When Arlo chef Milo Carrier found out he was nominated for a prestigious James Beard Award, he said he was probably changing his daughter’s diaper or chasing her around.
Despite all the chaos that having a child brings, Carrier said having a 2-year-old little girl has helped him stay grounded and has also pushed him create better systems for his professional life so he can have some time to spend with family.
“I think it’s improved my life in that way for me personally but also professionally, it has a lot of benefits,” Carrier said.
Carrier was nominated as Best Chef in the Mountain Region for the James Beard Awards — one of the most prestigious awards chefs can get in the world of cooking.
A Utah native, Carrier has been the chef and owner of Arlo for the last five and a half years. Arlo is located in the Avenues of Salt Lake City and serves up contemporary New American cuisine.
The James Beard finalists will be announced March 31.
A journey in cooking and finding a passion
Carrier started cooking at a young age growing up in Utah. His mother first taught him to cook in order to help out with the responsibilities in the home, and what started out as a home responsibility turned into a lifelong passion.
“My mother was the person who taught me how to cook and encouraged me to go to culinary school and helped, in no small part, pay for that,” Carrier said. “I would say the women in my family are who I draw inspiration from.”
He credits the women in his life like his grandmother, mother and wife for supporting his dreams of owning his own restaurant.
“The people that inspired me the most in terms of cooking have been the matriarchs and women in my family,” Carrier said. “They’ve shown me and demonstrated, not necessarily with just cooking, but the importance of pursuing your passions and achieving goals in the course of pursuing those passions.”
The chef started working professionally in restaurants at age 16 at a small restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City in order to pay for soccer team dues.
“It happened to be something I was really captivated by,” Carrier said.
Becoming an award-nominated chef
After graduating high school, he started attending school at the University of Utah. But he found himself listless and desperately wanting to be back in the kitchen instead of the classroom, so he dropped out and enrolled in culinary school.
He attended the Culinary Institute of America in upstate New York and realized that was what he was meant to do.
“Culinary school was kind of everything to me. It was so relieving to me,” Carrier said.
He continued, “It was enriching and captivating. And it was just the only thing I wanted to do. And I just threw myself at it and tried as hard as I could to get as much from that as possible. It was such a formative experience and just kind of pushed me deeper into wanting to do this professionally. I’m glad I did it. I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
Upon graduating culinary school, Carrier moved to San Francisco to work at a few different restaurants to learn more about cooking for the next six years. The one that made the biggest impact was Boulevard and its chef/owner Nancy Oaks.
Carrier shared how formative that experience was in his framework of not only how to cook but also how to best run a kitchen and be a good leader.
“It was a very structured kitchen, and to watch her leadership and incredible raw talent,” Carrier said. “She has probably the most effortless ability to create very delicious food of anyone I’ve ever come in contact with. That was something that I just as attentively as possible tried to sponge off of her and absorb because it was fun watching her.”
The expenses in the California city started adding up, so Carrier decided to come back to the Salt Lake area to really consider and plan how to have his dream of owning his own restaurant realized. But first, he and his fiancee at the time took a year to live in and explore New Zealand first.
“We used that time to grab all the ideas in my head and start working on a plan,” Carrier said. “From that point, it took three years to actually open this place.”
Once he was back in Salt Lake City, he started preparing private dinners, sort of like private catering events that started out for family and friends and grew to something bigger. He met most of the investors that helped him open Arlo through that experience.
The impact of travel on cooking
Carrier spent his earlier years traveling to places like New Zealand, Greece and France to learn from a variety of inspiring chefs.
One of his favorite things is to immerse himself in the culture of food of a new place. When asked if he has a favorite, he said it’s hard to say, but responded that really ingredient-driven places are what draws him in the most. He mentioned how in Greece, he was inspired by how elemental and simplistic the food was and how much the food focused on quality of fresh ingredients.
“The preparations would be four or five ingredients with such an emphasis on the quality of the product and the intention,” Carrier said. “When you’re only using four ingredients on a plate, it has to be on purpose.”
The importance of farm-fresh produce at Arlo
When Carrier lived in San Francisco, he learned what an impact the produce has on the end product. He was shocked to find out one vendor at a farmers market had 35 different types of potatoes, each with its own best use and application.
Once he moved back to Salt Lake City, he knew that was how he wanted to cook — focusing on vegetables and the freshest produce he could get his hands on.
Arlo works with local vendors to get the best in-season produce possible. The menu is guided by the produce, so sometimes it might change a little, especially in the summer.
“The style that drives it is really guided by the produce we can get,” Carrier said. “Produce is a lot more engaging to me. I love cooking vegetables. The menu is guided by the vegetables we can source.”
What I ordered
I set a reservation for dinner for me and a friend on a Saturday night at the cozy Marmalade establishment.
At Arlo, the kitchen is open, so you can see everything being prepared and watch the chefs prep the food, almost like a dinner performance. It’s impressive how swiftly they work while keeping each space clean and tidy.
Here’s what we ordered:
- Bread and butter: The bread was the first unexpected surprise when it came out shaped like a flaky blooming flower. Paired with the silky French butter, the combination was delicious.
- Vegetable tart: Next came the vegetable tart, which was probably my favorite thing I tried. It’s a baked goat cheese custard with parmesan and caramelized onion served with a buttermilk vinaigrette and frisée on top. Frisée is a member of the chicory family and has yellow and green leaves. The richness of the tart paired with the sharpness of the frisée was delightful.
- Risotto: The risotto is a toasted black rice with Mexican truffle and roasted wild mushrooms, hazelnuts, parmesan and aged balsamic. This risotto might be one of the best I’ve ever had. Each of the flavors and textures enhance the other so that you can really taste each individual ingredient.
- Ravioli: The ravioli is a confit duck with porcini mushrooms, gouda, celery root and orange with a bit of endive on top. It’s rich and savory and tart all at the same time.
Overall, the dining experience was extremely pleasant, comfortable and delicious. The flavors of each dish punch you in the face in the best way possible, and you can tell the intention behind each ingredient.
“I’d like to emphasize how grateful I am to have the opportunity to do this for a living,” Carrier said. “As a kid, it was a dream in the clouds for me. It still doesn’t feel real sometimes.”