Ski the Heber Valley of Utah

Heber Valley is less than an hour from Salt Lake International Airport. Nearby is downhill skiing at Deer Valley (2002 Olympic venue), Sundance, The Canyons, and Park City Resort (2002 Olympic venue), and cross country at Sundance, Park City, Wasatch Mountain State Park, The Homestead, and Soldier Hollow (2002 Olympic venue). Within 90 minutes are Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, Solitude, Snowbasin (2002 Olympic venue), and Powder Mountain. Staying in Heber Valley for a ski vacation, instead of at any of these resorts, saves big on lodging and food.

The Deer Crest Gondola at Deer Valley (no snowboards) is less than 15 minutes from Heber City. A van picks you up at your car and delivers you to the door of the lift and the ticket office. From our house in Heber City, we are at the top of the lift, ready to ski, about 25 minutes after getting in the car.

Before moving here, we always took a sunny day each ski week to ski Sundance. Condé Nast Traveler calls Sundance "one of the most beautiful places on earth," and it’s at its best on a sunny winter morning. Yes, we have seen owner Robert Redford at lunch in the Grill Room.

Staying in Heber Valley vs. Park City:
Heber has much lower prices, uncrowded restaurants, and better scenery. But Park City has some aprés ski and night life, where Heber has none.

Staying in Heber vs. Salt Lake City:
Salt Lake is cheaper than the resorts, but not as cheap as Heber Valley. Winter weather in Salt Lake City can be awful. Temperature inversions make Salt Lake foggy – on one ski trip, we had to use headlights in Salt Lake for the entire week. When this happens, there is not a cloud in the sky in the higher Heber Valley, and temperatures are 10-20 degrees warmer than Salt Lake.

Other activities:
Scuba or swim year-round in 90-degree water inside a volcano at the Homestead Crater. Fly fish and trout fish in the famed Middle Provo River, which meanders across Heber Valley. The Lower Provo follows US 189 down Provo Canyon. High altitude and low humidity make sunny days unbelievably pleasant, even at 20 degrees. There are 700 miles of groomed ski-mobile/cross-country/snowshoeing trails at Strawberry, 25 miles east on US 40 and 400 miles along UT 150 from Kamas (35 miles from Heber). There’s also ice fishing at Strawberry and Deer Creek Lake in Heber Valley and ice climbing at Bridal Veil Falls, US 189, 18 miles away.

Quick Tips:

Double rooms run from to per night. Call 800-200-1160 for (1) Utah Ski Planner and (2) Utah Accommodations Guide. Lodging is in Heber City (US 40) or Midway –- turn right at the second stop light in Heber City, six miles.

Summer is high season for room rates, and winter is now shoulder season, as more and more people catch onto the benefits of staying here to ski.

Dinner: Steaks start at at the three cafes on Heber’s Main street.
Best buy in fine food: Snake Creek Grill.
Other fine food: Simon’s at the Homestead, Blue Boar Inn, Inn on the Creek.

Café food is cheap, filling, and it won’t kill you. The menu is a limited choice of meat, potatoes, and gravy -- ham, steak, fish, chicken, or pork chops; fries, mashed, or baked potatoes; and canned green beans or overcooked carrots. But it fills you up for -15. The monster breakfast is or less.

Best Way To Get Around:

SLC Airport to Heber by expressway: I-80 east, then right on US 40, about 50 minutes. Watch for the I-15/I-80 split in about 10 miles, and follow signs for Cheyenne.

The “best buy” in lodging for the 2005-2006 ski season may be the newly “pre-opened” Villas at Zermatt, a major Marriott resort slated to open in April, 2006, in Midway, Utah. The condo units, the Villas, are available for rental during the ski season, with a package including lodging and a lift ticket (approximately a $70 value) at $189 double occupancy per night.

Zermatt is right across the street from fine dining at Simon’s at The Homestead, about a mile from the highly acclaimed restaurant at the Blue Boar Inn, and 10 minutes from downtown Heber City’s restaurants.

Zermatt’s spa and indoor pool are apparently open. The Homestead Crater, year-round scuba diving in 90-degree water in a volcano, is right across the street.

Getting There: A rental car is probably necessary. From the Salt Lake City airport, take I-80 east to US Route 40 toward Heber City. Turn right at Route 32 and the first traffic light on Route 40 and follow the signs for the Homestead. Zermatt is directly across the street from The Homestead.

Zermatt is 15 to 18 miles from Deer Valley, Park City Mountain, and The Canyons and about 40 minutes from Sundance. Roads are fast and well cleared of snow in the winter.

For more info, see Zermatt.dolce.com, an incredibly slow-to-load website, or call 877/269 9629.

This place is sometimes closed on Sundays and does not accept checks or credit cards.

Chick’s is a trip back in time to the 1950s. It has cheap, filling, and basic café food. If you are lucky enough to get one cooked right, the scones are terrific. Utah scones have no resemblance to the Scottish bread. Rather, they are a variant of Navajo Fry Bread and should be slathered with butter and honey. The only cost $1 and can be ordered as part of a meal, so take a chance (the cook won’t burn it or leave the interior undercooked) and give it a try.

The same goes with the Chicken Fried Steak ($8), Chick’s café classic when the cooks don’t burn it. When you go in, you can only see half the place. The dining room— tables and chairs--is in the back to the right.

The food is cheap, filling, and it won’t kill you. The menu has meat, potatoes, and gravy. There is a limited choice of meat--ham, steak, fish, chicken, or pork chops; fries, mashed or baked; and canned green beans or overcooked carrots, but it fills you up for $8 to $15.

Claimjumper is popular, small steakhouse chain (in Park City, Heber, and Moab), but I don’t like it. For what they charge for prime rib, it should not have been frozen meat, and when I ordered it rare, the waiter should have warned me that the center would be a chunk of ice. Had I known, I would have tried a fresh steak instead, but, being given that ice, I haven’t been back in 10 years.

It is located in a cute, but fake, old Western town (bring your camera) and a little hard to see from the street or parking lot. Snake Creek Grill serves resort-quality food at prices 30% to 50% lower than Park City. The emphasis is on comfort food, and the ribs are notable. It has pleasant decor and service.

Lunch at Deer valley is expensive , but well worth it. The lowest prices are in the creperie in the building behind Silver Lake Lodge. The cafeteria, at Snow Park, Silver Lake, and Empire Lodges, is not to be missed. This will change your mind about what can be done in a cafeteria.

The highest in price ($27) and quality is the Skiers’ Buffet (all you can eat) at Stein Ericksen Lodge at the top of Viking Chair.

Our favorite is the Goldner Hirsch, behind and to the left of Silver Lake Lodge. There are full-service restaurants, all with good food, sorted by increasing prices: Pierre’s Bistro (the condo building at the intesection of Success and Last Chance), Bistro Toujours (near the creperie), Sai Sommet (Silver Link), McHenry’s Grill (Silver Lake Lodge), Goldner Hirsch, and Stein’s. The price range for burgers is from $8, at the cafeterias, to $17, at Stein’s.

The Hub Café is the local favorite. As far as I can tell, the food is pretty much the same at any café – blah, filling, and cheap – and quality differences are trivial, but the Hub is more consistent and has more efficient and reliable service. As at any of the cafés, the strikingly low prices will make you happy in spite of the mediocre food quality.

Café food is cheap, filling, and it won’t kill you. The menu is meat, potatoes, and Gravy – limited choice of meat includes ham, steak, fish, chicken, or pork chops; potatoes come fries, mashed, or baked, and vegetables are canned green beans or overcooked carrots. But it fills you up for $8-15.

Open Christmas.

Check for hours, as it may only be open weekend evenings.

Excellent California yuppie cuisine at LA prices. The Sunday brunch buffet, $20, matches or beats anything in Las Vegas in this price range. The dining room is as attractive as any in Utah, and there is a bar if you order food.

A fine food experience ruined by an incompetent operation.

After four visits to Schneitter’s Sunday Brunch Buffet, I rated Schneitter’s "Very Highly Recommended" for the consistent fine quality of the food offered. After 8 visits, the food remains excellent, but the incompetence of this operation leads to advising you stay away. It’s too great a risk that the staff will ruin your expensive meal. A brief summary of some of the operational problems:

1) published phone numbers that nobody answers, and once I let it ring for 10 minutes just to see what happened. 2) But then, if you have question, it’s no help if some does answer the phone, for the staff seemed totally uninformed of anything except the name of the place. One day, I got three people and three different answers to my question. Another time, a positive sounding answer that turned out to be wrong. Another time, four different answers. 3) If you need some information on the restaurant, forget it. There seems to be no way to reach them by phone. All calls, should they happened to be answered, go to the ignorant front desk. 4) although the restaurant seems well staffed, staff is never around if you need something. They all hang in the kitchen. The buffet has a carving board (roast beef, lamb, etc.) and an omelet bar, but there is never any one in sight to carve or cook. Nor is anybody watching from the kitchen to see when if are needed.

Schneitter’s advertised a special Christmas brunch ($45), from 11am to 5pm. We made reservations for 4:15pm, two weeks in advance. Called the day before to ask about it. Arrived on the appointed day at 3:45, to be greeted by the hostess who said the brunch ended at 3:30pm. We said, we have reservations for 4:15pm. She said the chef called everyone and told theme there was a time change. He didn’t call us, or else the reservationist screwed up when the reservation was originally made. Lots of people come skiing in Utah at Christmas, many even on Christmas Day, and this episode is especially important to them because an open restaurant in Utah is hard to find. If you do not have an advanced reservation – days in advance–  you will stand in line and wait a long, long time to eat Christmas diner once you find an open establishment in Utah. Our community, surrounded by ski resorts, has four high quality resort restaurants. Not one was open on Christmas. So eating at Schneider’s is a crap shoot. If everything goes right – and it never has in our experience – you can get a fine meal. If things go wrong, you might not eat. Since there are so many reliable fine restaurants in the vicinity, why take a chance?

After our fist visit to the Spin Café, we had no desire to return. The food had considerable underlying quality, but the excessive use of pepper in the BBQ sauce pretty much ruined things, the excellent Buffalo Burger excepted, but how often do you want to eat an $11 burger?

So, we did not return for quite a while, but eventually we decided to try it again, although that decision was made with considerable trepidation. She played it safe and ordered the Buffalo Burger, which held its place as the best Buffalo Burger we have encountered. I again ordered the three smoked meats (chicken, pork, and beef) sampler plate, and again requested BBQ sauce on the side. Unlike our first visit when sauce on the side was not an option, I got sauce on the side for two of the three meats. While the BBQ sauce was still overly peppered, it was more palatable than the first time, especially since I could control the amount. That was good enough to bring us back a couple more times.

Summing up four trips, the smoked beef is the best smoked dish because it is remarkably moist for smoked meat.. However, the Spin Café’s smoking process has an affinity for chicken. The BBQ sauce continues as in visit # 2– barely tolerable on account of the excessive use of pepper,  but you can get it on the side to help you control the fire in your mouth. The Beef Brisket sandwich is second only to famous Bubba’s of Jackson Hole because Bubba’s properly serves theirs dry with a choice of three BBQ sauces on the table. Besides too much pepper, too much sauce hides the flavor of the smoked meat, and Spin goes overboard with the sauce. Rosemary-garlic baked potato pieces were as good as this dish comes.

The BBQ sauce aside, the quality of the food is comfortingly consistent. You can trust that your smoked beef or chicken or Buffalo Burger will be as described here. Ask if there is a choice between curly fries and regular french fries. Their curly fries are outstanding, the french fries are OK. The apple slaw continues as our favorite side, but the BBQ beans are pretty good, except for all  that damn pepper. There is little reason to forego slaw for one of the other choices. However, if your oder a sandwich with slaw, the juice from the slaw, which is served on the same plate as the sandwich, will soak the bottom bun of the sandwich. This is unpleasantly messy. Ask for slaw on a separate plate.

Is this Heber’s best restaurant? No. It comes close, but it is the best (and only) smokehouse.

This is my third review of this restaurant. The first one, in which I “highly recommended” the place for the terrific quality of the food served at the downright cheap Sunday brunch buffet, was written after three visits. I overlooked the sloppy management that pervaded every aspect of the restaurant as growing pains in a newly established establishment. After eight visits, I figured 9 months was long enough to get the kinks out, but instead of getting it under control, Schneitter’s was getting worse and should to be avoided. I’m leavening that review on the journal because you need to know why this is a place to avoid, but after six months of following my own good advice, we decided to try it again (why not? They had a two-for-one coupon in the local paper).

In the time since our last visit, major changes had taken place. The number of items served at the Sunday brunch buffet had increased considerably, but the style of the place had changed for the worse, and food quality, while still better than average, had noticeable deteriorated. Gone was most of the terrific Continental food, replaced by standard American style brunch offerings. What was left of haut cuisine, an “international table” whose theme changed every week, was not as good as previously.

There was a change of chefs. Previously, there were days when the cold cuts table offered three types of European country cured hams, usually north of the Alps styles. Even more unfortunately, the great hams were replaced with typical insipid American boiled ham. 

Preciously, I never saw pancakes or the ubiquitous buffet offering of thawed frozen shrimp on ice. The revised menu featured both. The shrimp were bettered at every other buffet in the vicinity where we have eaten (Sundance, Glitretinde, and The Homestead, which is right across the street from Schneitter’s). If you want pancakes, go to Chicks’ Café in Heber City or to Ihop where you will get better flap jacks for 1/10 the price.

The one area of real improvement was the desert table. They make outstanding desserts, of which there was only a very limited number offered at the original buffet. Now there is a whole table load of good deserts. I tried a few nice petit fours and finished dessert with three creme brulees. All were excellent.

Outside the food, there was nothing about the operation of the place to cause to change our opinion that this is a restaurant best avoided. Service was still a bit lackskedadle, but adequate. Prices were considerably higher.

They ran the ad for a half price brunch twice. We went twice, for $22 for two, it was a major bargain. We haven’t seen the ad since then, and we have had no desire to go back since then. If you are in the vicinity and want a good $21 Sunday buffet, go to The Homestead, directly across the street from Schneitter’s. You can walk right past Schneitter’s to The Homestead.

A few years ago, we judged the Inn on the Creek to be the world’s best restaurant. Then they
changed chefs..... Noting a fast drop in quality, we stopped going for seven years. Tempted by
an add in the newspaper (2-4-1), we went to try the current operation– what an improvement!

Prices are definitely at the high end of Utah restaurants, but so was the quality of the meal.
Dinner started with a delightful amuse and an excellent small, warm baguette. Sea Bass
Encrusted in Macadamia Nuts and Coconut was a terrific large chuck of filet as fresh as one could
wish for 700 miles from the sea. Accompaniment were a fine polenta and a mix of sauteed
julienne of various vegetables, marred only by too much pepper.

Lamb Tenderloin was erratic in achieving the ordered medium rare. The lamb came in 4-5
sausage shaped slices ranging from medium rare to a bit beyond medium. The sauce, served on
the side, was superb with lamb. All in all, it was nice lamb, but I will go for Sea Bass the next
time. The lamb was accompanied by an excellent rissoto and a combination of breaded deep fried
artichoke hearts and tomatoes. I can’t think of ever having better artichokes, and the addition of
slices of tomato was inspired. Regrettably, using typical supermarket tomatoes rather than truly
fresh garden ripe tomatoes detracted from what could have been a culinary masterpiece.

Reflecting the Inn on the Creek’s fall from Grace since super chef Jean-Louis Montecott(see
Review of Jean-Louis Restaurant in Park City) left after a dispute with new management, only
one(six tables) of the five dinning rooms was in use. Jean-Louis used to fill all five. Still, with
food this good, the Inn on the Creek has a chance of restoring some of its past glory.

Service was good from the one waitress on duty, but apparently all four parties dinning that night
arrived at about the same time. It took the better part of an hour for the kitchen to produce our
meal behind the two table that arrived just before we did.

Portions are VERY large.

The Inn on the Creek isn’t easy to find, but it’s worth the effort. Here’s the easiest way. Take
Rt US 40 in Heber (Main St) to the third traffic light, at 100 South St. Turn so you proceed
along the side of the bank on the corner. Go through Midway’s downtown, about 4 miles, to the
stop sign and turn right. Turn left at the dead end, then take the first right (there is a small sign
reading “Inn on the Creek” pointing right). Take the second left. Again watch for the sign; it is
hard to calculate the second left. If you cross a marked cross walk(a golf cart path), you went
about 10 ft. too far. Follow that road to the Inn on the Creek. Parking in front.