PREP WORK -
Chef and kitchen designer for the Swan Lake Bistro, Jon Stadille prepares a menu following the Gaia's principles.

Although the restaurant at Gaia Anderson Hotel is still a construction site, chef and kitchen designer Jon Stadille hashed out a potential menu last week. The restaurant, called Swan Lake Bistro, would serve steaks and comfort food with an eclectic twist using local ingredients, Stadille said. The restaurant will open in late November, according to Stadille.

The summer seasonal menu will include a strawberry honeycomb dessert that will involve strawberries, honeycomb and sweetened ricotta cheese. The ingredients, even the honeycomb, would be from local sources. The creation was based in Italian cuisine, justifying the "eclectic twist" to which Stadille referred.

The use of local products coincides with the Atman Hospitality Group's approach to environmental responsibility spearheaded by owner Wen Chang. Along with the Gaia in Napa, the Gaia in Anderson was created one the highest-rated hotels by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System.

Chang's son and hotel project manager, Yuen Sing Chang, said the $800,000 restaurant would employ composting and recycling programs, the use of Sola-Tubes in the dining room, a bar made of recycled glass, bamboo cabinetwork, carpet made of recycled content, and Marmoleum, a linoleum a flooring made from linseed oil and other natural products.

The menu will also reflect green standards.

"Jon has been very good about looking for local vendors," Yuen Sing Chang said.

Stadille intends to employ local ranches, vineyards, and farmers in the creation of his menu items. He said restricting the menu to local items and purveyors limits the restaurant from using some great products, but the restaurant would save carbon credits without the excessive transportation.

"Having a piece of fish flying 4,000 miles to get to your plate doesn't make sense for this restaurant," Stadille said of fish caught in Hawaii. "So we've opted out of those items."

Still in the process of contacting suppliers, Stadille said goat cheese will be supplied by North Valley Farms and the wine and beer will come almost exclusively of North State selections.

"If I haven't contacted a local purveyor, they need to contact me." Stadille said.

Even the grounds at the hotel will be cultivated. Chang said a vegetable and herb garden would be grown in the future.

"We're in the middle of a pecan orchard," Stadille said of the pecan trees on the hotel's premises. "You know I'm going to be getting into those."

Stadille got his start in kitchen work at the age of 14 when he cooked eggs for 200 golfers every morning at his father's golf course.

He went on to work with renowned chef Albert Roux at the 8700 in Scottsdale, Ariz.

"The foundation I got from Albert was a profound respect for my field," Stadille said of his work with Roux.

The group of chefs at the restaurant "was the first to initiate Southwestern cuisine in the 1980s," Stadille said.

Their work drew the attention of Bon Appetite for the use of indigenous products such as blue corn, epizote and tumbleweed sprouts.

Stadille also worked for T.S. Restaurants of Hawaii, which he said was one of the finest operated boutique restaurant chains in the country.

Stadille has also worked as executive chef for Rock Bottom Restaurants in San Diego.