Beano’s Cabin, Beaver Creek (photo by Brad A. Johnson)

Beano’s Cabin is my favorite restaurant in Beaver Creek, Colorado. Hidden in a small mountain meadow, surrounded by towering spruce, at the edge of Larkspur Bowl more than halfway up Beaver Creak Mountain, this was one of the first ski-in/ski-out, fine-dining restaurants in America. The cabin is now celebrating its 25^th year with a brand new chef, Bill Greenwood (formerly of Aspen’s The Little Nell and San Diego’s Eddie V’s), who fills the wood-fired rotisserie with whole suckling pigs and beef tenderloins. 

En route to the cabin; the interior; fluke tartare; leek risotto; pork belly with polenta; roasted vegetables (photos by Brad A Johnson)

An appetizer of fluke tartare tastes like it was just yanked from the sea. Picture-perfect farmers market veggies (flown in from the Santa Monica Farmers Market in Los Angeles) are roasted en papillote. A snowball-sized chunk of pork belly sinks into a creamy, pillowy mound of polenta. The fireplace roars. The wine list is extensive. Lunch, which is ski-in/ski-out via the Larkspur Express chairlift, is open only to members of the private Beaver Creek Club (and their friends). Dinner, accessibly only by snow cat, is open to the public. Reservations essential, 970.754.3463