JACKSON, Wyo. — Long-time executive chef of 27 years retires this month from Jackson’s iconic wild game restaurant.
The best piece of kitchen advice Peter Lagerveld says he ever got was, “Don’t worry about perfection, just make sure the food tastes good.” And for 27 years, that’s exactly what Chef Pete has been serving up at the Gun Barrel.
Lagerveld has been working in restaurants since he was 16 years old as a kid growing up in New Jersey. Eventually, he made his way west to Tucson, Arizona, and then in 1997, he made his way north to Jackson Hole.
“My friends, Barbara Laos, and her husband, had worked up at Jackson Lake Lodge for a summer and then decided the next summer they were coming back and going to live in town, so I was like, yeah, what the heck? I showed up here with nowhere to live and no job, but we figured it out,” Lagerveld told Buckrail.
He certainly figured it out.
“I was walking in everywhere with my resume,I came into the Gun Barrel, walked into the dining room and was like, ‘This place is amazing,’” he said.
He learned during his tenure serving bison, elk and prime rib that everything comes down to the quality of ingredients.
“If you’re not buying choice meat, it doesn’t matter how you prepare it, it’s never going to be great,” Lagerveld said. “And another thing is, just letting the meat age. It takes 21 days before the muscle starts to break down. The meat gets a whole lot more tender after that.”
But aside from keeping cuisine simple and letting it speak for itself, Lagerveld says the power behind the Gun Barrel’s success has always been that the restaurant is more of a family than coworkers and kitchen staff.
“We’ve had quite a few people that have been here for a long time,” he said. “And I think that’s due to the good ownership. They treat people well and I think that’s always been a huge thing.”
Lagerveld points out that he’s got a sous chef who has been with him for almost 10 years.
“He’s been coming up with some really great new menu items, so we’ve kind of given him free reign.”
Sous chef Miguel Hernandez, accompanied by his father, Angel, a chef de cuisine, will be taking the kitchen reins entirely when Lagerveld bids his farewell when the restaurant closes for the off-season on March 30.
Lagerveld says he never wanted to retire from his lookout over the restaurant’s famous mesquite grill, but his body can’t keep up with the demands of the kitchen’s hours. He has no plans to leave his longtime home, either.
“My wife has her own practice as a counselor who works with substance abuse here in town, and we’ve got a granddaughter who’s a little over a year old. So we’re not going anywhere,” he said.
Lagerveld said he’s also staying on call for the owners, the Walker family, and the rest of the staff.
“I’ve been here so long, we love these guys. It’s more than just an employee-employer type of thing. It’s like a family, I worked here before they bought the place in ’99. They always joke, “You’re like family, Pete.’ I might be the only person who knows where everything is,” he laughed.
Chef Pete said he’s very much looking forward to sitting in the dining room and just enjoying the cuisine that’s made him a proud career chef.
“There are a lot of good restaurants in this town, but there’s nothing as unique as what you’re going to enjoy at the Gun Barrel,” he said.
