Bozeman’s Feast Restaurant
“I want to be in the dining room talking to guests and sharing experiences.” —Chef Steve Kuntz
Steve Kuntz’s energy for life and cooking began in Montana’s Electric City. Raised in Great Falls, a city known for its dams and power plants, Kuntz brings a unique energy to the Bozeman food scene. He is the owner of Feast Raw Bar & Bistro, a Bozeman restaurant mainstay that serves sustainable seafood and locally sourced meats and produce.
The menu is a smattering of world-inspired meals, which reflects Kuntz’s own life journey. His first job was at an Italian restaurant in Great Falls, after which followed English literature studies at MSU. After taking a job at the Diamond J Ranch in Ennis in 1977, Kuntz says, “I found a love for scratch cooking. I started devouring cookbooks.”
Kuntz then traveled to Central America and Mexico for language studies. “I wanted to see what the world looked like,” he says. Upon returning to the Diamond J Ranch, he worked with a chef who had graduated from the Western Culinary Institute in Portland, Oregon, and was inspired to enroll in the program.
While attending culinary school, Kuntz worked at the Hall Street Grill. “The place was not fancy, but had quality scratch cooking. We worked on metrics, and everything was a competition,” Kuntz says of learning how to work efficiently. Though his job conflicted with his school schedule, he also took on a position as the pastry chef at Sherwood’s on the Water.
“When I left Portland after finishing school, I wanted to focus on pastry,” Kuntz says. He took an internship at La Folie, one of San Francisco’s esteemed French restaurants, under the tutelage of Roland Passot. Later he worked in the pastry department at Elisabeth Daniel and baked bread at Bay Bread Boulangerie. “I wanted to dive in and get all the experience I could. Culinary school introduces skills but does not delve deeply. San Francisco was an opportunity to learn all the pieces.”
The desire for knowledge found Kuntz learning the ropes at a sushi bar and doing a stint at Whole Foods as a fish cutter. While Kuntz gained valuable experience in his culinary sojourn, he says he missed his family back home in Montana. “I always knew I would come back to Montana,” he says, adding that he also missed the outdoors, especially hiking and floating rivers.
After coming home to Big Sky country, Kuntz further explored his interest in sustainable seafood and worked at the Montana Fish Company. This experience came together with what he learned in his travels, providing a foundation for his ethos at Feast. Nearly all the produce, meat, and fish on the menu is farmed or harvested in a sustainable manner.
As a child, Kuntz loved cooking with his grandmother. “When I learned scratch cooking, I saw creativity,” he says. On this premise, in 2015 he decided to open Feast. As a fusion bistro, the ambiance of Feast is both contemporary yet Old World in its feel. It’s comfortable, worldly, and full of energy.
Kuntz says he values the relationships he’s developed since the opening of the restaurant. “I want to be in the dining room talking to guests and sharing experiences.” Joined by Executive Chef Nikki Dupre and Sous Chef Stephanie Gregory, Kuntz and his team are energizing guests with innovative house-made food, stories, and conversation.