Tucked away towards the back of a Kimball Junction shopping area, between the Best Buy and Jupiter Lanes bowling alley, you will find the newly-opened Hearth and Hill restaurant. This smartly-designed restaurant seeks to be a local-centric, community-focused restaurant. A place where you would be comfortable hanging with your friends, go on a first date, or hang out with your grandparents. A lot of time, attention, and money was spent on the interior of the restaurant, which I would call industrial-chic. Large-pane windows showcase the bright white kitchen—kind of a different take on the open kitchen concept—and I like it. Make sure you spend some time at the gorgeous bar, and enjoy a cocktail or mocktail as you pre-game dinner. During the warmer months, live music will be featured on their large patio.
Brooks Kirchheimer, proprietor of Hearth and Hill, has restaurants in his blood. As a child his very first Christmas present he recalls asking Santa for was a cash register, and he would routinely drive his sisters crazy asking them to “play restaurant” with him (his restaurant’s name was Sharky’s).
Brooks earned his degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management from the University of Denver, then worked his way through the restaurant world, opening the Montage Beverly Hills, Montage Deer Valley, Zoom, and Merriman’s in Maui. His father and he regularly spoke about buying their own restaurant in Park City and rehabbing it, when one night they decided to just start their own. “Rather than buy someone else’s mess, let’s start our own mess!” he remembers thinking. And that’s how Hearth and Hill got its start.
Hearth and Hill features a varied menu that covers many different bases. I’m always a little hesitant when a kitchen offers a broadly-ranging menu, from hummus to hamachi crudo to shrimp shumai to gravlax. Sometimes this lack of culinary focus shows through in sub-par ingredient quality and execution. But this doesn’t appear to be the case with Hearth and Hill.
When asked about the wide range of the menu, Chef Jordan Harvey reflected on the typical lunches and dinners Americans eat throughout the week. Pasta, hamburgers, seafood, salads, tacos, you name it. His goal was to develop a menu that offered selections that were sure to please everyone.
Their dinner menu features trout atop gnocchi with a lemon buerre blanc, filet mignon with bacon glazed mushrooms, cheese curd whipped potatoes, crispy onions, and oxtail gravy, a carne asada dish, and spicy buffalo cauliflower. My favorite dish of the night was their take on chicken and waffles, Korean fried chicken with housemade pickles, delightfully dense potato scallion waffle, and seasoned maple syrup. It was the perfect mix of textures and sweet/sour flavors.
The “Refuel” salad was another standout dish. Chef Harvey, who has previously worked at Zoom, Apex at Montage Deer Valley, and Grappa, wanted to create a salad that was hearty and filling. The Refuel salad certainly hit the mark, featuring apple, avocado, almond, beets, brown rice, cranberries, sweet potatoes, kale, spinach, and a pomegranate vinaigrette. If you think that ingredient list is a mouthful, wait until you get it on your fork.
Make sure you try their cheddar biscuits with the accompanying honey butter for a light and sweet treat.
I’d highly suggest finishing your meal with H&H’s over-the-top “sundae nachos.” If you aren’t diabetic, bring some insulin anyway, because you will be after gorging on this sucker. A plate the size of New Jersey is topped with a variety of pizelles, chocolate waffles, banana, coconut almond ice cream, hot fudge, caramel, fresh berries, almonds, and whipped cream. At $10, it is a steal. Other notable desserts include the sticky toffee pudding cake, and the bourbon chocolate cookies, with peanut butter mousse and cherry ice cream.
Prices for lunch are certainly accessible. Expect to pay between $12 and $16 for an entreé. For dinner, prices begin to stretch the limit of a place that bills itself a “local’s gathering place,” with entreé prices ranging from $20-$35. Certainly not your typical Park City Main Street Take Your Breath Away Prices, but also don’t go in expecting El Chubasco prices, either.
Throughout our evening Brooks regularly stressed his desire to be a part of the community. He wants Hearth and Hill to be a gathering place for friends and family. He wants his staff to have a comfortable way of life, and is one of the the restaurants in the area to offer full health benefits to its employees. A community board showcases various non-profit organizations, and the restaurant donates $1 from each kids meal to EATS Park City, whose mission is to provide lifelong healthy habits and provide fresh, nutritious food to school-age children.
Hearth and Hill is open daily from 11:30 to 10pm. Reservations accepted but not required.
1153 Center Drive, Park City, UT 84098
(435) 200-8840
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