Back in the late '70s, Jack Amon and two buddies had a gig cooking gourmet dinners Sunday nights at a local bar in Anchorage, Alaska. They'd installed a kitchen in order to work their magic, and the dinners were a smash hit in a town starved for fine food. But then the bar was sold, and the new owners had new ideas, and it came time for Amon and his partners to make their swan song. We'll let Amon take it from here: "Our last dinner was April Fool's Day, 1979. We were arguing over who owned what. They considered the stove a permanent fixture. The second seating was mostly our friends. As each course finished, we would pack up all the dishes. The wife of the new owner came in and saw us packing up the stove exhaust pipe. She phoned the police. Later, our friends told us it was just like the Marx Brothers, somewhere between Room Service and Night at the Opera."

That evening was the genesis of The Marx Bros. Cafe, these days "known simply as the best restaurant in Alaska," according to Joe Murray of The Journal. "I tell people if you just hang out in the restaurant for a couple days, you'll understand the name," Amon explained. "I like to think that our food is serious, but we're not."

A charming restaurant tucked into one of the Frontier State's oldest homes (1916) and surrounded by herb and vegetable gardens that provide for the kitchen in the short growing season, The Marx Bros. Cafe has often been credited as the birthplace of the Alaskan Regional cuisine movement. The cafe, Corky Merwin wrote in Diversion, "has probably done more for advancing Alaska's culinary appreciation than any other single restaurant." But don't think the self-taught Amon-he began his career cooking meals for hungry workers on an off-shore oil rig-is limited to moose meat or whale blubber. He's ingenious at melding culinary cultures, as is evident in innovative dishes like his sautÈed Kodiak scallops with sun-dried tomato-Gorgonzola sauce, and Russian fish chowder with leeks, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, capers, fresh Alaska seafood, and-of course-caviar. Amon will be sharing his Alaskan seafood expertise in a Beard House workshop a few days after his dinner.

The Anchorage Daily News can't say enough about The Marx Bros. Cafe. The paper has called it "the city's stalwart of elevated dining," and "the best restaurant in Alaska." Quality, it wrote, "has been The Marx Bros. stock in trade." But you're a suave, cynical New Yorker, and perhaps you doubt the ability of the local press of a remote rural state to adequately evaluate fine dining. Did we mention that the restaurant has won the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence any number of times? Then there are the comments of Janice Wald Henderson, writing in Chocolatier that the food is "contemporary and creative enough to rival that found in major metropolitan dining establishments," and adding, "An amazing number of people are fans of this Anchorage, Alaska eatery. Would you believe that celebrities from The Grateful Dead to James Michener have discovered the merits of chef/co-owner Jack Amon's cooking?"

Shouldn't you?