New Sammy's Cowboy Bistro (Talent, Oregon)

Vernon & Charlene Rollins in the kitchen Talent, Oregon
Imagine you're in the middle of nowhere in Southern Oregon and you're told that the nondescript low building with its gravel parking lot along the highway is one of the most acclaimed restaurant with also possibly one of the best wine list in the United States. You would be skeptic at best, or think your party is teasing you, especially after you see the name of the venue, the New Sammy's Cowboy Bistro, not really the type of name favored by wine geeks and fine cuisine connoisseurs. I suspect that the owner chose the name as a snub to the conventions and I like that, this way he gets the people for whom essence is more important than appearance.

Hidden behind this misleading name and this unexpected location, here is indeed one of top tables of the United States, listed alternatively in Food & Wine as being among America's 50 Most Amazing Wine Experiences and in Bon Appetit as being one of the 10 Best New Romantic Getaways. And Getaway is an appropriate word because people who want to experience the venue must prove their word, you don't need courage to go out for fine dining in Berverly Hills or Berkeley, but Talent is quite out of the beaten path for fine-food addicts, you have to drive through back roads and bland villages, not hype at all...
Speaking of Berkeley, Vernon and Charlene met at Alice Waters' Chez Panisse at the occasion of the 7th-anniversary celebration for the restaurant in 1978. Charlene was a trainee cook then in this restaurant which is said to have transformed America's dining and started a gastronomic awakening in the whole country. Vernon for his part was at the time importing wine from France, which could explain his expertise today and the pertinence of his wine list. Meeting at Chez Panisse was a good omen anyway you could say, for this couple who was to manage later one of the most atypical and demanding restaurants and wine venues in this country.

Sammy's room at lunch I had found out about this restaurant while doing some random research on the Internet (while still in France) looking for wine venues in Oregon, and after checking the location on the map (Talent is located just north of Ashland near the border with California), I thought I might manage to drive near there en route for California. Ashland is a small town with a large reputation, it hosts every year the Oregon Shakespeare Festival which is a magnet for theater and acting passionates from around the state and the country. This could have been by the way a good reason to start a restaurant here, the crowd of festivalgoers being sometimes demanding in terms of food.
Whatever, what decided me to try visit the place is that unlike many gastronomy restaurants, the New Sammy's Bistro was very affordable, and if you had to anticipate a bill of around 50 $ for dinner, the lunch was incredibly cheap at 15 $. I doubled-checked the information on the Internet, thinking first that I had stumbled on an old page but the information was right, and the expense was largely affordable for someone travelling on a budget like me. In addition to be affordable, the venue seemed to be a no fuss, relaxed place without the stiff atmosphere and dress étiquette found in high-end restaurants where waiters and patrons alike will look upon you if you're not dressed or don't act like their tribe. A table I had called once from France (without saying I was calling from that far), to ask if the place was also a wine bar, Vernon himself was obviously answering the phone, another good omen, he said no. I asked if I had to make a reservation several days ahead to have lunch there and he said no, there was usually always some room but I could call two hours ahead just to be sure, which was what I did. When we reached the area from Portland after two days travelling and spending the nights in State Forest campgrounds, I gave a call and someone (I don't remember if it was Vernon or Ansley, the woman doing the table service) said they'd keep the table for two. when we arrived, the dusty parking lot was filling already and while seated, people kept coming, some from out of state if I can judge from the license plates.

The room seemed to have been renovated not that long ago, and I read that for many years the place was left kind of low key, not even with an easy sign along the road, some say it was because they quit abruptly their previous hotel/restaurant business in Booneville in the Anderson valley, leaving the investors and patrons alike alone although the place was packed every day, but from what I understand the pressure of investors was too overwhelming and they just left overnight one day with no signs of life, flying to France where they stayed a year before coming back to the U.S. Charlene told me that they worked several months in a restaurant in the Morvan not far from Nevers.... When they resurfaced in Southern Oregon they named their new restaurant from their son Sammy who was born in France and was 2 years old in Talent, and he kept asking if cowboys would come dine at the restaurant...
At the beginning their only patrons were mostly the ones they knew them from their Booneville years and it's just after the Shakespeare Festival sent them hordes of people that the locals discovered the place, but it has all been by word of mouth and occasional article here and there. Top ingredients being prepared I'm not into food porn and I'm not used to take pictures of my dishes in the restaurants, even the best ones, sorry; when I eat, I eat, and the pleasure of eating can easily be distracted by the food fetishism ritual of taking out the camera (here is a page with a few dishes). But I'll try to correct that reluctance at this pivotal time when the dishes comes to the table, for the good cause and the reader. Meanwhile there's no picture of what we ate that day but it was one of the two best experiences during this trip. Charlene uses top organic ingredients for her cuisine, much of it being grown in the vegetable garden in the back of the restaurant. That's one of the high points of the place : in a nearly autarcic approach, Vernon and Charlene have planted a large garden where a couple of employees or associates work, watering the rows and doing plantings or soil preparations. When you park your car you can't miss the view on the garden with it's many rows of hard-to-name vegetables and herbs. Staff in the kitchen First, kudos for the real, savory butter and the bread, both being already a reason to come eat at Sammy's. They bake their own bread and when you crunch it you understand what we miss when we buy bread in industrial bakeries (even in bakeries that pretend to be family operated but use pre-mixed wheat full of additives)... The salad was at the same time very spicy and so fresh with all these mysterious herbs, a very unique experience, the vegetable & herb garden straight in your plate... The dish was also very tasty with all sort of ingredients adding their touch, spices, grapefruit, pine nuts etc... Deliciously savory.

The menu is changing along the seasons and avalability of the vegetables, so I'm not disclosing a secret by telling the menu with options for the lunch (again, for 15 $) :
Three-cheeses gnocchi with vegetables in buttery broth
Green salad with grilled organic chicken, potato, roasted beets, sugarsnap peas, hard-boiled farm egg
Duck leg confit with a salad of mustard greens, farro, oranges, olives, grilled onion, and spicy orange-feta sauce
Grilled house-made chicken sausages with mashed potatoes and fava beans, sweet onion and new harvest garlic cloves poached in a rich chicken broth with savory
Many-vegetables bortsch with beef pelmeni and fresh horseradish cream
Grilled organic "Cascade" beef burger with applewood-smoked bacon, "Mamma Terra" goat cheese, garlicy coleshaw, caramelized onions and BBQ sauce.
Fine print : We cook with organic ingredients and humanely-raised meats. Vernon Rollins pouring wine And comes the wine list. You better be seated to read the wine list, first because you'll need time, then because it has such a concentration of the very best including for the share of artisan and natural wines from France and beyond, that you might falter in gaping surprise at the read. And in spite of their rarity and excellence, these wines are not overpriced compared to other high-end restaurants, even though the few hundreds of dollars asked for several of them might make you think otherwise.

First, there's the wines-by-the-glass l ist, with 14 wines to choose from when we showed up, priced mostly from 7 $ to 8 $ plus a Champagne Drappier at 14 $. The wines, which ranged from the vintage 2009 to 2011 were a Pinot Grigio Collio La Boatina, dry Vouvray Bourillon Dorleans, Macon-Chaintré Fabrice Larochette, Pouilly-Fumé En Travertin Henri Bourgeois, Riesling QbA Mosel Schloss Saarstein, Oregon Rogue Valley Marssanne Wm Augustus, Rogue Valley Malberc rosé Velo, Jumilla Monastrell Luzon, Côte du Rhône Villages Cairanne Duvernay, Pinot Noir Willamette valley Spindrift, Boredeaux Chateau Malbat, Zinfandel York Creek Napa Valley Ridge, and Chianti Classico Casa Emma. Plus 7 beers, local and imported (Germany, Spain, France, Peru, England). The wines make for a reasonable drink with the food, especially for the casual lunch, but wait for the wine book...

If you ask for the more serious stuff, Vernon brings you the wine book (pictured on left), something you could easily spend an hour leafing through with ah and oh. Here are a few names I noted randomly, no need to say thay even in Paris you don't come across such a resourceful cellar list everyday :
Nicolas Joly, Chateau Simone, Dauvissat, Huet, Zind-Humbrecht, Grange des Pères, Champagne Lassaigne, Domaine Weinbach, Vincent Dancer, Jadot, Vieux Télégraphe, I pass on Mosel wines but there are plenty of them too. Sociando Mallet, I pass on the Bordeaux, it seems all the Grands Bordeaux are there too...Prieuré Roch, Chave, Beaucastel, Perrin, Tempier, Charles Joguet, Mark Angeli, La Rectorie, François Chidaine, Trimbach, Kuentz-Bas....Add atop of that lots of Italians and lots of Californians and you have an exceptional wine list. I asked if I could see the cellar but Vernon said no, it was off limits for visitors, and I understand that...
We chose more modestly, respectively a glass of Zinfandel and a glass of Oregon pinot noir, which were OK (I tasted both). I liked the Zinfandel best, it was demonstrative and gently powerful. John in the vegetable garden I chatted a few minutes with John, who was courageously working in the garden under the scorching sun. He told me that he spent some time in 1974 in a youth hostel in Paris which I identified as the one near rue du Louvre, I was not sure if it was still in business, but it seems to be (BVJ, located rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau).
John was obviously preparing some replantings and moving some earth and dry plants in a wheelbarrow. Everything is organic and additives-free at New Sammy's Cowboy Bistro and the vegetables come in a large part from their own garden, that's pretty what you can call local sourcing, isn't it ? Still, they serve many diners and they source the rest from local farms working organic or the Ashland Food Co-op. They had many exchanges with other farmers dealing with how to get rid of pests or prepare the compost, and I'm sure that they played a role in the cordination of organic farms in the Rogue river region. This area just north of the California border seems to be where many California dreamers have found refuge, this is a good place for people loving nature and healthy food.
Some of the vegetables would cost much more if they didn't grow them themselves, and when the garden produces more than needed, they preserve the extra volume for winter months like in the old times, using different natural ways. I read that they operate a bakery that supplies not only New Sammy's whole-wheat bread but about 300 loaves daily for retail sale around the valley.

Reading the small text written by Charlene and Vernon in a local buy-local initiative (here) about the making of their bread and pizza, I couldn't but think to the similarity with the making of natural wine, i.e. wild yeast, lots of time and even sour aromas (but what a pleasure !) :
The handmade breads and pizza crusts from our wholesale bakery use organic ingredients and a "wild" yeast starter, with the doughs developing over a 2-3 day process that gives them a rich flavor that's both wheaty and mildly sour.

San Francisco Chronicle story about the New Sammy's (published in 2003)
Sean Elder's piece about Sammy's Bistro
Sarah Lemon's well-documented article about New Sammy's Bistro in Southern Oregon's Mail Tribune
Another review and history on Vernon and Charlene's venue
James Beard Award nomination for Charlene Rollins as Best Chef : Northwest

New Sammy's Cowboy Bistro 2210 S Pacific Highway Talent, OR 97540, phone +1 541 535 2779 wed-sun 12 am - 1:30 pm & 7 pm - 9 pm Exit 21 on I5

Eric & Shelly Solomon - Madd Moose If you drive through the region (for example driving from California to Talent,OR), be sure to stop at Madd Moose ! Take the scenic roads southwest of Talent, nominally hwy 199 to/from Crescent City and stop in Selma, which is one of these places in the middle of nowhere that I love so much. Eric & shelly had just opened this restaurant 2 weeks before when we came in, and there's an easy-going sense of peace here, they make great food. Me and my travel mate had set up our tents a bit late that day, at the Redwood Highway Campgroud a few miles north from there, and instead of cooking or grilling something on ther BBQ, we looked for the next village (actually we initially wanted to buy meat and grill it, but changed our mind). Here was Selma and its just-opened Madd Moose restaurant. Their hamburgers were so welcome after a long day, a pleasure. The next day after packing our tents and sleeping bags we drove straight there for our daily staple of pancakes and coffee. Isn't life beautiful ? Plus they had WiFi and this log house was so nice and welcoming.
Eric is originally from Chicago and Shelly from Portland, they had a restaurant named Rumspankers a few years ago in Portland which closed when the financial crisis froze the economy in 2008. I found this page where you can see a picture of Rumspankers. Whatever when things settled down they discovered this place in the middle of nowhere, loved it at first sight like I did, and decided to open a restaurant in this unlikely location in an empty building that they spotted. Didn't I come across something similar recently ? Pinch me, there's again this Groundhog-Day feel here....
...They've arranged the place like a lounge with sofas, seats and reading. Every visitor can write something on a wall. Try to find my prose... They should definitely have a few rooms up there. I feel that Selma is the new place to go in Southern Oregon, plus the nature is gorgeous around, mountains, woods, creeks, everything, and a very nice climate.
18252 Redwood Hwy
Selma, OR 97538
phone +1 541 597 4599
[email protected]
Already a Yelp page on it (I must make a comment !)
Listen to KRRM from the Rogue River (country music)
Satellite view of the place

Comments

[John]

OMG! The food, wine and location all look awesome!