‘Luxury is always about abundance’

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Deep in the heart of Montana, about 90 minutes from Missoula, lies The Ranch at Rock Creek, a Western fantasy come to life in an all-inclusive getaway, sprawled across 6,600 acres of pristine wilderness (John Dutton, eat your heart out).

Equal parts luxury and adventure (guests are treated to a menu of more than 40 professionally guided activities), the Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star ranch and Relais & Châteaux property also offers world-class farm-to-table dining, not to mention a robust wine list, too. This shows up in everything from thoughtfully curated family-style dinners to cowboy breakfasts—all tailored to guests’ individual preferences, and always prepared with sustainability in mind.

Here, The Prep sat down with recently named executive chef Zachary Ladwig to discuss his vision for the Ranch's dining program, the challenges of working in a remote setting and how to bring luxury to the table. -Lesley McKenzie

How do you source fresh and local ingredients?

We currently have a program set up with the Western Montana Growers Coop and three other ranches to get proteins. We get everything from elk to bison and this insanely beautiful Kurobuta pork from within about 30 or 40 minutes of us.

I'm a big farmers’ market fan, and I will make sure that I can go to two or three farmers’ markets a week in the surrounding areas to buy some stuff and really support the local economy and the local farmers.

As a newcomer to the Ranch, what are your plans for adapting the dining experience throughout the year while maintaining the consistency and quality the Ranch is known for?

My background is vegetable-centric restaurants and hyper-local establishments. I think the best path that we can take is really building a program around a return to cottage-style cooking and ranch-style cooking. This summer, instead of ordering three cases of heirloom tomatoes for the next couple of days, we're gonna order 30, 40, 50, 60. We're going to pickle them, turn them into jam, dehydrate them—and that's just one ingredient. We are trying to cook as locally sustainably and responsibly as possible, and we are honoring the ingredients that we're fortunate enough to have throughout the year by some of the preservation techniques.

How do you recruit train and retain top talent in a remote location?  

Being part of Relais & Châteaux, we have a connection with tons of other incredible properties that are similar to us in a lot of ways. We can partner to get staff from them, and it's really neat to see how that works, because Relais & Châteaux employees become proud of working at Relais inns and restaurants. And we have some really great locals that have been here forever and they've kind of created a legacy on the Ranch.

How do you ensure that the dining experience aligns with the Ranch's overall commitment to luxury at every touchpoint?

Luxury is always about abundance. Luxury is always about sustainability. It is always about quality. We work with incredible products from incredible producers in our neighborhood and in our backyard, and I think that's a part of luxury. We're working with ingredients that have a flavor of the area that's unique—our beets are very different from the beets in Colorado or California or Texas. And last but not least, there is no shortage of food here. We will feed you and feed you and feed you until you split. From our standpoint, we never want you to feel like you have to go without.

Edited for brevity and clarity.

Above: The Ranch at Rock Creek's cowboy breakfast. (Courtesy)

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