Nourish - Artisans

SeaTac Restaurants

Let's start at the very beginning. Delivering Cedarbrook's culinary vision of presenting Copperleaf Restaurant diners and Cedarbrook Lodge banquet and catering social and business guests the highly valued farm-to-table experience, means beginning at the source. The farm. The ranch. The stream.

It is here where the passion for the product itself – as it grows, as it is cultivated, as it is fed, as it is nurtured – first matters. As well as the environment in which it matures under the watchful and caring eyes of equally responsible, equally dedicated and devoted resource partners.

Small local Washington state farms, artisans, ranchers and fishermen are carefully chosen for their commitment to offer to Cedarbrook Lodge hand-selected superior products direct from their fields, trees, streams or pastures. No middle man.

Cedarbrook's food and beverage vendor partners are similarly quality-driven devotees of responsible, sustainable, fair-trade practices. The lodge's culinary team does business only with those who value as highly as do they – food's tradition and its future.

Today's diners live in an age where the majority of hotel restaurant and banquet operations focus on high productivity and low food cost (often resulting in the purchase of mass-produced, packaged, stored, shipped and dare we say often frozen food items). At Cedarbrook, the food and beverage team provides quality products with thoughtful preparation and appealing presentation. And doing so to the delight of the diners while being socially responsible yet fiscally wise.

Read how just a few of Cedarbrook's vendors share and support the overall food and beverage vision.

Providing Cedarbrook several of its signature cheese and dairy products is the Estrella Family Creamery. This family-owned and operated grass-based dairy makes hand-crafted cheeses with raw cow and goat milk from animals grazed in organically maintained pastures.
Cedarbrook's culinary team purchases the freshest and best greens, herbs and lettuces from Willy Greens Organic Farm. On 55 acres of its own land in Monroe, Willy Greens grows and harvests between 4,000 - 5,000 pounds of salad mix, braising greens, baby spinach, baby arugula and baby lettuce each week of "the season." Additionally during that time, they also grow and sell 50 to 60 varieties of vegetables and berries. And between October - February, they offer nine to twelve different varieties of fall and winter produce.
Bluebird Grain Farms is the source for farro -- widely used in Copperleaf Restaurant and banquet favorite recipes. Bluebird cultivates and mills the most irresistible, nutrient-rich grain possible, while leaving the land healthier for the next generation. By keeping its fields nutritionally balanced and teeming with beneficial microbes, it reaps highly nutritious grains.Their grains are grown in the Upper Methow Valley and irrigated with pure mountain water straight from the Pasayten Wilderness. Bluebird staff times tillage and planting for optimum seed germination and natural weed control. They cultivate their own seed to keep their pure, heirloom grain varieties strong and healthy. Bluebird conditions its grains in custom-built, old-world wooden granaries. Any moisture in the grain is absorbed by their wood; mold and rot—and using chemicals to control them—are never an issue. Bluebird flours are milled to order for the freshest product available. It's a difference diners will taste in every bite of the pastas, breads, sweets and other foods Cedarbrook Lodge prepares with Bluebird grain.
On 300 acres of organic farmland at Full Circle Farm, they grow, source and provide the freshest and most flavorful produce (150 varieties of vegetables, fruits and herbs). Sustainable practices are the cornerstone of their operations. They believe in the value of nurturing the land and community . . . You haven't lived 'til you've savored their organically-grown red, yellow and Chioggia baby beets!
Naturally flavorful and tender beef is a must at any Cedarbrook table. Painted Hills Natural Beef raises its beef with no added hormones, no antibiotics and a 100% vegetarian diet. Their cattle are never fed animal by-products. "This isn't just a job; it's our way of life." Cedarbrook's support of this independent rancher and the ranching traditions is the cornerstone of responsible, sustainable, community-minded practices.
Who else, you ask? Well, Cedarbrook purchases the highest quality gourmet cured meats and other traditional Italian foods from Salumi, located in the heart of Seattle's historic Pioneer Square. Their craftsmen combine state of the art equipment with Old World techniques to preserve the hand-made traditions of the Mediterranean.
World Spice Merchants is the source for many of the items that what else? Spice up the recipes served at Copperleaf Restaurant and at Cedarbrook Lodge business and social banquet events! Its their chives, coriander seed, cinnamon sticks, Tellicherry pepper, vanilla bean and other pure and blended spices you'll taste in various Cedarbrook culinary creations. Their mission is simple and straightforward: find the freshest flavors on the planet and provide them to those who seek the best quality ingredients and ultimately incorporate them into their most creative recipes. Talk about enriching the dining experience immeasurably and in the subtlest of ways!
For lovers of caviar and other decadent luxuries, Cedarbrook Lodge purchases items from the Seattle Caviar Company. Caviar. Truffles. Foie gras. Oils and vinegars. Cedarbrook diners may indulge themselves in the elegance and mystique of these offerings.
Then there's the Malleys, a family business based in Seattle and is the source of Cedarbrook's albacore tuna, which is trolled in the North Pacific.
The local area's Wild Wheat Bakery is where the freshly-baked artisan rolls and breads are made.
And Mad Hatcher Farm is run by Bernie Nash, who has been farming his entire life in Eastern Washington, specifically Ephrata. Bernie works with Cedarbrook to raise squab, poussin, chicken, rabbit and quail.
Need we say more than the first step in creating Cedarbrook's hot chocolate is melting Seattle's Theo Chocolate's organic, sustainable chocolate? Theo Chocolate is the only organic, fair-trade, bean-to-bar chocolate factory in the United States!