Chef Paul Wade is an upscale chef with down-home ingredients

Executive Chef Paul Wade has cooked in Maui, Telluride and Aspen, but it's Hood River that feels like paradise.

While others are windsurfing, the new chef at Columbia Gorge Hotel picks morels or chats with farmers about where the best asparagus is grown. He makes his own cheese and plans to grow his own exotic herbs for the restaurant.

It's a local-source-only menu at Simon's, the fine-dining hotel restaurant.

"If you want to be a great chef in any region in the country, park yourself where it all grows," said Wade, who used to work at The Little Nell hotel in Aspen and at The Four Seasons Maui at Wailea. "It's a tried-and-true formula in France and Italy."

After decades as a corporate resort chef, Wade, 46, realized that the higher the promotion, the less he cooked. "I controlled all the menus — from pan-Asian to Northern Italian cuisine — but I was delegating. I was an administrator ... you're pulled so far away from the food that your identity comes into question as a culinary artist."

Not a problem here, where he is sautéing five to six days a week. A few local winemakers noted that the food has improved since Wade took over in March.

Wade, who started his career in Napa Valley and Sonoma, feels more relaxed now that he's returning to the organic, eat-local and slow-food movement.

His menu features a Farmer's Market Prix Fixe dinner, and in fine print, he has dedicated it to "the many foragers, ranchers, farmers and fishermen" who made this menu possible.

— Tan Vinh