Executive chef builds menu around area

MOSES LAKE — Marty Bray prefers cooking for the public.

Which makes Bray's new gig as executive chef for the Pillar Rock Grill at the Moses Lake Golf and Country Club the perfect fit for him.

Previously the chef for a private country club in Walla Walla, Bray says he feels more free to play with his menu in Moses Lake.

"It's a great opportunity to kind of do what I wanted more and not have as many people telling me what I could and couldn't do," Bray said, adding he was looking to create his own menu. "It's nice to get into the public eye."

Working in a public establishment is a little closer to Bray's own roots.

"I was never raised the kind of person that went to a country club," he said with a chuckle. It also bothered him he was unable to have his family come out for dinner at the private club. "Here, it's open to everyone. No one gets turned away. Everyone gets a great meal, it doesn't depend on whether they're a member or not."

With the Pillar Rock Grill, Bray said his goal was to offer casual elegant dining with a Pacific Northwest theme, including a number of seafood and "high quality" steaks.

"I kind of like to build a menu around the area where it is," Bray said, noting there are a lot of potatoes, apples and duck from the immediate area. "We're real close to Seattle, we have a lot of agriculture in this area. I like to kind of incorporate that into the restaurant as much as possible."

The Pillar Rock Grill opened Feb. 3, as the country club took its clubhouse and restaurant public. The golf course remains private. Lunches and dinner have steadily been increasing, said Bray and general manager Jon McDowell, who added the majority of offerings at the new restaurant are all from scratch.

Bray said the menu isn't set in stone, and while he urges customers to try everything he has paired, he can still offer the foods people want to order.

"We can still do things like that, but we like serving the menu that we have because of the way things complement each other," he said.

Bray also hopes to add a fresh herb garden as the club removes its pool in favor of an outdoor banquet courtyard that should be up and running by early summer, McDowell said.

The Pillar Rock Grill employs five cooks, and several dishwashers and expediters, Bray said.

Bray got his beginning while washing dishes in a Walla Walla sea galley restaurant, working his way up to kitchen manager. He decided to attend culinary school, and was a sous-chef for 10 years. He has been an executive chef for four.

Bray enjoys the creativity and energy that come with his job, as well as the camaraderie with the other people in the kitchen that make for a fun job.

"The nice thing about opening in February was that we weren't going to get that mad rush of people like you would in late spring or summer," McDowell said. "It gave us time to be steady, but also have time to reflect on how we were doing things."

The feedback has been very positive, McDowell said, pointing out that while the menu drives the business, so too does the ambiance and the atmosphere.

"If you want to come out here and just have a burger and a beer and relax, you can do that too," McDowell said. "There's no dress code. We just want people to come out here and enjoy the facility."

Response from country club membership has been "exceptional," McDowell added, noting he feels extremely positive about the future.

"I think Moses Lake has kind of been screaming for something like this for ever," he said.