May 16, 2017 – Diners looking for stellar comfort food made from scratch with fresh, local and seasonal ingredients will find it in the new Holman Ranch Tavern, located in the former Will’s Fargo. And they’ll also get to have a cocktail flight on the side.
Cocktail flight? Yes, that’s right—novel flights of three different martinis, margaritas, cosmopolitans and bourbons will be served right along with the wine flights you might expect from the owners of the Holman Ranch winery, as well as craft beer flights and an array of imported and local wines, beers and ciders by the glass.
Whether or not a cocktail flight is your thing, the message here in that the owners and staff of the tavern, which will hold its grand opening this Saturday May 20th, want you to have fun. And even for someone who enjoyed the location’s longtime run as a Will’s Fargo Dining House & Saloon, the update into a more casual and contemporary place to go for lunch or happy hour (hours will be noon to 7pm daily) is attractive, as it combines some of the best of the past with beautiful, casual new décor, an extensive music and special events calendar and a bright, fresh approach to its food and drinks.
Starting with the food, owners Hunter Lowder and Nick Elliot have brought back former chef Jérôme Viel—now the proprietor of his own catering company and the Carmel Valley Market—as consulting chef, in charge of developing recipes that will be made fresh to order by the tavern’s own staff. (Even the cocktail ingredients will all be made from scratch.)
But with a new emphasis on sharable, playful choices rather than big plates of steak, Viel’s full range of creativity and appreciation of our local ingredients is on full view.
For example, on the new menu, you’ll still find meat, but in a creative trio of sliders including herbed chicken, pulled pork and bacon-meatloaf.
Other warm dishes we could imagine enjoying in front of the fireplace on a cool evening include elevated grilled cheese sandwich sticks served with Carmel Honey Co. honey and house-made tomato-bacon jam, an intensely flavorful panini made with pesto, prosciutto, and arugula on artisanal bread and blue cheese-stuffed, bacon-wrapped dates.
Choices that could easily become a local habit on sunny days on the back or front patios after wine tasting include a perfectly dressed trio of salads including beets, quinona and mixed greens, and carefully curated cheese and charcuterie boards.
But at least as important as the food and drink to the more casual and lively experience of the new tavern is the décor. You’ll still find such iconic references to the 1928 building’s former owners as Ben Pon’s stuffed boar heads, photos of Will Fay and a painting by Jack Swanson that was made for Fay. But some of the less comfortable seating has been replaced with soft leather Mexican chairs placed around low steel and rough-hewn lounge tables inside, and warm orange sectional sofas on the front patio. On the floors, cozy new cow skin rugs look like they should have been there all along.
In each room and outdoor space, long communal tables are at the ready to accommodate celebrations of old friends and provide a place for others to get know each other for the first time.
“We’re excited to see this come full circle,” says Elliot, noting that he, Lowder and their staff developed their new concept after studying over the last couple of years what their customers really wanted from dining out.
To experience the new tavern yourself, don’t miss the grand opening this Saturday May 20. From 1–5pm there will be live music, $5 wine and food pairings and a silent auction benefitting the Carmel Valley Historical Society.
Holman Ranch Tavern • www.holmanranch.com
About the author
SARAH WOOD—founding editor and publisher of Edible Monterey Bay—has had a life-long passion for food, cooking, people and our planet.
She planted her first organic garden and cared for her first chicken when she was in elementary school in a farming region of Upstate New York.
Wood spent the early part of her career based in Ottawa, Canada, working in international development and international education. After considering culinary school, she opted to pursue her loves for writing, learning about the world and helping make it a better place by obtaining a fellowship and an MA in Journalism from New York University.
While working for a daily newspaper in New Jersey, she wrote stories that helped farmers fend off development and won a state-wide public service award from the New Jersey Press Association for an investigative series of articles about a slumlord who had hoodwinked ratings agencies and investment banks into propping him up with some early commercial mortgage securitizations. The series led Wood to spend several years in financial journalism, most recently, as editor-in-chief of the leading magazine covering the U.S. hedge-fund industry.
Wood now lives with her family in Washington, DC, where she is a freelance writer and manages communications for Samaritan Ministry, an antipoverty and antiracist nonprofit that provides struggling Greater Washington residents with highly personalized and compassionate life counseling and coaching.
