The Best French Fusion Restaurant in Salt Lake City: How Chef Adam Cold Turned a Downtown Bungalow Into Utah's Most Creative Kitchen

You walk into what was once somebody's dilapidated home on 300 South, and suddenly you're somewhere between a Parisian bistro and your coolest friend's dinner party. Chandeliers cast rainbow prisms on peachy walls. Through a kitchen cutout, you watch chefs hand-rolling gnocchi while laughter spills from tables where strangers become friends over plates of enchilada gnocchi—yes, you read that right—and what one customer called "the best tasting restaurant in Utah."

That's the thing about Roux: their gnocchi is "literally some of my favorite in the whole state & they always have it paired so perfectly." This February 2024 arrival in Salt Lake City's Central City neighborhood doesn't just serve French fusion restaurant fare. It's rewriting what Utah dining can be, one funeral potato pavé at a time.

From Communal to Roux: Chef Adam Cold's 15-Year Journey to His Own Kitchen

Adam Cold couldn't find the right lease in Utah County. He wanted "a small independent building with an independent landlord," and when he found the rundown bungalow at 515 E 300 South, he knew. "Coming from Communal, I knew I could do some good work out of a small space." 

That confidence didn't come from nowhere. Cold spent 15 years building Utah's culinary scene—time at Communal in Provo, executive chef at Heirloom Restaurant Group, and eventually From Scratch. He met his wife Kristen in 2009 at Utah Valley University's culinary program, where they "envisioned a place where their shared passion for cooking could flourish." Now, with Chef de Cuisine Dominiquee Roberts, Cold's finally running his own show.

The difference shows immediately. "During the last five years, I have developed good relationships with local farmers and vendors, and I always want to support the people I have worked with," Cold explains. His father-in-law supplies lamb and mutton from Lund Land & Livestock. Spring Lake Trout Farm in Payson delivers live fish in oxygenated tanks. Cold's approach to sustainability is refreshingly honest: "I like to be realistic, and do what I can to contribute, but not be dishonest with the customer and say stuff like, 'Everything's local and everything's sustainable,' because that's a very, very hard goal marker to achieve." 

The Roux Downtown Salt Lake City Experience: Where French Technique Meets Utah Humor

Here's where things get interesting. Most French fusion restaurants in Salt Lake City play it safe—refined techniques, classic presentations, nothing too weird. Roux? They serve Nashville hot oyster mushrooms and enchilada gnocchi alongside brown butter rainbow trout. It works because Cold and Roberts understand something fundamental: flavor development takes time, but creativity needs permission to play.

One customer who "travels for food" and had "severe food depression" after moving to Utah in 2001 found salvation: "I have had to travel to Vegas every few months just to refill my good food meter...but not anymore. I can just drive up to Roux in SLC and I'll be ok again." 

Walk in on a Tuesday night and the 30-seat dining room feels like someone's beautifully designed living room—because it basically is. The space is "both airy and cozy, with wide, almost floor-length windows, lots of butterscotch leather and warm wood furniture. Chandeliers hanging from the ceiling cast little rainbows on the walls." 

But you're not here for the decor. You're here because someone told you about the funeral potato pavé. This is "funeral potatoes if they were served in a fine restaurant in France"—thinly sliced potatoes "cut into precise rectangles and layered together with butter, then baked, giving them a gorgeously deep, caramelized color," served atop a velouté sauce. It's Utah's culinary claim to fame, elevated and French-ified.

Then there's the pasta situation. Through that kitchen cutout, you watch the team making agnolotti, pappardelle, and gnocchi from scratch daily. The enchilada gnocchi brings together "two rich, flavor-forward powerhouses of cuisine" for "something truly original."  The pappardelle with fennel sausage plays preserved lemon against wilted kale in ways that make you understand why restaurants charge $24 for pasta.

That trout arrives whole—"I loved how it was served whole so you can eat the cheeks - the best part! The fish was flaky and the farro gave it texture. And the sauce! It was unctuous and gave so much flavor to the entire dish." These rainbow trout from "Payson's Spring Lake Trout Farm perfectly capture that essence" of freshly caught Utah fish. 

The lamb shank birria deserves its own paragraph. "Lamb shank works a little too well with this traditional Mexican stewing process," and this version "will quickly rise to the top of your favorite local birria list." 

But save room. The Basque cheesecake has "just the right amount of sweetness so that you can actually finish the whole thing in one sitting without feeling sick." One TikToker called it groundbreaking. That's not hyperbole when you're talking about the dessert that caps off this kind of meal.

Farm-to-Table Downtown: Roux's Local Salt Lake City Connections

This is where Roux's French fusion approach becomes distinctly Salt Lake City. Cold sources from multiple farms weekly: "I like to have partnerships with farmers, meaning that I work with them for a very long time, and all of these farmers deliver me small amounts once a week of whatever they have." 

That includes Harward Farms in Springville for fresh corn (which becomes elote risotto with Hot Cheetos crumble—yes, really). Red Acre Farm supplies produce. Clear Water Distilling provides spirits for the cocktail program. The live trout "make the journey from Payson to Salt Lake City in an oxygenated tank," ensuring the kind of freshness that lets Cold serve them whole.

The menu "gets tweaked every few weeks," showing "that quality of ingredients matter and that the chef keeps up his craft in creativity as well as skill in incorporating different ingredients." This isn't seasonal dining as marketing speak—it's how you run a kitchen when your father-in-law's farm is literally invested in your success.

Even picky eaters find themselves surprised: "I sat down and saw this menu, I was super worried that I was not going to find anything to eat. There were spices that I didn't know, Sauces that I didn't know. But oh my goodness the food was so tasty. There were so many layers of seasoning." 

Planning Your Visit to Roux Restaurant

Address: 515 E 300 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84102 (Central City/Downtown)

Hours:

• Dinner: Tuesday-Friday 5-10pm, Saturday 5-9pm
• Brunch: Saturday-Sunday 10am-3pm
• Closed Monday

What to Order: Start with the Nashville hot oyster mushrooms and funeral potato pavé. For mains, you can't go wrong with the enchilada gnocchi, lamb shank birria, or brown butter trout. Finish with Basque cheesecake. The house-made focaccia is non-negotiable.

Price Range: $$-$$$ (appetizers $9-15, pastas $21-24, mains $30-42)

Reservations: Highly recommended, especially weekends. Book at rouxslc.com or call (385) 256-1367.

Parking: Free lot behind the building, plus street parking on 300 South.

Instagram: @roux.restaurant

Why This Downtown Salt Lake City Restaurant Matters

Roux manages something rare: it makes you feel like you've "just popped over to a friend's house for a lovely dinner," except your friend "just so happens to be an expert in the culinary arts." In a city where farm-to-table sometimes feels like performance art and French cuisine means expensive and stuffy, Cold's restaurant does neither.

Cold's goal is simple: "I want Roux to be here a long time; I want it to be loved by the neighborhood." Ten months in, with customers calling it Utah's best restaurant and lines forming for weekend brunch, that neighborhood love is already paying dividends.

This is French fusion done right for Salt Lake City: technically precise without being precious, locally sourced without being preachy, creative without forgetting that food needs to taste good first. One customer's coulotte steak came "cooked perfectly medium" with Madeira sauce that "really brought out the meat's beefy flavor" alongside "rich and buttery" mashed potatoes. That's the essence of what makes Roux work—every technique serves flavor, every local ingredient has purpose, and that enchilada gnocchi somehow makes perfect sense when you taste it.

Welcome to Salt Lake City's most exciting restaurant opening of 2024. It's about time we had a French fusion spot that remembers to have fun