mist

est. 2008

There is something about Mist that inspires everyone involved
to give selflessly and whole-heartedly what they have to offer.

COLTON SOELBERG
Guest Chef

Date : January 23rd

Utah is my home. I am co-owner of Heirloom Restaurant Group where we own and operate Pizzeria 712, Communal, the Catering Co. & the Cafeteria Co. I have spent years working in and around restaurants. I have had the opportunity to work in some great places...
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VIET PHAM
Guest Chef

Date : January 30th

Viet Pham knows a little about the American Dream. In 1978, Pham's parents left their homeland in hopes of giving their son more opportunities than they had, but that was not all they gave him; Pham credits his parents with giving him a love for food and cooking.
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RYAN LOWDER
Guest Chef

Date : February 6th

Home-grown Utah Ryan Lowder recognized his true passion for food when he moved to Portland, Oregon. Without formal culinary training, he apprenticed under French-trained chef Lisa Schroeder of the critically-acclaimed Mother's Bistro. Inspired by that experience, Ryan decided to enroll at the Culinary Institute of America in New York...
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TAKASHI GIBO
Guest Chef

Date : February 13

He has been in the food business all of his life, beginning in childhood when his family lived in Lima and operated a bakery and a Peruvian steakhouse. The family returned to Okinawa, and he worked on their farms and in their noodle restaurant. He is a trained-in-Japan sushi chef who spent years mastering the traditional ways...
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founder / executive chef

Gavin Baker

Gavin Baker

He is known just as much for his fearless travel as his fearless cooking. In his 38 years on the planet he has somehow found a way to: serve four years in the Marine Corps; hike from London to Scotland in the dead of winter; trick the US government into a research visa to Cuba; teach villagers in the Himalayas how to make pizza; work as a chef for an illegal spear-fishing yoga commune off the coast of Thailand; travel the entire coastline of India one night bus at a time; train a staff of non-English speaking Indonesians how to run a sustainable kitchen on an island not far from Papua New Guinea; cook at 1 Olympics, 1 Super Bowl, the World Cup in Germany and 5 Masters; win several “Best Restaurant” awards and a few cold food competitions; and hold positions as varied as saucier for the legendary Jean-Jacques Rachou in New York to Executive Chef for Justin Timberlake’s restaurant on the Sunset Strip.

Most recently he completed a 6-month consultancy in which he oversaw 27 restaurants with 350 cooks. Prior to that he held one of the coveted sous chef positions at The Fat Duck, the “Best Restaurant in the World” in 2005. Currently he’s deep in his studio preparing for Mist:Salt Lake, a guerilla restaurant which opens for 4 weeks and coincides with the Sundance Film Festival. He doesn’t have much free time, but if he did he’d read more, cook more and not surprisingly travel more.
head pastry chef

Rebecca Millican

Rebecca Millican

Though a native of Salt Lake City, she spent many years on the east coast. While there she developed a love for food and baking. Upon entering a local holiday bake-off, her entry won first place, marking the beginning of her serious baking endeavors.

In 1991, she earned a diploma in Baking and Pastry from The Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. She went on to work at several high-end restaurants in New York and New Jersey. In her various positions she trained and mentored numerous individuals. She found tremendous satisfaction in this, which prompted a move into culinary education. She joined the faculty at The Institute of Culinary Education where she was a Baking and Pastry Instructor from 1999 until 2010.

Her work has been featured on television and in print. Her gingerbread houses and holiday specialties have been featured in The New York Post and Country Living Gardener magazine. Television appearances include “Better Homes and Gardens,” “Good Day New York,” and “Food Network Challenge,” and she has competed nationally:
National Pastry Team Championship (Team member 2007, Team Captain 2009) National Bread and Pastry Team Championship (2008)

In 2010 she returned to Utah where she is currently the Executive Pastry Chef at Amano Artisan Chocolate.
sous chef

Colin McSherry

Colin McSherry

He started cooking at age 14 in a local restaurant in his hometown, Newcastle, County Down, Ireland. After four years of learning the basics of cooking, he decided to attend catering college.

After college, he moved to Belfast to advance his culinary skills and went on to work under Brain McCann at the highly acclaimed Shu restaurant. Upon relocation to London a few years later, he furthered his enthusiasm for cooking under the direction of Michelin star chefs Brett Graham (at The Ledbury,) Angela Hartnett (at The York & Albany) and John Lake (at Heston Blumenthal’s world renowned The Fat Duck.) He is currently working as the executive chef for one of the best butchers in Europe, located in Brussels, Belgium.

His asparitions are to see more of the world and continue learning in his travels, which explains his decision to move across the planet to join the team at Mist:SaltLake.
butcher

Shon Foster

Shon Foster

He is the Executive Chef at Chez Bison at Zion Mountain Ranch, a ranch-style resort near Zion National Park.  A life-long lover of food and all things gustatory, he takes a thoughtful approach to food, blending contemporary French cuisine with the farm-to-fork tradition.  Since taking over the helm of the kitchen at Chez Bison in 2009, he has featured dishes that highlight the organic, farm-fresh produce grown in the gardens of Zion Mountain Ranch as well as other locally sourced ingredients.  His aim is to let the pure flavors of the ingredients shine through while allowing room for experimentation and spontaneity.  The result is an ever-evolving menu of carefully crafted dishes that showcase his creativity in the kitchen and capture the vibrancy of the local bounty.   He has charted his own path in the culinary world, spending a handful of years as a recording engineer in the music industry before entering the world of fine dining.  He continues to hone his craft by participating in collaborative efforts such as The Mist Project, which provide him the opportunity to work with some of the world’s most talented chefs.   When he's not in the kitchen, he can usually be found with guitar in hand serenading the restaurant’s guests, or in Zion Mountain Ranch’s garden with his kids picking what’s ripe and fresh and conceptualizing the flavor palette of his next new dish.
server

Josh Priest

Josh Priest

A trip eating his way through France and Italy with his family at the age of twelve first exposed this Ogdenite to the kind of warmth and hospitality that can be created through amazing food and impeccable service. This experience inspired his passion in recreating similar feelings for his hometown patrons while working as a waiter and manager for a handful of local restaurants. In addition to waiting tables and raising his own family, he spent four years as a US marine; visited over 20 countries; and worked as an escrow officer closing real estate transactions for a title company. For the past two years he worked as the General Manager for the Sonora Grill in Ogden, Utah.

As he has become increasingly aware of the global food crises we are facing as a species, he now turns his attention to his education as a full time student of environmental studies. He considers himself lucky to be playing part in not only the culinary vision, but also the global vision that The Mist Project is, and can't wait to serve what is sure to be the most exquisite food he's ever had the pleasure serving.
head development chef

Katie Weinner

Katie Weinner

She has always loved food… and also loved the idea of passing on wisdom and valuable information to people eager to learn. As a result, she went to college, worked hard, and earned both Psychology and English teaching degrees. After graduation, she went to Tahoe to cook and, of course, snowboard. She accepted a position at the Plumpjack Café in Squaw Valley, one of Tahoe’s premier dining destinations.

Two years later she relocated to Vancouver, B.C., to enroll in culinary school at Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver, where she later received her culinary diploma. After spending time catering and working as a pastry chef in Tahoe, she accepted an opportunity to become a culinary instructor at the Art Institute of Salt Lake City where she currently resides. She now teaches everything from molecular gastronomy to Asian and even lends her hand to running the student restaurant.

She is an integral part of the menu design for Mist:SaltLake and is in charge of an elite team of culinary students whose mission it is to test many of the recipes for Mist:SaltLake and Mist:SanFrancisco. You can hear more from her on her blog:
www.kitchen-unconfidential.blogspot.com.
entremetier

Tricia Layton

Tricia Layton

She started out life as a dancer. Ballet was her passion until a back injury at age 17 allowed her the opportunity to pursue interests outside of dance. She felt inspired by many factors to achieve a degree in psychology and it was while fulfilling a college elective that she discovered a love for cooking. After completing her degree in psychology, she "settled down" for a few minutes and found joy in being a wife and mom. However, it wasn’t long before she decided to attend culinary school and graduated summa cum laude from The Art Institute of Salt Lake City. Someday she hopes to be able to combine her love of psychology and cooking to form a new type of family and couples therapy that emphasizes the importance of family meal time. In the meantime, she contributes her time and culinary talent to Mist:SaltLake.
pastry sous chef

Andy Manchester

Andy Manchester

He hails from Georgia and attended the Art Institute in Atlanta, Georgia. His culinary career has allowed him the opportunity to work in many high profile food establishments, including the Four Seasons Atlanta, the renowned Forbes Four-Star, AAA Four Diamond Capitol Grille in the historic luxury Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, and Stein Eriksen Lodge Pastry Shop in Park City, Utah. Since joining the team as Pastry Sous Chef at Stein Eriksen Lodge in June 2010, he has been tasked with introducing impeccable quality and variety to the skier's buffet dessert offerings. He has truly taken the program to a new level by creating chocolate and sugar show pieces and retooling the chocolate truffle program.

When he's not at Stein's, he can be found in the Mist test kitchen developing recipes and teaching the Mist team the intricacies of sugar work.
general manager

Angie Mecham

Angie Mecham

As a child, she wanted to be many things: writer, explorer, musician, business mogul, environmentalist, marketer, entrepreneur, etc. Her time at the University of Utah was 4 years of dabbling in many disciplines, but finally finishing a degree in English Literature. Since graduation, she has developed corporate training and media for a top 20 ski resort, explored as much of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres as she could, joined a band, and completed coursework for a second degree in Environmental Studies.

Much to her delight, The Mist Project is affording her the opportunity to complete the rest of her childhood aspirations in the capacity of entrepreneur, marketer, accountant, graphic designer, and copy editor.
server

Ryan Gray

Ryan Gray

He hails from Northern California and landed in Utah after spanning the globe, including a stint with the Big Apple Circus. He served tables at Restaurant LuLu and for Paula le Duc Catering in San Francisco, cooked at Restaurante Azteca in Rota, Spain, and did bookkeeping for Time Cafe, Joe's Pub, Lever House, Lure Fish Bar and the Stanton Social in New York City. Most recently before his move to Utah, he worked at MIT, where he established a CSA drop-off on campus, started a community garden program and ran numerous recycling and food-related campaigns and events. He dove in as an active member of the Boston Localvores, a food justice and education movement that pursued a commitment to local food through events and restaurant consulting.

He currently works for the Downtown Alliance as the Assistant Downtown Farmers Market Manager and serves on the Board of Directors for the Wasatch Cooperative Market. He busies himself with all things local, with an emphasis on food, from planning canning events to assisting local urban farmers.
garde manger

Tatjana Provost

Tatjana Provost

Her love of the culinary arts started at a very young age. She often cooked with her mother while growing up in Canada. She pursued her interest in medicine by choosing a career in anesthesia. This career took her from the coast of Southern California to Chicago, where she taught anesthesia for four years. During this time she became increasingly fascinated by the culinary diversity available in Chicago. 



It was when she moved to Utah that the opportunity arose to pursue her culinary education at the Art Institute in Salt Lake City. She has also attended culinary classes in Thailand and Egypt. She brings dedication and artistry to the kitchen, where the level of intensity can often feel quite familiar to the fast multi-tasking pace of an operating room. She is very excited to take part in the Mist project, bringing increased culinary diversity to the Salt Lake Valley.
photographers

Adam & Leane

Adam & Leane

He became an international traveler before he was six months old. For his first passport photo, he was in diapers. After traveling much of Europe and other far flung locales such as Japan, Ecuador, The Galapagos Islands, Kenya and Tanzania, he settled down a bit and started to travel much of his own country - the U.S. Born and raised in California, he has now touched thirty-eight of our fifty states and currently calls Salt Lake City, UT home.

As a professional photographer for almost twenty years, he has had the good fortune to do what he loves for a living. Together with his wife, Leane, he creates documentary/photojournalistic stories and art installations on a large and small scale. Their unique eye and perspective has earned them recognition as catalysts of innovation (creative geniuses). As Mist's resident photographers, artists and storytellers, they will share their style with the project for web content, collateral materials and restaurant art installations.

In Feb. 2012, they are excited to welcome a son to the world whom they hope will also inherit the travel gene.
server

Brett Edmunds

Brett Edmunds

Immersed in a world of computers, movies, magic, and food from a very young age is what helped paved the way for where he is now. After spending a few necessary years living and working at Alta Ski Resort in Utah directly after high school, he knew it was then time to follow a more serious path. With dreams of being involved in the film industry, he enrolled at the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts, in Vancouver, BC with a focus on Visual Effects. After graduation he returned to SLC to begin work at a friends local production house, Bend Reality Studios. Later he realized that his love for the mountains would be too hard a thing to balance with a job in the film industry. So he returned to Alta and luckily found a position working for Peak Photo, a photo service for the Alta Ski Resort. The position enabled him to use his skills, while also providing enough time to ski and enjoy the mountains. But all along this journey of entertainment lied another passionate path, his love for food. As an artist, he wanted to be exposed to as much creative/artistic food as possible, and the passion he felt following that art form, is what compelled him to become a server.

For a food loving artist and server that is constantly searching for the next progressive shared moment in life, he felt extremely lucky to stumble upon The Mist Project. Within this project he saw the potential of the ideas and goals, knew he could do something, and is now truly grateful to be involved as a server within this shared moment of fellow food loving artists.
pastry

Racheal Santos

Racheal Santos

As a child, she knew that she wanted to be one of two things, Indiana Jones or Willy Wonka. This might explain why she started school as anthropology major and ended a chef.

The daughter of a first generation Italian father, she grew up moving across the country as an Air Force brat, but always spent summers on her Nonna's farm. Whether due to her Italian blood or her tutelage in her kitchen, she grew to love cooking, eating, and drinking. She contemplated becoming a pastry chef when in high school, but after the events of 9/11 her junior year, felt the need to serve her country.

She enlisted in the Air Force at the age of 18 and became a combat flight medic. As soon as she got her wings, she was deployed for over a year in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. She spent five years in the military and even though she knew that being a military medic may not have been her passion, it gave her the opportunity to do an immense amount of traveling and experiences with different countries, people, and food.

After the military she enrolled in a traditional college, hated it, and finally listened to her heart. She enrolled in the Culinary Art Institute of Salt Lake City and hasn’t looked back since. She has dual degrees in both culinary and baking/pastry, but is truly passionate about pastry. She interned at Zucca Trattoria restaurant under Chef Elio Scanu for approximately two years doing anything and everything she could.
design and technology

Nicholas Owens

Nicholas Owens

He is the information-architect and lead production artist for Gershoni Creative Agency, based in the heart of San Francisco. Previously, he worked as a Motion Graphics Designer at the cutting edge broadcast station CurrentTV. He has worked in film, television, and web media. He adores intensity and creativity. A strong background in the visual arts helped permeate and founder a love of computer arts, programming, and new media.

He holds a degree in Multimedia Arts and Sciences from UNC-Asheville and is the mastermind behind Mist's website and branding.
academic researcher

Joel Mitchell

Joel Mitchell

He was attracted at a young age to higher states of consciousness in music, so he travelled and lived throughout the USA for five years searching for the sound. When it was time to give some of that positive energy back, he took up coursework in Asheville, North Carolina, studying the human-social world in an effort to better understand problems such as inequality and other injustices. Having a proclivity for intellectual development, he took up graduate studies in Arcata and was granted a Master’s Degree in Sociology after three semesters.

After graduation, he chose to immerse himself in the densely populated island of Taiwan. After six years of living in Taiwan with short excursions to surrounding countries for scuba diving, he then relocated to China for two years. In 2009, he moved back to California and has now finished coursework for a second Master’s Degree in Political Science with an emphasis in policymaking. Well aware of the myriad troubles confronting humanity, especially in the area of food security, he has become committed to studying and improving the global food situation. He joins the Mist team as a scholar and head researcher for The Mist Project.