Nemacolin Woodlands chef cooks at famed James Beard Foundation
Chef Kristin Butterworth, chef de cuisine of Lautrec, an award-winning, Forbes Five-Start and AAA Five-Diamond restaurant at Nemacolin Woodlands in Farmington, recently cooked for the third time at the legendary James Beard Foundation in New York City.
Chef Kristin Butterworth, chef de cuisine of Lautrec, prepares a dish of Sweet Potato Agnolotti made with roasted red onion, jalapeno infused honey, pecan, feta saldana and cilantro.
Chef Kristin Butterworth, chef de cuisine of Lautrec, prepares a dish of Sweet Potato Agnolotti made with roasted red onion, jalapeno infused honey, pecan, feta saldana and cilantro, which is pictured below.
Pictured is Arctic Char Crudo, which is a beet-stained char roe with preserved lemon, radish and black truffles prepared by Chef Kristen Butterworth of Lautrec.
Pictured is Sweet Potato Agnolotti, made with roasted red onion, jalapeno infused honey, pecan, feta saldana and cilantro. Prepared by Chef Kristen Butterworth of Lautrec.
The Lautrec Restraunt at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort & Spa was recently awarded highest honors by Forbes Five-Star and AAA Five Diamond reviews.
A Nemacolin Woodlands chef with a passion for her work recently enjoyed her third stint cooking at the legendary James Beard Foundation in New York City, an event billed as a “Five Star Winter Night of Elegance.”
“This time I was more nervous than the first two. I felt nervous because it was my third time, it was a bigger deal. But it went better than I ever imagined,” said Kristin Butterworth, chef de cuisine of Lautrec, a European-styled culinary restaurant at the Farmington resort.
Butterworth appeared Feb. 2 at the nonprofit James Beard Foundation, which carries on the work of the famed cookbook author, teacher and mentor who died in 1985.
“The mission of the James Beard Foundation is to celebrate, nurture and preserve America’s culinary heritage and future. Towards this end, chefs are invited to ‘perform’ at the Beard House by presenting lunches, brunches, workshops, and dinners to Foundation members and the public,” the website explained.
Butterworth, 34, received all three invitations since taking her position in January 2010 at Lautrec, which is one of currently 25 restaurants worldwide that is both a Forbes Five-Star and AAA Five-Diamond restaurant. Butterworth is the youngest and only female chef to helm one of these 25 restaurants.
“It’s an honor and I hope, in a small way, it inspires females in this industry,” said Butterworth of this distinction. “I’ve been honored to work with a lot of amazing chefs, who have put me on the right track.”
Butterworth, who also cooked at the Beard House in 2010 and 2012, received her first invitation when two of the foundation’s committee members stopped at Nemacolin while traveling and dined at Lautrec.
“It was terrifying but amazing,” said Butterworth of her first appearance at age 28. “It was a thrill that everyone I ever looked up to had cooked there. It’s such an honor.”
A native of Northern Cambria in Cambria County, Butterworth has been cooking since she was a child.
“My ‘nonna’ taught me to make meatballs and spaghetti sauce. I was 3 years old when I was pulling taffy at her table,” remembered Butterworth. “Cooking has always been the center of my universe.”
Butterworth graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Academy of Culinary Arts in Punxsutawney, earning a certificate in 2001. She performed an externship in Arizona at Boulders Resort, which also has also a Five-Star, Five-Diamond restaurant.
Moving back home, Butterworth worked in a privately-owned Italian restaurant called Luigi’s and had an opportunity to attend culinary school in Turin in northern Italy.
In 2003, she took her first job at Nemacolin Woodlands at the former Golden Trout restaurant, which featured American Cuisine.
Butterworth left in 2005 to work at Sea Island Resort in Georgia, another Five-Star, Five-Diamond restaurant, which featured refined Southern food. She later moved to northern Virginia to work at the Inn at Little Washington, which is the longest recurring Five-Diamond, Five-Star restaurant in the country, owned by Chef Patrick O’Connell, known as the father of refined American cuisine.
Butterworth returned to Nemacolin Woodlands six years ago to take her current position at Lautrec, which opened in 1997.
The chef said of Lautrec’s menu, “We’re forward-moving, modern. You’ll see French, Italian and American influences.”
Named for the French painter and displaying five original Lautrec lithographs, the restaurant is decorated in rich reds with contrasting white tablecloths. It includes a main and two private dining rooms, a bar and a bistro area where French doors open to the kitchen. The restaurant offers a chef’s table where guests have an opportunity to sit in the kitchen area and watch the staff prepare their dinner. Open evenings Thursdays through Saturdays in the winter, the restaurant features music by singer Rebecca Kaufman on Fridays. It will open more evenings come spring.
Lautrec offers a weekly prix-fixe menu that includes food from local farmers, such as Footprints Farm in Gibbon Glade. In fact, Butterworth took food from Footprints Farms to her recent Beard appearance for a second-course appetizer: chicken and waffles, which featured chicken liver pate with rosemary waffles, pickled elderberries, pecans and bourbon barrel-aged maple syrup.
“I find it so exciting that Fayette County was represented at this exclusive event,” said Ashli Mazer, director of marketing and public relations for Nemacolin Woodlands.
Butterworth is happy to use local food in her cooking and expressed her admiration for Ellen and Jeremy Swartzfager of Footprints Farm, noting they share a common goal in always trying to make a better product.
Butterworth is also appreciative of her staff, which includes seven cooks, three front servers, three server assistants, a bartender, sommelier and maitre d’.
“It takes every single person in this restaurant to make it what it is,” she said.
Butterworth brought three of her staff to help prepare the five-course dinner in Beard’s Greenwich Village home. Starting at 9 a.m., she worked all day to cook for the 7:30 p.m. event that fed 70 people, who were seated at tables throughout the house, including the living room, dining room — even the bathroom.
Butterworth’s menu, which had to be pre-approved, ranged from buckwheat-goat pierogi to represent the region to waguy beef from Japan. Other dishes included chilled squash soup while dessert was posset with yizu-infused local cream, black sesame granita, five-spice bubbles and burnt orange. Butterworth pre-selected wines served by Nemacolin’s food and beverage director.
Looking back, Butterworth commented, “The entire experience from start to finish was not only an honor but one of those experiences as a chef that leaves a lasting impression on you for the rest of your career. Just being able to represent Nemacolin and Lautrec in this legendary location and bring a little taste of what we do to NYC is something my team and I won’t soon forget.”