What to eat if you're looking for the vintage soul of Nouveau Girdwood
Notes on: stoners/Teslas, expensive bagels, The Merc, septuagenarian tie-dye, miso butter noodles, strawberry slab pie and wild yeasts
A few years back I was gifted a massage at the brand-new Nordic Spa for Mother’s Day. The place was just cresting the wave of Nouveau Girdwood then — hella spendy, with the placeless, trendy “rustic-ness” of a Pendleton blanket tossed very deliberately on an Instagram cabin bed.
When I got on the massage table, my therapist let me know that he wasn’t supposed to work but they called him in after he’d smoked weed already. He was pretty burned out, he sighed. He monologued about some legal problems and dynamics with friends who lived in a treehouse, then asked if it would be cool if we ended early.
A person might be mad about a $200 Mother’s Day half-massage with a chatty stoner, but there was a comforting truth to it: you can try to “elevate” the Alyeska Resort out of Girdwood by doubling the prices and updating the carpet, but you can’t take the Girdwood out of the resort.
If you want to love Anchorage this week, journey to its gentrifying hippie resort enclave and hunt for the local spirit. You will not find it in a Tesla, a Japanese soaking tub at an Anchorage surgeon’s weekend house, or in a $200 bucket of Russian-caught king crab. Girdwood’s soul is an 11-year-old kid in a damp, oversized sweatshirt, riding an old BMX to The Merc for jo-jos. It’s a blueberry pie delivered to the volunteer fire department. It’s a booth at the Halloween carnival where you stand in line just to pet a golden retriever. You’ll know it if you find it, because it’s magical, generous, mossy and maybe a little high.
There’s always a tension in Alaska restaurants between mimicking novel Outside trends, which can feel cool but rootless, and cooking in a way that resonates with the actual place, but seems, by some standards, less sophisticated. This tension hits me hard when I’m eating in Nouveau Girdwood. On one hand, for example, I enjoy an expert heart-topped hipster cappuccino at Alpenglow Coffee Shop, but I know deep-cut Girdwood lives at The Grind, where the vibe is more septuagenarian tie-dye than latte swan.
I love, love, love cozy brunch at Spoonline Bistro — the croissant French toast slaps and the shakshuka satisfies, but there is also a $30 bagel with lox on the menu. It *is* really good. But it feels weird, you know? (If we’re going to spend real money on bagels, also, nothing tops the poem that is the lox on a fresh bagel, boiled in Turnagain well water, at Birch & Alder. And it’s only $16! I cry a little when I eat it.)
Do I appreciate the hard-to-stick balance of local and sophisticated AND the yam fries at Jack Sprat? Sure. Do I wish it leaned into the smart, authentic formula it’s created and changed the menu more? Also yes. Would I consider a $60 steak at the Musky? Maybe, on a very special occasion, if I didn’t have to wait too long, mostly because that place is *so vintage Girdwood.* (It opened in 1962!) But would I pay $139 per person for a new prix fixe at Seven Glaciers? Doubtful. I prefer the tangy $12 stack of sourdough pancakes at The Bake Shop. Sourdoughs taste like the wild yeast in the air where they come from, and you can’t taste those pancakes anywhere else.
Anyway, what’s cooking this week? I’m on a pie kick after last week’s rhubarb pie, so it’s easy strawberry slab pie for a crowd. Perfect for a barbecue, if/when the sun comes out, just double it. Also, strawberries are on sale everywhere right now, so why not? You can cheat with store-bought crust. I don’t judge.
What I’m testing: I’m loving the NYT miso butter noodles — with just butter, white miso, Parm and pasta water — whisked in the pot and then stirred very vigorously with al dente-cooked Alaska Pasta Company rigatoni from my Arctic Harvest box. I also like to sprinkle my bowl with the Kachemak Kelp furikake I got last summer at the Salmon Sisters’ store at the end of the Homer Spit. (Furikake has not caught on with the children, however. Lol.)
Little treats: Well, I’ve developed an addiction to the iced black sesame latte at Sakana — something about that nutty sesame paste with espresso over ice at about 1 p.m. Also a treat: going to the new Friday night market in Town Square Park, where last week I got to take a sweet trip in the sun with Matt Hopper and the Roman Candles and test out the new Pasta La Vista food cart, which was totally mobbed. Spencer, newsletter treats correspondent, gives high marks to Charon’s Crate, a new takeout DIY cocktail ingredient box that’s available at La Bodega. It’s made and curated by bar director and lead bartender Cory Leicester, from Whisky & Ramen, which has one of the city’s best bar programs. Finally, recommend catching the weird, smart Alexandra Phillips memorial show at Georgia Blue Gallery. You can say hi to Lamar at my favorite cheese shop nextdoor.
On a very serious note, please send healing light and prayers to my friend, talented Anchorage chef Kaylah Thomas of Oh’mage Dining, who was seriously injured in a car accident last week. ✨❤️🩹 I am looking forward to eating her gumbo and vegan cornbread again ASAP.
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Write to me with your expensive bagel analyses, favorite Matt Hopper songs and anything, really.
Thank you, always, for reading.
Julia
P.S.: For my newest recipes and access to many stories I link to, subscribe to the Anchorage Daily News and Edible Alaska. Search all my recipes and writing at juliaomalley.com.
P.S.: For my newest recipes and access to many stories I link to, subscribe to the Anchorage Daily News and Edible Alaska. Search all my recipes and writing at juliaomalley.com.
P.P.S. from a recent trip to Bishop’s Attic:
*Eagle-eyed editor-for-hire Egan Millard reads this newsletter. Hire him. 🦅*
As a Girdwoodian for 30+ years, and having raised 3 now adults here, I love every morsel of this article! Loving the Astrid Lindgren quote at the end. I’m in Sweden now and Pippi is everywhere!
Birch & Alder makes a fantastic bagel, but for my money the best in town is the Nordic Bagel from Wooden Spoons on 36th!