like those people that talk about their dog all the time. And we just decided that the best life we could possibly live would be the one that would make our dog the most happy.

4:24And every time we come up here, you know, it's just he's running around off leash like a wild man. And so I think, you know, in the past two years, we certainly started to consider what life would be like if we were up here more often. And then, yeah, marrow is growing just so exponentially. And I can appreciate that growth a lot. But it was growing in a direction that put me further away from food and from people. And so seeing what Cameron's done at Mink, which if you're not familiar, it's a 17-seat little oyster bar where it's like they feed you directly kind of omakase style. The experience is just unmatched.

5:00And I found myself like feeling jealousy for how he was getting to interact with guests and food and just kind of probed him and was like, would you want to just like try and recreate this on our own up north? And it was a yes. And so we really started looking and Traverse City felt kind of robust enough to be able to support the kind of dining experience we want to offer. But it also is just such a great jumping off point for us to be kind of the hermits that we love to be, which is like, you know, we're up here right now just sleeping in a tent in 40 degree weather. Like we're in it to rough it.

5:35So it's a great hub from a culinary perspective, but it's also just such a great jumping off point for experiencing the beauty of northern Michigan. And so like that's kind of why we're in it is that dual capacity. We didn't want to be so far out that there wasn't a community to support us, but we wanted to be close enough to wilderness to be able to experience it more than every once in a while. I mean, that's the beauty of Traverse City. You know, I grew up in Kalamazoo, just, you know, in West Michigan and just having that robust community and having like world class coffee and all styles of restaurants.

6:05But then 15, 20 minutes outside of town, you're in absolute spectacular wildlife and splendor. And I just I want to hear a little bit about this restaurant that you're opening with Cameron. And I know you haven't let out a lot of details, but I have to ask you, how will this fit into this Traverse City scene? Yeah, we're being pretty shy about the details. We're still waiting on the SBA to give us the go ahead. So if anybody has any strings they want to pull in the ether, please do. But yeah, we're hoping to kind of be a part of the mid-upper level dining experience. I think what Forrest is doing over at the Forrest Food Studio is kind of in the realm of what we hope to do.

6:48So really experiential dining, we are going to be small. So like I said, Mink is 17 seats. We're going to be 25 at our new spot. And most recently, it's been looking like it will be all bar seating. So not a bar, but a dining experience where you are kind of sitting on the other side of a kitchen that feeds you. And I don't know, for me growing up, like dinner time was often like us sitting at a kitchen bar and our mom just kind of cooking and feeding us as we go. And I kind of equate this dining experience to be like that. You can't have food that's fresher than when it's being prepared across from you and served to you.

7:25And that's kind of what we're hoping to create. It sounds really, really cool. And I think it's the kind of format that draws a lot of attention when it's a special counter-style restaurant and you're really able to make it small and intimate, but also have really big expirations. I think I've spoken with lots of chefs in this early phase of creating their restaurants. And I think it really starts with the farmers. It starts with the wineries when you're building your menus. And tell me, when you're up in Traverse City, what are you thinking about in terms of the farms up there and these wineries?

8:00I mean, are there any specific farms that you enjoy or any like northern Michigan products that you're just excited to cook with? I mean, we're obsessed with everything we come across when we're up here. It's like a carrot looks different up here for some reason. We go to Providence often. But so when we when we first opened Mero and Mink, there was a really awesome company that actually has so much more influence over my career in Michigan than I would have thought. But it was called Cherry Capital Foods. And they used to bring exceptionally grown produce from this area down to the city. And so my first taste of kind of what Traverse City had to offer was through them and just seeing how insanely high quality the stuff that we were getting from northern Michigan was.

8:45And that was after being brought to us, right, from downstate. So kind of coming to the fountainhead of that was certainly in our minds. I think we are so much less informed about what there is to offer up here than we are in the Detroit area. And I think being up here and really getting our feet wet will help with that. We look forward to establishing a lot of direct farmer relationships. And in Detroit right now, it's less of a, we want this, and it's more of a, what do you have? And I think that will certainly be the relationship we hope to cultivate up here. It's just meeting with farmers, seeing what they're having a hard time moving, and then being, you know, a receptacle for that that transforms it in ways that maybe other restaurants in the area aren't doing it or in familiar but different ways.

9:29So we always love to create that relationship of kind of not necessarily shopping, but taking from farmers what they need to get rid of. And that is the creative muse for a lot of what we do. Oh, my gosh. And it says so much that you were using northern Michigan produce all the way in Detroit. 100 percent. I mean, it says so much about the region. I think the agricultural region around Traverse City is so like punches well above its weight. and what's like a just what comes to mind when you're thinking about northern Michigan produce specific ingredients that you cooked with that marrow and and the way you you really use this terrific agriculture yeah I think a lot of the ingredients that we get excited about up here are like why we're up here camping this weekend we're up here for like ramps and morels we spent the past couple of days just in the woods just being hopeful we found we found two morels so So a lot of, yeah, a lot of the ingredients we're excited about are ones that aren't necessarily cultivated.

10:28But in terms of cultivated products, I mean, it's everything, right? It's honey. It's maple syrup. It's, again, the beautiful vegetables that are grown up here. I think if you can remove miles from their journey, you know, to your plate, you're only doing them even more justice. And so we're just so excited to be closer to that. And I'm just thrilled to make more connections with folks in meat up here. I think at Merrow, to a certain extent, the farmer partners that we have now are bigger than ones we've had in the past when we were getting like a lamb or a beef. And, you know, we're quite big now.

11:05And so I have a new kind of fresh opportunity to establish some new connections with smaller farms where my needs aren't as great. And that is something that's very, very exciting to me. Well, let's talk a little bit about wine. I mean, the region has over 50 wineries and the styles really vary tremendously. Think of it as cold weather grapes. And, you know, that's one of the hottest categories in global wine today. And these are the types and styles of wines that diners from New York and San Francisco and all the folks who visit Traverse City want. And it's a region that really is emerging in a cool way.

11:42How are you thinking about wineries? Are there any wineries that you're excited about to work with? I have always fangirled over the bubbles up here. So I'm definitely a bubbles girl. I like Pet Nats, but I also like, you know, champagne and Prosecco and kind of all of the more traditional forms of sparkling wine. And so I think that's something that Michigan has proven it can do really well. And for that reason, I hope to see a ton of bubbles on our list. I think in being up here, what we're going to be looking for from a wine perspective are less traditional wines, maybe lower intervention wines.

12:25And then also we hope to feature a bunch of kind of other products. So like I said, Folklore, what they're doing with co-fermentation is very exciting to us. So we hope to kind of support that. And we're going to be small enough that we don't need huge amounts to be able to sustain, right? So it's like we can have a couple bottles of something really exceptional, and that'll last us for a little bit longer than it would a restaurant that has maybe 80 seats. So we're, yeah, we're hoping to dig up some of the weirder stuff. Yeah, it's going to be exciting to present that, especially when it's around the corner from the restaurant.

12:58It'll be a nice story to tell. And again, these wines are exceptional. They really are on a national level. And a lot of the producers are making smaller batches of things that aren't leaving the area, which I think is very exciting. It's like, yeah, you can find some of these wines downstate or even in other states, but what you can find kind of in somebody's cellar that they only have 10 bottles of, like, that's what I get excited about. Well, let's talk a little bit about the community in Traverse City. You know, you're newly moving there and you're new on the scene. What's it been like to speak with, you know, the local restaurant community and the bottle shops and the folks who you're in the industry with in Traverse City?

13:38Yeah, I mean, I have had some connections to this area for a little bit. So Jen over at Cook's House has been a huge supporter for a very long time. We actually met at Pigstock, which was an event that used to take place, also hosted by Cherry Capital Foods. And it was just a great opportunity for professionals to come together and learn about sustainable farming. and so I met her there and we ended up doing a pop-up at Cook's house Cameron and I and yeah, our relationship kind of just flourished, a friendship and I think, you know, I joke all the time that I'm going to make shirts that say Jen for mayor but she has been kind of the person that has connected us to most of the people that we know up here and Andy at Modern Burn has been hugely helpful at Forest Food Studios, also super helpful the guys at Crocodile Palace So I kind of feel in coming to Traverse City like I felt coming to Detroit.

14:31I feel like the new kid on the block and, you know, growing up in the food scene under people, you know, like Andy Holiday and Brad Greenhill and Anthony Lombardo. So like there always is, I kind of feel like they're a little sibling. And to a certain extent, I feel like I'm just throwing myself into that in Traverse City again in being the new kid on the block. But it's been very welcoming. And it's also been really candid, you know, about the challenges to running a restaurant up here and how to brace yourself for them and navigate around them. And I think that is just so refreshing because it's really easy to sugarcoat it.

15:08But to really be able to talk shop and see how the community comes together to support these restaurants in the slower season is really refreshing. Yeah, it's a really great point when you can be transparent about operating a restaurant, which we know we talk about on the show all the time. It's so difficult, even in the best times. So to get some real straight talk and then also see the tremendous upside of operating there and not Detroit. I mean, like, tell me about when you're not going to be on the clock and, you know, you got your dog in mind, of course. So what are you going to be doing like for fun when you're not at the restaurant?

15:41I mean, what's the what's the region like for you? Yeah, we're fish nerds. So we definitely do a lot of fishing. Right now we come up here and do the, you know, the salmon run and the steelhead run already. So I think we'll definitely be spending a lot of time fishing. And one of the things that, you know, I don't necessarily think it's us clocking out. But back in Detroit, we would host kind of venison breakdown workshops where we would turn venison into ham and sausage and cool stuff like that for people that are sick of going to a processor. We're going to be doing that as well. So lots of hunting, lots of fishing.

16:12And eventually, I mean, we don't currently have a plot of land that we're living on. So that's the goal. And I think how that kind of next phase two can happen, like I'm not even capable of thinking about until we get phase one off the ground. But yeah, I think we're looking to participate in northern Michigan living in like every possible way. Oh, it sounds incredible to have a steelhead run in your backyard. Yeah. It seems pretty great for a fish nerd. Yeah, totally. Yeah, so cool. You're going to be appearing at the inaugural Traverse City Food and Wine Festival in August. I'm really excited to – I'll be attending.

16:53I'm excited to go up there and just meet so many of these terrific chefs. And I love that we're linking to the show notes. I highly recommend checking out this festival. It's really special. what will you be up to? Do you have a sense of, you know, an event or two that you're going to participate in? Yeah, we really want to gauge Traverse City's interest in kind of what we do in terms of oysters and caviar. So I think my husband is a weird savant. He's actually a certified like oyster sommelier. So he did the certification. We just want to gauge interest and kind of see what the reception is like to the shellfish that we're going to bring up here and again to caviar.

17:35So working with Motor City Seafood, which is, you know, a Detroit company that has just started to come up to the Traverse City area, certainly gave us confidence that we would be able to do some of the really impeccable sourcing that we do in Detroit up here. and when we opened Mink, our little raw bar, a lot of the suppliers that we use and that Motor City uses were established from an R &D trip that we did before we opened Mink and so we were foot on farm with these oyster producers vetting their processes and kind of like courting them to ship outside of their area to Detroit. We hope to do that again on the East Coast.

18:11We've done the Gulf but trying to bring some of these really beautiful products up to the city, potentially for the first time, and showcase them is really exciting for us and what we hope to do at the Food and Wine Fest. Just bring a selection of some of our favorites that are lesser known because they didn't exist in Detroit until we brought them here. Very, very, very cool. Very cool that you're going to kind of put a stamp on the way you bring seafood in. And then, of course, you use local agriculture as well. You know, some of our listeners, you know, they've never been to Traverse City or even northern Michigan.

18:47And I think it's one of the country's, you know, best kept secrets. But though not much longer, I feel it's going to be out pretty soon. But I just want to ask you to close, you know, why should our listeners visit Traverse City? I mean, my husband and I were joking that I should say don't. Yeah, because it's a secret. Yeah, because we don't want to compete for the space. But I think there's too many good reasons. We were just, you know, driving this morning from Charlevoix down here. And it's just unparalleled. Like the beauty is unparalleled. We stopped at Providence. We got a coffee. You know, there's just, it's an unmatched way to live.

19:33and if you can't live here then visiting you know why not you get to experience all the perks this area has to offer I'm just so excited about honestly like the drive to work I know that sounds insane but like just waking up wherever I am which right now I'll be in a trailer at Blue Dot in Charlevoix and then yeah just commuting to whatever work is for that day the fact that that will be something that people come here to photograph is really an inspiring thing and then to be able to you know one day be a part of why people come up here is I don't know it's very very exciting for us and certainly scary but I can't think of a reason not to come up here other than I don't want to share it yeah I love keeping a secret myself they call that gatekeeping but i but i but i think as a proud michigan or myself i want everyone to visit and it's it's really really a beautiful place well it's been so great catching up with you i cannot wait to visit your new restaurant sarah welsh thank you so much for joining this is taste yeah thanks for having me

20:45whitney wara welcome to this is taste how are you i am doing great today thanks for having me well we've been having some great conversations about traverse city and and really i i want this part of the episode, I want to talk broadly about the area because I think there's some questions I have about visiting Traverse City, getting there specifically hotels and things like that. But I mean, it really does come down to this region that has such tremendous agriculture, such natural beauty. But then when you get into the restaurants, either downtown or in the surrounding areas. It's truly some of the finest cooking in Michigan and really the country.

21:27And I just want to get from you, you know, why visit Traverse City, you know, in the summer for this great food festival or really all seasons? Absolutely. Well, Traverse City is really well known for its recreation and its natural beauty, like you mentioned. The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is right in our backyard. And this region is just absolutely stunning with lakes and rivers and beautiful woods, lots of access to great trails and plenty of things to do. So it's a community that wears a lot of hats. You know, we have things for everybody. It's definitely a place where a lot of families come in the summer.

22:11The beaches are a really big draw. and beautiful, clear Caribbean blue waters. You know, you can't really go wrong there. But there's a lot of other things that Traverse City offers too, that culinary and really elegant experiences that are starting to be more and more available. We've got lots of different things to come and see and do for people of all ages. And so, you know, I think everyone comes for their own reasons, But there's just, you know, it's a hidden gem. And we feel really lucky to get to be here year round. But the summer is pretty much the pinnacle of the experience. I mean, hidden gem kind of no more.

22:57I mean, I was out in San Francisco speaking with a woman who runs a prominent bookstore. And really, she spent all of her summers in Provincetown. and she happened to mention that instead of going to Provincetown, she was going to Traverse City. And I followed up with her after we had that conversation and she was stunned. And this is somebody who like lives in San Francisco, which is one of our most beautiful cities in the world. And she just was like, the food is so good. And I was like, it made me smile because I'm from Michigan. And just to hear somebody who is very particular about travel and she would travel all the way across the country to visit Traverse City, I loved hearing that.

23:36Yeah. Well, it's great to hear that and also just to hear the reflection of the experiences being on par with those on the coasts. You know, we look at this as sort of the inland seas. And so people don't really expect to see a lake like they do. And they don't really expect that quality of experience and hospitality that we have. But we really do have a place that is special where it has attracted people who want to make unique experiences and create. And I think it's almost like an artist community in a way, right? You know, you just get people coming to a place that's this beautiful and where you can be this close to nature because they love it.

24:25And then that inspires them to do something really creative and interesting for the world. yeah it's a good point well we have to talk about the Traverse City Food and Wine Festival which is making its debut in August it has such a great lineup of chefs I know you're still working on a few names but you've already booked you know you've got some out-of-towners coming you've got Tyler Florence and Mei Lin coming in to cook you've got also Jihei Kim who I love from Miss Kim in Ann Arbor Sarah Welsh who we heard heard from earlier in the episode Kate Williams so many terrific chefs will be cooking intimate dinners and also work you know at the grand tasting tent tell me you know broadly what was your goal you're the organizer of this event yeah what was your goal for for I mean it's it's a lot of work what was your goal to get bring this to Traverse City well we are really recognized as that agricultural destination we have tons of beautiful value-added products but just looking at what the resources are here the farms and the things that are capable of being grown in the region, it felt time to put the spotlight even more on that element of our community.

25:37And so we kind of gathered together with a group of different hospitality partners, looking at what made the most sense to them. We've built this in a way that is really, again, looking at the businesses and the different creators and what they might want. We didn't want to create something that was just going to be a burden to put too much pressure on businesses. We wanted it to be something that they would be excited about and want to be participating in. And so that's really what we've delivered. You know, the invitations to visit local farms and vineyards are all coming directly from them.

26:16They saw this opportunity to be able to talk about something that they might not get to talk about every day. And so it's been really special. And honestly, having this great lineup of chefs who are so excited to come and talk about what we have here and feature local ingredients with their own spin and their own culinary styles is really exciting. I mean, I couldn't think of a better introduction to Michigan through, you know, booking a trip during the festival and maybe extending some days and traveling around northern Michigan and just seeing this incredible agriculture one on one. I want to ask you about just getting there.