In the Kitchen with some of Big Sky's Top Chefs
AS THE BIG SKY COMMUNITY HAS GROWN, so has the demand for more varied, high-quality cuisine. New hotels, restaurants, and a growing population have drawn top culinary talent from across the globe, and each of the three gourmet chefs featured here is putting their own spin on the local gastronomic scene. They come from unique backgrounds, but all have one thing in common—besides mad kitchen skills, they all ski or snowboard.
AKIRA BACK
Chef/Founder of the Akira Back restaurant at One&Only Moonlight Basin.
HIS START
A standout athlete, Akira was born in Seoul, South Korea, but moved to Japan to pursue a professional baseball career. That ended at age 15 when his father relocated the family to Aspen. Akira quickly switched gears and became a pro snowboarder, competing for seven years and appearing in snowboarding films. During his pro snowboarding days, he moonlighted at Japanese restaurants in Colorado, then enrolled in culinary school in Denver. He opened his first restaurant, Yellowtail, in the Bellagio Las Vegas, which remains one of the city’s most beloved Asian eateries. He has since opened more than two dozen Japanese and Korean themed steak and sushi restaurants around the world, from Paris to Seoul, Korea. But his eponymous flagship brand opening in 2025 at the One&Only Moonlight Basin marks his first return to the mountains, where he has already fallen in love with Montana’s dry powder.
ACCOLADES
Akira earned a Michelin star for his Seoul restaurant Dosa, has appeared on Iron Chef America, and was honored to be invited as guest chef at the legendary James Beard House in New York—on ten different occasions. He has cooked for President Clinton, the Dalai Lama, and England’s Royal family.
SIGNATURE DISH IN BIG SKY
Akira’s flagship starter, AB Tuna Pizza, is a wheel of thinly sliced raw tuna wedges atop a cracker-thin, light, crunchy-style tortilla crust drizzled with umami aioli and white truffle oil and sprinkled with shiso microgreens. Of his many creative rolls, the most famous is the Perfect Storm Roll, with salmon belly wrapped around shrimp tempura and spicy tuna, plus rice, cucumber, and chipotle mayo. For a main course, his 48-Hour Wagyu short ribs are another global bestseller—think cubes of rich, tender, fatty beef slow cooked to perfection.
WHAT HE BRINGS TO BIG SKY
When Akira was a pro snowboarder, he and his friends always had trouble finding places to eat together. “There would be a vegan, someone who doesn’t eat fish, whatever,” says Akira. “I want to make food about community, so even though it’s Japanese, I make sure there is something for everyone. That involves bringing in the Korean influence of lots of variety. As for Big Sky, I’m from the mountains, I understand the lifestyle, the people, the mentality.”
CHRISSY JENSEN
Executive Pastry Chef, Moonlight Basin
HER START
Chrissy Jensen grew up baking with her grandmother in Nashville and fell in love with the craft. She made her first birthday cake for her mother at age eight. “My sister jokes that she was out having fun and catching crawdads, and I was inside baking Red Velvet cake.” After her high school years catering family events, she realized that college or a desk job was not for family events, she realized that college or a desk job was not for her, and at age 17 enrolled in a culinary internship at the city’s Opryland Hotel.
The intensive program rotated through all kitchen departments, but it was the bakery where she found her passion, absorbing French techniques and chocolate skills. For years she produced cakes and baked goods for special events and farmers markets, but then was diagnosed with gluten intolerance, and refocused on allergens. “It became my obsession to do gluten free products so well people couldn’t tell they were gluten free. It took a lot of experiments, but I got there.”
ACCOLADES
The first to ever pass the Certified Executive Pastry Chef (CEPC) certification test with an exclusively gluten free menu, Jensen is a frequent expert speaker at culinary events and educational forums on food allergies and safety in restaurant settings. She sits on both the certification committee and the pastry task force for the American Culinary Federation and has won a gold medal and two silvers in pastry competitions.
SIGNATURE DISH IN BIG SKY
Chrissy’s Cookies. “This summer we put drop cookies out at the comfort stations on the golf course. The recipes changed, but they were all just labeled ‘Chrissy’s Cookies.’ Our members' reaction to the cookies was surprising, to say the least. We heard a near-constant stream of compliments, praise, as well as requests for repeat flavors. It was fun for me that something so simple was such a crowd-pleaser. The golf pros told me that people were changing to earlier tee times just to make sure they reached the stations before the cookies ran out. I can do five-layer wedding cakes and hand-painted bonbons, but at the end of the day it’s all about the simple pleasures in life.”
WHAT SHE BRINGS TO BIG SKY
“I always remember to ask myself: ‘Who is sitting at this table, and how can they all have a great experience, not just the ones who can eat anything?’ The members have been very appreciative. I have become the unofficial allergen expert. I get called out to the dining room all the time to answer questions, not just about pastries, and it’s a privilege to be able to be that person for the members. If you don’t feel safe, you can’t enjoy your experience, that’s part of having a great meal, and the pinnacle of what I do.”
MING TSAI
Chef/Partner at BāBā by Ming Tsai in Yellowstone Club
HIS START
Both of Ming’s parents were excellent Chinese cooks, and he grew up in their kitchen. “Starting at age two, I’d get little morsels like duck skin or a dumpling, and I learned that if I hung out in the kitchen, I’d get fed. I say this all the time: I was and still am and will always be hungry, and because of that, I’m a chef.” “In Chinese culture, when you greet someone, you don’t say ‘Ni hao ma,’ (how are you?), you say ‘chi le ma,’ (have you eaten?). That’s just ingrained in our culture.” When he was 10, Ming cooked for family friends for the first time and saw them smile as they ate. “That’s the moment when I was like ‘wait a minute, you can make people this happy with food?’ I have not looked back since. My goal is to make people happy through food, to make people smile, and I think that it’s the best job in the world. How many people get to do that?” After graduating from Yale University, Ming attended Paris’ famed Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, then apprenticed with a sushi master in Japan.
ACCOLADES
His show East Meets West won the first Emmy ever for the Food Network, and when he opened his flagship Blue Ginger outside Boston, he won the ultra- prestigious James Beard Award for Best Chef Northeast, and was named Chef of the Year by Esquire.
SIGNATURE DISH IN BIG SKY
Tea smoked Peking duck. “I love Peking duck, but it’s all about the skin, my issue is that the meat can be kind of dry. I do the normal preparation, hanging it overnight so the skin dries out, but then I cold smoke it with tea and cherry wood chips, and that flavors the meat.”
WHAT HE BRINGS TO BIG SKY
“With my East/West style of cooking, I try to learn and respect the individual culture of each cuisine. I like contrasts of tastes and textures. Mine is a blending of traditional techniques from the East and the West that produces food that is bold in flavor, and most importantly, has to be delicious.”
TIPS FROM BIG SKY'S PROS
Eating in can be more like eating out when you have these culinary superstars offering advice for the home cook.
+ MING TSAI
“The trick we do in restaurants, but I think more people should do at home, is to heat your bowls and plates before you put food on them. Most home cooks make this great piece of fish, but then put it on a cold plate and by the time someone eats it the bottom is cold. Here’s what I do at home when I’m making pasta or Asian noodles for my family: I put four bowls in the sink, and my colander in the middle, and when I dump my salted pasta water out I fill those four bowls before putting the noodles in the strainer. Now you have four bowls that are both heated and seasoned. When you’re ready, dump the water out of the bowls and add the pasta.”
+ CHRISSY JENSEN
“Gluten free cooking can often taste gritty, and that’s because dried rice is a common ingredient and the rice is typically too dry. It’s under-hydrated. It takes a long time to absorb the liquid, so when you are making a gluten free dough or product at home, make the batter further in advance. Make it the night before and let it sit in the fridge overnight.”
+ AKIRA BACK
“Cook what you are passionate about, but also learn more about the foods you are passionate about. Before there were just cookbooks, now there are lots of videos, AI, all sorts of ways for you to take the foods you love or grew up with to another level.” Akira also suggests tasting the things you are cooking frequently and adjusting the seasonings. That’s standard practice in restaurant kitchens but often skipped at home.
To view the article in Big Sky Life click here
