Now Local, From Scratch

The Coeur d’Alene Casino isn’t playing games when it comes to food. The latest phase in their $75 million expansion includes bringing their food service under the oversight of exactly one man.

“We do all the events, on site and off,” says executive chef Adam Hegsted. That’s close to 36,000 food customers per month spread among the Sweetgrass Café, the High Mountain Buffet & Grill, the Nighthawk Lounge and the Twisted Earth Grill inside the Circling Raven Club House — including catered events, room service and food service for nearly 1,000 employees daily.

Friday night buffet? How about 1,200 customers in five hours gobbling down 2,500 pounds of crab, and hundreds of other food options, now mostly made from scratch?

It’s all in a day’s work to Hegsted, the deceptively boyish-looking engineer of what is a near-complete overhaul of the casino’s food operations. Having served such Idaho venues as Black Rock Country Club, Cedars, Brix and the Beacon, Hegsted was up to his chef’s hat in Le Piastre, his first and unfortunately now defunct restaurant in downtown Coeur d’Alene when the casino called last year. Since then, the pace has been whirlwind.

“We broke ground on the new hotels and two new restaurants,” he explains. “They remodeled the whole kitchen, and in that was the café,” which was closed for a bit. While new construction continues outside — a steakhouse, pub, martini bar and spa are slated for completion in 2011 — Hegsted is busy inside training staff on his paradigmatic shift in vision.

“The biggest thing is: Now most of our food is homemade. We work really hard on putting out really high-quality products — not just rip open a freezer box and throw it into the steamer or oven,” says Hegsted. “We have incorporated small farms into our buffet and cafe, and have worked hard on sourcing a lot of great products,” says the chef. (He likes to use local products.)

Sweetgrass Café, for example, balances what Hegsted calls down-home food, like the country-fried steak ($7) with healthier fare like the lemon thyme-roasted Idaho trout ($9).

A staff of 60, including six sous chefs, prepares everything to order in small batches. “We have red-wine braised short ribs, prime rib, done the same way I did at Cedars. We just started doing sushi on Saturdays, and it has been going over really well. It’s just really great seeing the whole place evolve.”

The sample menu reads like the United Nations: enchiladas with charred tomatoes, baked penne pasta with prosciutto, roast maple-ancho squash, pot stickers, General Tso chicken, seafood paella, and Yankee pot roast.

The Casino’s investment in the food program is just one part of an overall healthier outlook. A fitness center will be included in the 105-room hotel expansion. The roof of the nearby Stensgar Pavilion features a man-made prairie of native grasses, part of a larger greening program for the resort, including a new water-treatment facility, the restoration of natural habitat and drought-resistant landscaping.

Now if they’d only do something about all that smoke. — CARRIE SCOZARRO

Each restaurant has its own unique (persnickety) schedule. Visit www.cdacasino.com/restaurants.html for details or call (800) 523-2464.