Calculated Après, Deer Valley

The St. Regis Deer Valley, ever the careful surveyor of taste, continues to refine The Vintage Room. Parker Teske, director of food and beverage, seems determined to choreograph the après experience down to the millimeter, shifting the dance floor and adjusting seating arrangements based on, astonishingly, feedback. One suspects a spreadsheet is involved. The space itself is predictably muted – dark oxblood leather banquettes against light-finished wood. The relocation of the dance floor is a minor triumph, though the lingering scent of heated tent fabric is less successful. This season’s addition of sushi, orchestrated by Executive Chef Matthew Fradera in collaboration with various local purveyors, is a curiously precise stroke; apparently, a void existed in the Deer Valley après landscape that only nigiri could fill. One notes, however, that sourcing tuna daily from Hawaii does not necessarily equate to superiority over Yuki Yama on Main Street, which maintains a certain enviable stickiness. The tiered table options, culminating in a Moët section, are predictably…effective. Demand, of course, remains relentless. Request a table near the periphery, avoiding the direct glare of the DJ booth and, more importantly, the striving masses. Order the John Jacob Astor roll, solely to witness the server’s practiced recitation of its components.