My family is spending winter break in Vail, Colorado. The Texas heat has simply overstayed its welcome so we thought it would be nice to go somewhere where you don’t start sweating just by breathing. As luck would have it, as soon as we left Houston, there was a cold front and it started cooling down… Oh well….There’s so much fun stuff to do in Vail, and gustatorily, this place is no slouch either. So we might as well go.
Sweet Basil is the place that comes up every time you Google “best restaurant in Vail”. And I mean EVERY SINGLE TIME. So either they’re truly remarkable or they have the best PR people money can buy… Either way, the foodie that I am, I just had to try it. They’re on OpenTable for a thousand points, goodie for me!
I scheduled our dinner for three right after a day of snowmobiling. I opted for early dinner because I want to have enough light from the outside to capture the famous ambience of the restaurant.
I’m glad they gave us a table next to this. I could look at those twinkling lights for the rest of the night. The park is next to Gore creek which is semi-frozen at this time.
served with shallot butter, vadouvan spice, melted leeks, parsnips.
confit sunchoke, brussels, potato puree, brown butter hollandaise
The waiter boasted that their specialty dessert has been on the menu for more than 20 years. Naturally, we had to try it.
brown sugar rum ice cream, peanut brittle
Overall, I know that this restaurant is not from a very good PR machinery. It is popular for a good reason. It is clearly superior than their sister restaurant, Mountain Standard. We were there last night and I am still debating whether I should blog about them or not—it was that disappointing. Sweet Basil is one of the better restaurants I’ve been to. Menu is inventive and properly executed. Definitely a must-try if you are ever in the Vail area.