PIQUED

JH Living TETONSCAPES

IN 2011, LE Cordon Bleu–trained Kevin Cohane and his wife, Ali, founded Persephone Bakery—named for the Greek goddess of grain. They never imagined where they’d be a decade later: semi-finalists in the Outstanding Pastry Chef category of the 2020 James Beard Foundation Awards with four restaurants around Jackson Hole. “It has been the most wonderful and affirming surprise that the community responded to our little bakery in the way that it did,” Ali Cohane says. Here’s a look at the Cohanes’ three concepts—Persephone, Picnic, and Coelette. (Two of their four restaurants are Persephone Bakeries. Here we focus on the original one in Jackson; the other Persephone is in Wilson.)

Rising Dreams A decade after its founding, Persephone Bakery has its own storefronts and two sister restaurants.

BY DINA MISHEV

AESTHETIC

HISTORY

MUST EAT

COFFEE SITUATION

COURTESY OF PERSEPHONE

EXTRA CREDIT

Wyoming meets French café

In 2013, the Cohanes opened their own storefront for their baked goods, transforming a neglected log cabin just off the Town Square into Persephone Bakery Café. “We had no idea how it’d go,” Ali Cohane says. It was a success from the start and has been included in lists like “Most Beautiful Coffee Shop in Every State in America” (Architectural Digest) and “Best Bakery in Every State” (mashed.com).

Scone Skillet—cheddar scallion biscuit with red-eye sausage gravy, fried egg, and pine nut crumble.

Persephone is the first café anywhere to serve Overview Coffee, which uses principles of regenerative organic agriculture and was founded by local pro snowboarder Alex Yoder.

The “spoon wall” was originally conceived to be the “rolling pin wall” until the Cohanes realized that was not going to work. “We switched gears and thought wooden spoons would be a lot easier,” says Ali. The pattern that ended up on the wall wasn’t even laid out in advance. “We just glued them up and kept going with it. Now it’s the most-photographed part of Persephone.”

HISTORY

MUST EAT

COFFEE SITUATION

EXTRA CREDIT

VISIT

“It would have been easier to have just done another Persephone,” Ali Cohane says about Picnic’s founding. “But the concept was to do a place for locals, and the space we found was in a modern building. Persephone wasn’t right; the space and idea felt like they were something new.” So Picnic opened in late fall of 2015. (Picnic’s not 100 percent different from Persephone though; the café serves Persephone baked goods and breads.)

Pork & Eggs Toast—Snake River Farms pork shoulder, smoked tomato butter, maple cream sauce, goat cheese, and sweet drop peppers on a thick slab of levain.

Choose between Intelligentsia, a pioneer in third-wave artisanal coffee, and locally roasted Snake River Roasters, a woman-owned-and-operated roastery founded in 2007.

“I love highlighting local artists,” Cohane says. The porcelain pendant lights clustered near the front entrance are handmade by local potter Jenny Dowd of Dowd House Studio. “It was meant to be a vision of cloud light,” she says. Each shade is handmade; the translucent clay allows them to glow, and the overlaps evoke breaks in clouds.

1110 Maple Way, Suite B, Jackson; 307/264-2956, picnicjh.com

COURTESY OF PICNIC COURTESY OF PICNIC

AESTHETIC

HISTORY

MUST EAT

COFFEE SITUATION

COURTESY OF COELETTE

EXTRA CREDIT

VISIT

Sexy log cabin

Coelette takes its name from early locals Ed and Emily Coe, who operated a blacksmith shop out of this cabin for many years starting in the 1920s. (The cabin was built by Martha and Clarence Dow in 1915.) Between 1976 and 2017, Sweetwater Restaurant called this cabin home. Before Coelette opened in August 2020, two years were spent doing a full restoration of the cabin and building an addition that includes rooftop outdoor seating.

Kaiserschmarrn—a shredded pancake with black strap rum, bing cherries, maple, and preserves (available only during weekend brunch).

Ali Cohane says Pinedale-based Pine Coffee Supply “has a very distinct roast profile—very fruit-forward with lots of berry notes. It’s a pretty progressive style of roasting that no other cafés or restaurants in the valley serve.”

The stone bust above the fireplace that overlooks the main dining room is of Zeus, the father of Persephone. The men behind the local shop Mountain Dandy found the sculpture on a road trip. “It was originally something we had planned to put in our own house,” says Mountain Dandy’s John Frechette. “Once we got to working on the Coelette project and remembered that Zeus was Persephone’s father, we knew it just had to fit somewhere in the design.”

85 S. King St., Jackson; 307/201-5026, coelette.com JH

JH Living PIQUED

1

2

4

5 3

4 1 / PUFF IT UP

We’re loving this season’s lightweight puffy jackets, especially Eddie Bauer’s Microtherm 1000 down jacket, which features 1000–fill power RDS (Responsible Down Standard) goose down, packs into its own chest pocket, and weighs nine(ish) ounces. We’ve never experienced so much warmth from a jacket that weighs about as much as a roll of quarters. Outdoor Research’s Helium Down Hoodie weighs more but is warmer and features an abrasionresistant exterior; waterproof fabric on the shoulders, hood, and sleeves; and 800-plus–fill power RDS goose down, and it still weighs less than one pound. EB Microtherm 1000: $399; available at Eddie Bauer (55 S. Cache St.); OR Helium Hoody: $279, available at Wilson Backcountry Sports (1223 Ida Dr., Wilson)

2 / HAPPY FEET

Smartwool picked the brain of pro ski racer Mikaela Shiffrin to construct its new PhD Pro Ski Race sock, but you don’t have to be a racer to appreciate the socks’ durability (especially in the toes), contoured shin cushioning, and arch support. Available in unisex and women’s-specific fits. If cold feet plague you, check out Swiftwick’s new Pursuit Twelve ski sock. We’ve found its fine-gauge merino wool keeps our feet warm on the coldest of days. The comfort and security of its four-inch cuff is extra credit. Smartwool: $30.95; Swiftwick: $34.99, both available at Hoback Sports (520 W. Broadway)

3 / LOOKING GOOD

In the 1970s, Jean-Claude Killy and Wayne Wong, among others, made ski aviator sunglasses cool. Now Vallon, based in Verbier, Switzerland, has brought the iconic style into the twenty-first century. Vallon’s Ski Aviators feature a frame made from cellulose acetate—a strong, durable non-petroleum-based material. The mirrored polyamide lenses are lightweight and impact resistant. $107, available at vallon.store

4 / SOCIAL DISTANCE STYLE

Since we might be après-skiing outside this winter due to the pandemic, we’ve invested in warm one-pieces. Members of the first American expedition to summit Mount Everest in 1963 wore Eddie Bauer down underwear. We’re wearing the updated version of it—the streamlined one-piece Down Camp Suit—while eating charcuterie and drinking beers with friends in the parking lot at the end of a ski day. Rated to minus-twenty degrees and available in black, the suit melds form and function. Melding function with fun, Selk’bag’s 6G wearable sleeping bag comes in colors from blue puffin to purple evening. Because it’s made from synthetic insulation, it’s heavier and bulkier than the EB option, but it has a hood and detachable booties. Down suit: $179, available at Eddie Bauer (55 S. Cache St.); Selk’bag: $169, available at sellkbagusa.com

5 / DON’T SLIP

Kahtoola’s new EXOspikes are traction monsters. As comfortable on icy roads as on hard-packed trails, EXOspikes are elastomer harnesses that easily slip over pretty much any shoe or boot and feature twelve tungsten carbide–tipped spikes per foot to keep even the clumsiest among us from slipping and falling. When you don’t need them anymore, pull them off and they’ll fit in a pocket or purse. $59.95, available at Teton Mountaineering (170 N. Cache St.)