Jory Restaurant At The Allison: Where Willamette Valley Vintners Gather For Oregon Wine Country Cuisine And World-class Pinot Noir

Sunny Jin Promoted to Executive Chef, Tom Bean to Manager & Sommelier

New Pastry Chef Shelly du Plessis joins dynamic culinary team

On any given evening at JORY Restaurant in The Allison Inn & Spa, Manager and Sommelier Tom Bean can look around and point out the movers and shakers of the Willamette Valley. The vintners in particular have consecrated JORY the favorite new gathering place because of the culinary team's relentless passion for Oregon Wine Country cuisine that complements the winemakers' pinot noirs so exquisitely. "Local vintners hold formal meetings in the private dining room or spur-of-the-moment casual dinners here nightly," Bean says. "That's the biggest compliment we could ask for."

Designed for leisure getaways, foodies and executive retreats, The Allison sprouted from the fertile ground in late 2009 much like the crops and vineyards that surround and support the resort. "In all my years running hotels around the world, I have never witnessed a level of commitment to cuisine that matches what we have been given at The Allison," notes Pierre Zreik, Managing Director. "Nearly a half-acre has been dedicated to the Chef's Garden, enabling our chefs to create the freshest seasonal cuisine for guests each week."

With more than 70 varietals tended by a master gardener, the Chef's Garden is like a foodie's ultimate playground. In addition, Oregon's finest produce purveyors bring their best crops into The Allison on a daily basis. Eggs come from a family farm just up the road from the resort. The model is most like cooking in Europe.

"Every morning on my way into work, I first stop at the Chef's Garden to see what's ready," says Sunny Jin, who was recently promoted from Chef de Cuisine to Executive Chef. "I sit on the ground with my notebook and brainstorm menus. I love how 'in the moment' our cooking is at The Allison." After graduating at the top of his class from Portland's Western Culinary Institute where he received the Grand Toque Award, Jin worked for Napa Valley's famed French Laundry, Sydney's Tetsuya, the top-rated restaurant in the southern hemisphere, then El Bulli, the world's top-rated restaurant in Catalonia, Spain. Known for spending his day off foraging chanterelle mushrooms, Jin is already on his way to making JORY (also vernacular for one of the beloved wine grape-growing soil types of this region) one of America's finest examples of farm-to-table, sustainable wine country cooking. Esquire magazine just named JORY one of the U.S.'s "Restaurants Not To Be Missed" in their Best New Restaurants of 2010 feature. If world-class cuisine isn't enough, The Oregonian also just singled JORY out as the restaurant with the best view in Oregon: "...dramatic views of Yamhill County's rolling hills...while watching the sun set."

JORY's new pastry chef, Shelly du Plessis, who had the distinction of working with Managing Director Pierre Zreik also enjoys the bounty of the Chef's Garden. "Good pastry starts in the ground," she says. Fresh Allison strawberries, raspberries and all kinds of herbs find their way into her delectable dessert creations. du Plessis can appreciate the finer points of the quality that an on-site organic garden imparts to the cuisine - before chef school, du Plessis graduated from UC-Davis in plant biology and did a fellowship at Harvard: "I like the ingredients to be able to speak for themselves." One of her Chef's Garden-inspired trademarks is lavender cr�me caramel with primrose sauce.

JORY's 'Garden-to-Table' culinary concept, a step beyond the 'Farm-to-Table' trend, was a key ingredient in the cre