Dirty Work: A Hedonist’s Dream Meal Involves Poached Oysters, Vegetables, and Fried Ostrich Egg

"This is so sexy," Harutaka Kishi coos as he plucks fresh radishes from the MUNCHIES garden. He's cradling the bundle like a newborn. The Paris-born chef has already gathered edible flowers, green onions, tender kale, turnips, and baby shitakes, too. He's only been here for five minutes.

"In Eden, I'm very inspired by Powder Mountain, which surrounds my restaurant. I was hiking a few months ago and reached the top of the peak to discover some pinecones covered in sap. I placed them inside of a mason jar with gin and closed the lid for a while. I finally opened it up a few months ago, added some grapefruit juice to give it that sexy hibiscus color, and when I took a sip, it tasted like the mountain."

Kishi's sensual way of describing food makes him come off like a hedonist, but his unique approach to cooking feels very zen.

Nature has become tangled up in every aspect of his work, but his fine dining has found its way into his Utah kitchen.

Living in the middle of nature is a lifestyle that he feels that he couldn't find anywhere else as a chef. "I can hit the slopes and go skiing before work, but I like foraging on the mountain for inspiration." When he moved to Utah from Los Angeles, where he feels that everything is "about connections and media," he had to discard his fine dining notions—from working under culinary titans such as Joël Robuchon and Gordon Ramsey—in order to cook food "that people want to eat." Instead, he has embraced roasting whole animals over open-fires, allowing the mountain to dictate what's in his pantry. Cooking with ingredients like blue spruce needles gave way to kitchen epiphanies like his favorite dish: summer peaches baked over a bed of blue spruce with local honey. "When you take a bite, you are breathing in the sweetness of the mountains around you."

Standing in Kishi's presence feels like a lesson in mediation—an effort at slowing down to focus on every bit of produce that's growing beneath our feet—but a task that's difficult in our high-paced environment where pause only takes place for coffee and cigarette breaks.

"The first year I worked in Eden, I was miserable because I was trying to force my fine dining background onto the menu. Since we serve around 220 people every day, I quickly realized that it was up to myself to make something great." His diners are a healthy mixture of some of the world's leading entrepreneurs like Richard Bronson, celebrities, athletes, artists, and creatives.

With fresh produce in hand, we head into the MUNCHIES test kitchen to watch him get to work. "I was at the Union Square Farmers Market this morning and thought, 'What is the most ridiculous thing I can bring to MUNCHIES?' So I found this ostrich egg." Kishi holds it out to the group like an object in a show-and-tell exercise. It looks like a relic from Jurassic Park and is so large, it might feed an entire village.

First, Kishi requests wine. "Let's have some to get things started. We're all in this together," he smiles. After a sip of grüner veltliner, he begins cleaning and trimming the vegetables. Within a few minutes, baby turnips, radishes, tender kale, chicory, fresh flowers, tarragon, and baby shitakes are neatly tailored and placed on a sheet pan that looks like mis-en-place from a Michelin-starred kitchen.

Now what about that ostrich egg? "With a sunny side up egg, you have to go low and slow, and we're going to do the same for this and see what happens." He runs a pairing knife around the shell like a surgeon. The room is dead quiet. "It's a first time for all of us," he says as he slowly cracks the football-sized object into a dish that could hold enough pasta for an entire family.

He pulls out a cast-iron skillet and turns it up over medium heat. "I'll just add a touch of butter here. A French touch." With a large spoon, he pats about a half cup of butter into the skillet and takes a sip from his wine glass.

He gingerly dumps the egg into the pan. While it bubbles away, Kishi gets back to those vegetables. In a separate pan, he warms them up with butter and white wine until softened and sets them aside.

Any good glutton knows that a prehistoric-looking sunny side up egg with vegetables just isn't enough. It's time to add an aphrodisiac or two. After freshly shucking some oysters, Kishi lightly poaches them in butter with a splash of white wine until plump. He gently places the oysters on a plate to cool and reduces the pan juices down with white wine and butter into a glossy, oceanic tasting beurre blanc.

To lighten things up, he prepares a small salad with a Dijon vinaigrette. He runs a palette knife around the bottom of the cast-iron skillet. The yolk has transformed into a tender custard consistency; the whites have set.

In silence, he decorates the fried egg—still warm in the skillet—with the lightly cooked vegetables, oysters, and salad. He scatters edible flowers and tender radish slices on top. A final drizzle of beurre blanc, and its time to take a bite.

"Now that is very sexy," says Kishi.