Walla Walla, Washington: long known for sweet onions, valley sees its emerging wine industry usher in fine-dining scene

Nation's Restaurant News,  Feb 19, 2007  by Mary Caldwell

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Nestled by the Blue Mountains in arid southeastern Washington state, Walla Walla Valley is becoming a new food and wine destination, attracting visitors from around the world. Following a brief gold-rush population boom in the late 1800s, the area settled into a quiet, arguably off-the-beaten-path existence that lasted through most of the 1900s.

Long known for its eponymous sweet onions, the area has been gaining fame for its growing number of world-class wineries and corresponding growth in local restaurants. Downtown has undergone significant renovation. As the restaurant trade perks up, chefs, farmers and vintners are supporting each other in ways that help to strengthen them all.

When winemaker Eric Dunham opened Dunham Cellars in Walla Walla in 1995, his business was the area's eighth winery; local wineries now number about 100, many of them enjoying stellar reputations.

Tourist traffic has increased as visitors from around the globe add Walla Walla to their itineraries.

As a result, Dunham says, "we opened a pretty successful tasting room. Our retail room is open seven days a week. Every year so far, we've seen probably about a 20-percent increase in traffic."

Dunham welcomes the growing wine business and the changes that have come to Walla Walla since his winery began.

"It's been a great thing, because back [in '95], our best restaurant was about 30 miles away in a smaller town called Dayton," he says. "Now we have actually nice restaurants in Walla Walla and more popping up every day."

What's new

One of the most celebrated newcomers to town has been chef Mike Davis, who has garnered tremendous praise and helped focus eyes on the local culinary scene since opening 26brix, a 6,000-square-foot fine-dining restaurant in downtown Walla Walla, in 2004. Davis says he sensed an emerging scene and was taken by the local wines and the small city's proximity to farmland.

"To meet the farmers and walk through farms where your asparagus is going to be grown is an opportunity that not all chefs get, especially in bigger cities, where they're surrounded by glass houses," Davis says. "Farming around here is just amazing.

"When we first moved here, we developed many, many relations with local farmers--farmers who were already growing great products, but farmers who were very interested in branching out and wanting to grow more and wanting to try different things."

Davis has worked with farmers willing to plant heirloom beans, for instance, as well as heirloom tomatoes, heirloom potatoes and about 50 types of lettuce.

The relationship between restaurants, wineries and food producers in Walla Walla seems to be working well, he says.

"We've been very fortunate that for our caliber of food, the wineries have been immensely supportive," he says. "They appreciate that we are doing what we do. As one of our friends put it, 'Walla Walla has a chef right now that it shouldn't have.' So they're trying to do everything they can to make sure we survive here, because when they have visitors in from town, and they're trying to showcase their wines, they bring them to our restaurant."

Tender "cow-bernet" beef, a limited-edition specialty product made from cows fed with grape pomace, or skins left over from wine-making, has been popular in a gourmet burger at 26brix. While most of the other local products are not new--Walla Walla sweet onions and asparagus have been around for a long time--the way they are promoted locally has changed, and Angela Locati, for one, is glad that growers are now receiving recognition for their work.

Locati represents the fourth generation of her family working at Walla Walla's Locati Farms, which specializes in Walla Walla sweet onions and grow about 20 other crops. They also plan to bottle their first wine this spring. Her father, Michael, won the "Keeper of the Vision" award for innovative and sustainable farming practices from The Food Alliance, an independent third-party certifier, in 2004.

"The nice thing is that the restaurants are very local-oriented," Locati says. "They're getting their fruit and produce when it is in season here in town, so on the menu they're using our name, they're using everybody's name, where they source their meat and produce from, and that adds value. I remember in the past, you know, we knew that our asparagus was in one of these restaurants, but to see it on the menu, that's definitely new, within the last four to five years."

National recognition

Another feather in the local cap came when Money magazine in 2006 named Walla Walla as one the country's five best places to retire. But the community is desirable to younger people as well. Eric Dunham, who has spent most of his life in Walla Walla, notes that Walla Walla didn't grow for a long time but now is seeing increased development, and he says the city is becoming a "happening" place.