Chef Karl Holl Reinterprets High Desert Cuisine at Brasada Ranch’s Wild Rye

When chef Karl Holl was named the new executive head chef at Central Oregon luxury resort Brasada Ranch in 2023, he set out to revamp the property’s four food venues: two restaurants and two poolside snack bars. But when it came time to tackle overhauling the resort’s flagship restaurant, Range Restaurant and Bar, Holl decided to take his time. Coming from Portland and before that, Napa Valley, Holl wanted to get a lay of the land before interpreting his vision of high desert cuisine.

“I’ve been here for a full year, so I’ve seen the seasons change,” Holl says. “My cooking is very much about the moment and time and also a huge connection to where my food comes from.”

A year later, the ambitious project, now called Wild Rye, is making its debut on June 20. Since last summer, Holl has been busy forging relationships with local farmers and ranchers like Well Rooted Farms and Boundless Farmstead. Ingredients like juniper berries and sagebrush — both harvested on property — have also informed his new menu, which has undertones of smoke and char to reflect the desert terrain.

If Wild Rye could be distilled into one dish, the chef says, it would be the juniper-rubbed lamb. Brasada Ranch sits on a roughly 1,800-acre property that used to be a working sheep ranch. “In the high desert, the wild rye used to grow plentiful and the sheep would forage on it,” Holl says. “So this ties together a touch of my foraging and the lamb component.” For the restaurant’s signature dish, the chef starts by crushing whole juniper branches with garlic, shallots, bay leaf, and other aromatics, which is rubbed into a cut of loin and shoulder to cure. The lamb gets seared with a little bit of smoke and is then braised in wine; white wine in the warmer seasons, and red in the wintertime.

“If I’m telling a story with Wild Rye, it’s not just about the high desert,” Holl says. “It’s more about the Pacific Northwest. We’ll be highlighting local farmers and the constant [changing] of the seasons.”

The former Portland star chef is also known for his residency at the now-closed Park Avenue Fine Wines and designing the food menu at Smith Teamaker’s NW 23rd cafe. Holl is an avid forager of mushrooms and other wild foods, but his practice has taken a backseat since becoming a new dad and stepping into his role at Brasada. At present, foraging has become less about gathering ingredients to work with but rather a means for him to feel a connection to the land. Nods to his favorite pastime can be found on the menu, like the pickled mushrooms that top the smoked beef carpaccio.

Carter Hiyama

Because the food at Wild Rye is done at a larger scale than his previous endeavors, Holl’s commitment to seasonality will express itself in a more subtle way. Instead of introducing new dishes at the turn of each season, the kitchen will swap seasonal ingredients into its mainstay dishes. So, a diner might enjoy the halibut dish in coconut fish broth with summer vegetables like asparagus and fava beans, and return a couple months later to find the dish has taken on peak fall ingredients like red curry squash and kale.

Being that Brasada is a luxury ranch, Holl took a more opulent approach when creating Wild Rye’s Fifty Dollar Burger. “Everyone asks for a cheeseburger,” Holl says. “So I thought, how can we make this decadent and memorable but also comforting.” An Angus beef patty sits on a bone marrow brioche bun, a creation that was born out of the restaurant’s byproduct from making veal stock twice weekly. Holl decided to whip the marrow into butter and incorporate it into the bun. The burger earns its price tag with a slice of foie gras torchon, swipes of truffle aioli, and a sprinkling of edible gold dust.

Behind the bar, the cocktail menu was concocted by San Francisco beverage consultant and founder of acclaimed bar Trick Dog, Scott Baird. Here, Baird emphasizes Oregon-distilled vodkas and gins, and whiskeys from the western part of the country. Some of his cocktails at Wild Rye, like the vodka-based Huckleberry Fix, are the result of riffing with Holl around key ingredients — in this instance, mountain huckleberries. Similar to Holl’s approach to cooking, Baird also drew inspiration from the locale. The Oregon Trail Mix Old Fashioned is an homage to the historic wagon route, blending local rye whiskey with cherry and hazelnut; it’s served with a cacao and nut bark.

“If a chef were to have the ultimate stage, that feels like what I have here,” Holl says of the new endeavor. “I’m like the sheep in the field, trying to find my way through.”

Wild Rye opens on June 20 at 16986 SW Brasada Ranch Road.