Country Fare with a City Flair

MISSOULA IS A QUAINT UNIVERSITY TOWN NESTLED IN A VALLEY ALONG THE WEST SLOPE OF THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE. The “Clark Fork,” as Montanans refer to it, is the one of the rivers made famous by Norman Maclean’s classic book A River Runs Through It. And this river is central — literally and figuratively — in the life of Missoulians. University of Montana students walk the river path to class; concerts and festivals are held on the river’s bank; and some of the best dining in Montana takes place within sight of the water.

Pearl Café & Bakery, which is named after and run by Pearl Cash, is located in downtown Missoula, on a quiet side street off the main drag, just north of the Clark Fork. Pearl’s motto —“country fare with a city flair”— captures the essence of the café. Her menu is a bold combination of local meat and produce served in a style more common to a bistro in Paris than a diner in Montana.

Fancy by Montana standards, Pearl’s is all white tablecloths, a roaring fire, and lots of glasses and silverware gleaming against a backdrop of brick walls. A cozy bar near the entrance is so inviting that many couples never make it to a table, opting for service on a stool instead for a convivial, neighborly experience. For a quieter, more private meal, the main dining room has booths along one wall and not more than 10 tables; for an aerial view of upbeat young servers (looking a lot like University of Montana grad students), a loft overlooks the bar.

A fourth-generation Montanan, Pearl says she went to France in the 1970s and “never really came back.” She ate in as many four-star restaurants as she could and attended a small cooking school in Burgundy.

Upon her return, Pearl launched her first restaurant, in 1976, in the Bitterroot Valley; she’s been behind the range ever since as executive chef and owner of some of western Montana’s most critically acclaimed restaurants. She is the only Montana chef to have received the Best Northwest Award from Seattle Magazine (July 1993). Pearl was profiled in Bernard Clayton’s Cooking Across America. That great chef named her “arguably one of the best young chefs in the country.”