The Willows Inn

Lummi Island, Wash.

A year ago, The Willows Inn barely registered on the culinary map. Today, on a typical Wednesday, there’s a 26-name waiting list for tables and the phone rings 200 to 300 times with reservation requests.

Mr. Wetzel may be just a kid, but he’s got a great resume: He was René Redzepi’s chef de partie at Noma in Copenhagen for two years. He has brought many lessons from Mr. Redzepi to Lummi Island, Wash.: His five chefs are obliged to spend roughly an hour daily foraging for wildflowers, berries, early spring shoots, grasses and ferns. He has two fishing boats that provide sockeye salmon caught by a rarely used Native American method and bled underwater (“blood is what makes fish taste fishy,” Mr. Wetzel said). A farm owned by the inn provides items such as ducks, fed to Mr. Wetzel’s specifications, slaughtered at eight weeks and dry-aged in the barn.

Mr. Wetzel argues that his restaurant is no Noma knockoff. While Noma uses only ingredients from the giant land mass that makes up Scandinavia, Mr. Wetzel sources ingredients almost exclusively from the tiny microclimate of Lummi Island. The food on the plate could only exist in this one little patch of earth and sea, Mr. Wetzel said.

Mr. Wetzel, who works the room nightly, said that about two people a night introduce themselves as chefs or chefs-in-training. Every week, five or six candidates ask to stage in the kitchen.

Tables are hard to get, because they are nearly all filled by guests at the inn. But call two months in advance and chances are you’ll find a table, at least on a weekday, Mr. Wetzel said. For now, that is. The young chef said he plans on staying at the restaurant for years and that he’s only begun defining it. 

Original URL: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903703604576588950806818400.html