Introducing ParkCityWinos.com: a dining guide with no strings attached

Jeff Roberts pours from a decanter. Photo: Blake Peterson and Panic Button Media

PARK CITY, Utah. – When Jeff Roberts first started visiting Park City in 2005, he ran into a problem: there was no central resource available for visitors who wanted to learn about local restaurants and their wine lists. “I don’t want to defame anyone, but you’d go to a hotel concierge to get restaurant recommendations and what you learned is that they were paid by the restaurants they sent you to.”

A full-time Park City resident since 2018, he and his partner, Melissa Band, chose to take the problem upon themselves during the long, Covid-impacted winter of 2020 and launched Park City Winos. The website currently contains reviews of some 60 restaurants in the Park City and greater Salt Lake City areas. The reviews are based on Roberts’ own standardized system that examines a restaurant’s food, wine, and atmosphere independently. “The website is totally self-funded by me. The reviews are obviously my opinion, but the aim is for it to be completely objective,” says Roberts.

Roberts, an avid wine collector and aficionado, wants to draw attention in particular to those restaurants that are putting in the legwork on their wine menus. “Very few restaurants in this town pay enough attention to wine because it’s hard. You have to special order wines (in Utah) whereas in other states you can just go and buy what you want,” Roberts explains. “But there’s a market here for restaurants that will actually try to put together a decent wine list. And it doesn’t have to be big, it just has to be thoughtful.” A thoughtful wine list, according to Roberts, is one that showcases wines from a variety of growing areas around the world, in particular, the diverse selections that Europe has to offer. “There has to be more than just California on a wine menu for me to review it,” he says.

While Roberts doesn’t operate in the food and beverage arena, he claims to be the only non-food-and-beverage industry member of the Les Amis d’Escoffier Society, an exclusive food and dining institution that aims to “enhance the art of fine dining by supporting culinary education through scholarships,” according to the group’s website.

Some of Roberts’ top restaurant recommendations for food, wine, and atmosphere include Giltretind at Stein Eriksen Lodge, Edge Steakhouse, Veneto, and Current.