Chef’s Special: Wayne Christian of Westgate Resort

Chef Wayne Christian of Westgate Resort Park City, started off cooking for free in New Jersey. Photo: Westgate Resorts

PARK CITY, Utah – Chef Wayne Christian has been with the Westgate Park City Resort since 2016 when he left his position as Westgate’s traveling sous chef for the executive chef position at Edge Steakhouse. Since then, he has become the executive chef for the Park City resort, including Edge Steakhouse, Drafts Burger Bar, the Coffee Bar, and the Marketplace.

Wayne can be found poking his head into each location throughout an average day and getting behind the line whenever needed, with no hesitation.

With Edge, he’s implemented an impressive steak program. The menu features domestic wagyu, Japanese A5 Wagyu, dry-aged steaks, and Niman Ranch’s first-ever grass-fed beef program. Edge Steakhouse is the first in the state to have and serve the Niman grass-fed beef. This program still follows Niman Ranch procedures, no hormones or antibiotics, pasture, and humanely raised on family-run farms. Cows are ruminants and have an organ, the rumen, specially equipped for digesting grass. This means that grass-fed cows are on their most natural diet.

Funnily enough, the item at Edge he’s most proud of is the half chicken.

We buy a chicken, the whole thing so head and feet on, explains Christian. “Then we butcher it, debone the dark meat, so it’s easier to eat. We cut it in half and brine the chicken for 24 hours. After those 24 hours, we hang dry it like Peking duck for 15 hours. This chicken blows people away. It’s the crispiest, juiciest chicken I’ve ever had in my life. We serve it with the foot on to show the work we’ve put in and how organic this chicken is.

Drafts Burger Bar has also seen menu changes since Christian’s arrival and aims to go above and beyond a regular sports bar. The menu now has its infamous hand-dipped and spun milkshakes like the I Want All the Puppies with Oreos, Ho Hos, and vanilla ice cream (they also donate proceeds from this shake to Nuzzles and Co.). Over-the-top burgers like the Vote for Pedro with chile relleno, pepper jack cheese, pico de gallo, avocado, smoked queso, and fried jalapeño.

Drafts goes beyond the greasy-spoon dishes to appeal to everyone. It has power bowls with fresh veggies and quinoa, healthy salads, and a new ‘green’ menu. The green menu has the Boujie Hippie veggie burger, the Impeckable plant-based chicken sandwich, and Impossible Melt plant-based burger.

Coming to Drafts is a similar over-the-top breakfast menu. Think of their creative, flavorful burger creations, but pancakes, breakfast sandwiches, power bowls, skillets, smoothies, and two-handed burritos. Drafts Burger Bar hopes to have breakfast service up and running mid-to-late December.

This article was written for Dishing Park City by TownLift author Meredith Kluever.