Stateline’s Edgewood Tahoe reimagines and reinvents its namesake lakefront restaurant

A vaulted ceiling and peaked windows are signature elements of the Edge dining room, photo by Sue Rock

Launched in 1968 with a top-rated George Fazio-designed golf course, South Shore’s Edgewood Tahoe has evolved into a luxury resort and retreat, recently earning Forbes 4-Star and Michelin One Key nods. While the 154-room Lodge at Edgewood Tahoe added in 2017 includes a chic modern American bistro, the property’s long-running eponymous lakefront dining destination that dates to 1973 was more than ready for a refresh. 

The restaurant reopened in July after an eight-month remodel and rebranding with a more dramatic, stylish vibe and a sharper, snappier name and concept—the Edge.

Part of Edgewood’s golf clubhouse, and located adjacent to the Frank Gehry-designed Brooks Bar & Deck, the Edge’s striking six-sided bar creates an impressive entry. Overhead, a spiral-shaped glass chandelier stands out among the lodge’s many designer-driven features, including teal blue leather chairs, glass-topped tables with gold-painted tree trunk bases and a pair of low-slung fireplaces. Walls are hung with large-scale metal and fabric renderings of aspens and their leaves as well as wood paneling that echoes Edgewood’s tree motif and logo. The renovated lounge area now boasts a sightline into and through the dining room. 

A sophisticated bar program serves up signature cocktails featuring “unique spirits that highlight a key ingredient in the drink,” says lead bartender Andrew Woodley, who created the lounge’s liquid lineup. 

Delivered in an elegant, thin-stemmed glass, the Tahoe Blue gets its sapphire hue naturally from spirulina, and is tinged with highlands sage from Nevada and golden poppy amaro from California. A tart and smoky highball, the mezcal-based orange-hued Sandrider is shaken with passion fruit and vanilla, and topped with an airy elote tres leches foam. The Flowering Vine, mixed with Japanese gin, ceremonial matcha and Japanese citrus called sudachi, is strained over a king cube and garnished with a sprig of white-blossomed yarrow. Edgewood’s Subzero Martini changes it up with orange bitters and drops of pine needle oil made from the trees just outside the building.

While the lounge menu offers light drink-friendly bites like caviar on waffle potato chips, fried squash blossoms and stracciatella with stonefruit, basil, sunflower seeds and fennel pollen, when it’s time to make way into the vaulted-ceiling dining room, it is via a glass rotunda-like foyer flanked by a wine wall—part of the cellar managed by Jennifer Belmont and Troy Denkler boasting 750 labels with a total of 2,292 bottles. The dining area’s stepped-down two-level design, retained from its previous incarnation, ensures each of the 74 seats gets a view through the peaked windows perfectly framing Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada, including the nearly 10,000-foot Mount Tallac. 

Cucumbers are combined with farmer’s cheese and mint, atop a layer of pureed eggplant, photo by Brian Walker

Cody Ginther, the Edge’s chef de cuisine, oversees the compact seasonal menu. He honed his culinary chops at Michael Chiarello’s Tra Vigne in Napa Valley, then in Chicago at the Girl & the Fig with chef-owner Stephanie Izard, before serving as culinary director at Latin-inspired Lirica. He also spent time at Vendador, a luxury catering and private dining operation and Land and Sea Dept., a concept and project development studio. He moved to Tahoe to open the Edge. 

“I am not much of a city boy,” says Ginther, who hails from the Cincinnati area. “Quick access for camping, hiking and being on the water is massively important to me. It’s been a breath of fresh air being here.”

Fresh is what drives his menu development, focused on sourcing regional products—tomatoes from Chico’s Comanche Creek Farms, torpedo-shaped ninja radishes from the Central Coast, Tioga cherries and corn from Brentwood, California, and locally grown chive blossoms. Trout comes from the family-run Mount Lassen Farm.

“With my food, each component has its place, whether it’s a microgreen or radish,” says Ginther, who leans on Latin and Japanese flavors in his recipes. “Everything has a purpose and contributes to the dish refinement,” a process that involves improving a dish’s overall appeal and enhancing flavor, texture and presentation through careful ingredient selection, treatment of components, precise cooking techniques and plating. 

“Sometimes chefs add too much,” he says. “I like to go light on technique and presentation and figure out, ‘How do I get the maximum flavor out of each bite?’”

The dessert menu includes a chocolate lavender budino, made with a brownie biscuit, caramel crèmeux and caramelized popcorn, photo by Sue Rock

To start, his cool and spicy salmon crudo is an artfully composed dish of raw, cubed Verlasso salmon, strawberries, asparagus, dollops of avocado cream and splashes of chili crisp. Charred cucumbers tossed with sesame, mint, chili and farmer’s cheese plated atop a bed of baba ganoush-style eggplant brings layers of flavors. Quail is rubbed with black lime barbecue spices and served atop coconut cabbage, grilled peaches and cornbread croutons that Ginther makes from a family recipe.

As for entrées, the American Wagyu filet with a green pepper sauce, plated with purple potatoes and ramps, is the most oft-ordered. Also popular: the earthy roasted half chicken that gets seasoned with dill and dukkah—an aromatic and crunchy mix of toasted and pounded nuts, seeds and spices that originated in Egypt. Corn agnolotti, the Northern Italian ravioli-like pasta, is tossed with a cacio e pepe sauce and includes corn prepared three ways: charred, elote-style and deep-fried silks.

Dessert is doable with choices like a chocolate lavender budino—a brownie biscuit atop a swath of caramel crémeux sprinkled with caramelized popcorn—as well as a deconstructed tiramisu of chiffon cake, mascarpone mousse and coffee reduction. The honey-baked Alaska tops a chocolate sacher torte with toasted honey meringue and burnt honey ice cream.

A five-course tasting menu, with suggested wine pairings, is available. Indeed, the choice of wines by the glass includes many higher-end pours such as Billecart-Salmon Brut Reserve, typically only available by the bottle. The cellar’s extensive global offerings are presented on an iPad, set up on the table for browsing.

Heart set on dining at the swanky new Edge? Break out the business casual or better wear, and make sure to leave the T-shirts, ball caps, flip-flops, shorts and distressed clothing of any kind at home.

The Edge is open for dinner nightly from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Reservations are strongly recommended, 180 Lake Pkwy Stateline, NV; (775) 589-7269; edgewoodtahoe.com