Thursday, November 3, 7:00 pm
Members $90, guests $115

Like Beaver Creek, the refined Colorado resort town he calls home, chef Daniel Joly’s cooking strikes that delicate balance between country comfort and contemporary chic. It’s that same deft mingling of setting and sensibility that has helped make Mirabelle, the restaurant Joly manages and owns with his wife, Nathalie, one of the Rocky Mountains’ most sought after dining destinations. By crafting continental classics entirely out of handpicked, local ingredients and offering an international wine list bursting with both bargains and big splurges, Joly makes it clear that when he is host, his guests’ pleasure is his highest priority.

As a young chef growing up in Belgium, Joly demonstrated precocious talent, graduating from the Culinary Institute at Brussels and becoming, at age 20, the youngest person ever to be honored with the Best Chef in Belgium award. While some careers peak early and simply fizzle, Joly showed no intention of slowing down. His ambition brought him across the Atlantic to the United States, where he spent two years in Charleston, learning the traditions of South Carolinian cuisine at Restaurant Million, which Gourmet recognized as one of the top ten dining rooms in the United States during his tenure. After a stint at Restaurant Picasso in Cordillera, Colorado, Joly settled at Mirabelle in 1992. In 1999, after seven years as chef de cuisine and manager, Joly and his wife finally realized their ultimate dream by taking full ownership of the restaurant.

But the satisfaction of having fulfilled his fantasies has not made Joly complacent. “You are never good enough,” he told Vail’s Daily Trail. “The challenge is to do right by the customer.” And judging by Mirabelle’s loyal clientele and ever-lengthening list of national awards—including the DiRoNA Award, a top Zagat rating, and a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence—that is a challenge Joly consistently meets. “Joly’s cuisine is vibrant and tender,” wrote Vail Daily’s Wren Wertin, who added, “He is a master of flavor combinations.” Whether starting off with his braised rabbit breast with pistachio, mushroom ravioli, and balsamic vinaigrette, moving on to his Maine lobster brochette with garlic and Parmesan polenta, or finishing with a caramelized pear and cinnamon tart, every bite from Joly’s kitchen is imbued with integrity and excellence. As Laura Gibson of the Colorado Times proclaimed, “If food is served in the land hereafter…Daniel Joly will be preparing it.”