La Caille's grounds, including its vineyards, are now restored, but the owners aren't stopping there.
The restaurant bottles wine from vines planted in 1976, serves farm-to-table food and is building a new bar and lounge.
For decades, La Caille, which opened in 1975, was the fine dining spot Utahns chose for marriage proposals, weddings, anniversaries, and Easter brunch. But by the mid-2000s, the informal, familial structure of the business unraveled, and the owners found themselvesunder the ownership of Kevin Gates, who spent $1.5 million restoring the chateau and the grounds.
The gardens will be on display during a fundraiser to benefit the nonprofit Tribune starting at 3 p.m. on Aug. 27. There will be live music and more than 35 local food and wine vendors, including La Caille. A limited number of tickets are available atPartner Kelly Doll said that garden doesn’t necessarily fill the plates at the restaurant — instead, they source from rotating list of Utah farmers.The menu isn’t the only thing that’s changing.
In the early 1980s, the co-founders planted a vineyard of Seyval Blanc — an American-French hybrid grape. The grounds sit 5,350 feet above sea level and take advantage of low nighttime temperatures, well-draining sloped hills and soil rich in glacial deposits.In 2011, Gates hired Michael Knight of Kiler Grove Winery, who had worked with La Caille in the 1990s to establish the restaurant’s first wine label, to help restore the vines.