A Utah restaurant expands north, offering a taste of German cooking

This article is excerpted from the Utah Eats newsletter. To get the full newsletter every Wednesday, subscribe at sltrib.com/newsletters.

Hello, Eaters! I know I mostly cover the Salt Lake City food scene, but once I heard that Weller’s Bistro had opened a new location in Ogden, I had to make the drive north to check it out.

The new location is where WB’s Eatery used to be, at 455 25th St. inside The Monarch, which is a creative hub and event space in a renovated historic building.

As you drive up 25th Street, the new location of Weller’s Bistro is perched prominently on the hill, ready to welcome guests through its doors. And it’s a beautiful space, with a large patio and exposed brick.

Weller’s Bistro founder and owner Jan Weller was born and raised in the town of Witten, in northwestern Germany. He got his start in the food and beverage industry when he was about 18, working in bars, he said. Weller did a three-year vocational training in a fine-dining restaurant in Germany, and after that, he moved to London to work at the five-star Savoy Hotel.

In 2003, Weller came to Utah, where he added businesses like the Goldener Hirsch in Deer Valley, High West Distillery and Promontory Club to his resume. With so many years of working in restaurants under his belt, opening his own place was “always on the horizon,” he said.

In 2019, Weller opened his original location in Layton, at 197 N. Main St. Although the menu reflected Weller’s varied culinary training and wasn’t purely German, Weller’s Bistro quickly made a name for itself as “the German restaurant in Davis County,” he said.

“It was never really the option to go 100% pure German cuisine, because it’s not an actual reflection of me, either,” Weller said. “Because I’ve been here for so long and I’ve learned other cuisines,” like Italian and French.

Weller said he wanted to create a restaurant that was centered around from-scratch food, which he hadn’t seen much in Davis County. He also wanted to focus on hospitality, “in the sense that service is authentic and genuine,” he said. (Speaking of hospitality, my server, Trajen, was excellent.)

When it came time for Weller and his fiancee, Jessica Wolford, to add another location of Weller’s Bistro, they looked for a space in Salt Lake City and Ogden, he said, and fell in love with the 25th Street location. The couple opened the second location of Weller’s Bistro in mid-July.

The menus for the Layton and Ogden locations “are about 70% identical,” Weller said. On both, diners will find hühnerfrikasee, goulash (adapted from Weller’s grandfather’s recipe), the German dip sandwich and das schnitzel, which Weller said is his most popular menu item.

To read about my lunch order at Weller’s Bistro, scroll down to the “Dish of the Week” section of this newsletter.

In the next month or so, Weller said he’ll be adding sauerbraten, Germany’s national dish, to the menu. Several diners have requested sauerbraten, which is marinated beef that is seared and slow-cooked, Weller said. It’s served with a dark sauce with raisins in it, and with knödel, a German dumpling.

To accompany your meal at Weller’s is a thoughtfully curated drink menu, complete with cocktails made with housemade syrups and shrubs, as well as a variety of international beers, especially German and Austrian beers.

Live deliciously,

Kolbie

Food News

• Brighton’s new Not Oktoberfest continues this weekend, and every weekend through Oct. 12. The resort’s “opposite” of Oktoberfest is more centered around food than beer, doesn’t have a Bavarian theme, is family-friendly, and free. A spokesperson for Brighton said the event focuses on enjoying the mountains in the fall, through activities like lift-accessible mountain biking, scenic lift rides and disc golf, plus free games like cornhole and ax-throwing. Not Oktoberfest will also feature “foodie wars,” where chefs will compete to make the best pie, banh mi and other dishes.

Openings:

• Bix Cafe, known for printing edible versions of customers’ photos onto their lattes, has reopened after being closed for about a year. The coffee shop relaunched in August at 479 E. 2100 South, in the same building as the Sugar House location of Saffron Valley. (The latte photo is of my spicy cat Fenrir.)

• Marcato Kitchen has opened a physical location inside Woodbine Food Hall at 545 W. 700 South in the Granary District, according to an Instagram post. Chef and Marcato Kitchen founder Kyle Williams focuses on pasta and the stromboli, an Italian-American creation that’s something like a baked pizza sandwich, or a “rolled-up pizza,” Williams said.

• The owners of the new Chomp Donuts & Coffee are opening Saturday, Sept. 27, at 1612 W. Ute Blvd., Suite 118, in Kimball Junction, with a ribbon-cutting on Friday, Oct. 10. Chomp will feature freshly made donuts made in-house, as well as coffee from Millcreek Coffee Roasters.

Closings:

• Shaleen Bishop and Fallan Keyser, the owners of Melancholy in the Post District, have closed their bar Coterie, which they opened at 69 Gallivan Ave. in Salt Lake City last year, they told me via Instagram message. And they sold it to a new owner, who has turned it into a bar themed around the cult film classic “SLC Punk,” called SLC Pub. According to SLC Pub’s Instagram account, the new bar is “rooted in punk attitude and fueled by our love for movies.”

• Mexican fast-food spot Fiesta Olé in Kearns has closed after 40 years in business, according to a Facebook post from a member of the family that owned it. “From the bottom of our hearts, we want to thank you for your loyalty, support, and kindness over the decades,” the post said.

Booze (and Drink!) News

• Luna Coffee & Crystals — known for offering a free crystal with every order on Tuesdays — has released its new fall drink menu, according to an Instagram post. Visit this cute cafe at 25A E. Kensington Ave. in Salt Lake City and try the roasted marshmallow latte, the churro latte, the peach cobbler matcha, the white pumpkin spice latte or the apple pie chai.

Dish of the Week

I couldn’t visit the new Weller’s Bistro in Ogden without ordering das schnitzel, which owner Jan Weller said is “such a staple to German cuisine.”

Das schnitzel is made with pork loin that’s tenderized and then lightly breaded and fried. It’s served with bratkartoffeln (pan-fried potatoes with bacon and onions) and rotkohl, which is red cabbage slow-cooked with apples and spices.

Since schnitzel is traditionally served with lemon wedges that you squeeze over the top, Weller decided to serve his schnitzel with a beurre blanc sauce, made with white wine, lemon and butter. Or, as an alternative, you can have your schnitzel served with jager sauce, which translates to “hunter sauce” and is a creamy mushroom sauce. If you’re indecisive, you can get both sauces, which is what I did.

Every element of this plate was delicious — something about the crispy fried pork flavor of the schnitzel went so well with the lemon in the beurre blanc sauce. It was just a perfectly composed dish.

P.S. Don’t miss the apfelstrudel (apple strudel, pictured above) for dessert, available only at the Ogden location.

Correction, Thursday, 10:44 a.m. • An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect date for the opening of Chomp Coffee & Donuts, due to incorrect information provided to The Tribune.