The overlooked Calif. fine dining outpost with a murderous mountain past |
Just beneath the foothills of 12,278-foot-tall Mount Morrison in the Eastern Sierra sits the Restaurant at Convict Lake, a wooden lodge-style building that’s ringed with quaking alders that burst with color just before the snow sets in each season. It has many of the details you might expect given its proximity to a popular mountain town, including a ceiling-to-floor fireplace and the large relief sculpture of a river trout hung up at the entryway.
That’s about where the comparisons end, though. Inside the dining room, night after night, the Restaurant at Convict Lake is doing something almost no other place for miles is doing: offering a classic fine dining dinner with all the Continental trappings, from French-style escargot to tableside desserts with a fiery flourish.
And to have done it here, on the shores of a lake with its own eye-opening American West history, for some 70-odd years, is all the more unique. Convict Lake, a daunting name when compared with its neighbors, Mono and June, earned it after a series of ultimately deadly events nearly 155 years ago, and in some ways, the restaurant continues to celebrate the complex land on which it sits.
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To reach the restaurant, all it takes is a long drive along the interminable U.S. Route 395, through shallow granite valleys and then west toward the sunset. Eventually, you’ll find it, almost at the base of a towering mountain named after a man who should have never been killed.
A sign for the Restaurant at Convict Lake.
Outside the Restaurant at Convict Lake.
A restaurant that preserves Eastern Sierra history
It’s not hard to find the story behind the Restaurant at Convict Lake’s location; the tale is debossed on the menu; you just have to flip it over. The two paragraphs share a brief retelling of the “unfortunate incident” at Convict Lake, as it’s described, which “led to the ironic naming of this beautiful area.” The brief history, as told by the county historian, speaks of robbery and a prison break — and makes for a surprising start to what is one of the region’s only truly white tablecloth meals.
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Not that anyone seems to mind. The restaurant has all the cozy atmosphere of a lodge, and it tends to take travelers as they come, with little pretense for the kind of stuffiness often found at fine dining spots in cities like San Francisco.
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Diners, who are likely traveling south from Mammoth or north from Bishop, arrive here in everyday attire: T-shirts, baseball hats, camouflage jackets and snow gear, with no seemingly preferential treatment. The primary dining room offers white tablecloths and long booths, with a freestanding hearth sheathed in copper occupying the center of the room. There are two other rooms, named Aspen and Tapestry, and the entire place seats about 90 patrons. At one time, the Restaurant at Convict Lake was named by reservation platform OpenTable as one of the 100 most romantic spots in America, an award the restaurant happily displays behind the maitre d’ stand. (An attached casual lounge, in another room, offers pizzas and sports on TV, but it’s underwhelming compared with the main dining room.)
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Inside the Restaurant at Convict Lake.
Brian Balarasky, 70, one of the co-owners, joked that the establishment is “five stars minus the jeans.” But, he said, the casual-ness of the place is what keeps locals coming back. He said the menu has barely changed since 1983. “The cuisine fits the bill,” he said.
Unlike Skadi, the modern fine dining option in Mammoth Lakes, this European-leaning menu mostly sticks to classics, weaving easily between French-inspired staples like the escargot and baked brie, including a pistachio-crusted salmon. A hefty beef Wellington rests on top of a large serving of mashed potatoes and is quite filling (especially if you’ve already dug into the opening bread basket). The potatoes are pureed into an ultra-smooth consistency and piped, giving them a ribbony flourish that’s only outdone by a row of softened red onion peels. Scallops follow a similar plating formula, while the arugula salad (with truffle dressing, naturally) is topped with grilled goat cheese.
Among duck legs, a venison striploin, the Wellington and a long rack of lamb, the restaurant certainly leans meat-centric, but that’s to be expected. The one vegetarian entree is the fettuccine, with handmade pasta, a mellow basil almond pesto and shaved Spanish manchego. The wine list is similarly steady and simple, with familiar labels like Daou available without much fuss, and the lounge area puts a premium on its martinis and manhattans.
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By far the most flamboyant dish is the bananas foster, served tableside on a roving cart that seems to almost never leave the dining room. The famous dessert is flambéed out in the open to the endless delight of other diners, complete with sparks of cinnamon that pop into the air.
Food at the Restaurant at Convict Lake.
Through all the flourishes and fan favorites, the Restaurant at Convict Lake is one of those places where the menu largely never changes. It doesn’t have to, your waiter might say succinctly (as mine did): The place and the food speak for themselves.
But the actual Convict Lake and its sordid history? That requires a few more words.
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The hidden legacy of post-Gold Rush California
In September 1871, 29 men escaped from Nevada State Prison in Carson City, marking what is still one of the largest prison escapes in the country’s history. Some of the group fled west across the California border, making their way into the eastern wilderness to escape their jailors.
Accounts differ, but it’s generally believed that Moses Black and Leander Morton, two escapees who were among a group of six who peeled off and headed farther south, landed in the box canyon where Convict Lake sits after days of travel on foot, which included the murder of mail carrier William Poor. Seemingly cornered by a posse and unable (or unwilling) to climb the imposing mountain at their back, the small group of escapees — by then just three men — initiated a shootout. Two men were killed: Robert Morrison and a local Paiute man who had joined the posse named Mono Jim. Black is believed to have been behind the fatal bullet that struck Morrison, a 34-year-old general store operator in nearby Benton Hot Springs.
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In the end, both Black and Morton were killed for their crimes, while a third man involved was captured and returned to prison. The looming bluff that overlooks the lake and restaurant, Mount Morrison, was eventually named in the dead man’s honor. Many of these moments are recited in news clippings, which inspired books on the story. The 2021 historical fiction book “The Fatal Affair in Convict Canyon” by Jim Reed, for example, was inspired by an article published in 1871 in the Inyo Independent. “The Murders at Convict Lake” by George Williams III also recounts the series of events that led up to the infamous shootout.
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Inside the Restaurant at Convict Lake.
And in some ways, it’s a history that still feels present at the Resort at Convict Lake, which itself dates back to 1929. Upon entering the resort’s restaurant, built sometime in the 1950s, visitors today are welcomed by a large portrait of Morrison — or so people think, because no one actually knows for sure if it’s him. If you're lucky enough to catch the last glimpses of daylight as you pass across the dining room windows en route to your table, a purple-pink hue will often settle in behind Mount Morrison. And suddenly, his name is not so easy to forget.
The Restaurant at Convict Lake, 2000 Convict Lake Road, Mammoth Lakes. Open Monday through Thursday, 5:30-8 p.m., Friday through Sunday, 5:30-8:30 p.m.
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