It is a busy lunch service when I walk in the door at Revelry, located in downtown Bozeman. Despite the number of patrons, I am greeted by the host as if I am the only person in the room. I settle in at the counter-top seating that faces an open kitchen and a tiled pizza oven that is radiating heat, yet the feeling of warmth seems to come from all around me: a generous and welcoming staff , an inviting interior, and smells emanating from the kitchen that are both familiar and appealing.
When I meet Executive Chef Tory McPhail, I soon understand where this warmth originates. After living in New Orleans and working as executive chef for 20 years at the renowned Commander’s Palace, McPhail has brought that Southern form of hospitality along with him. As a young 19-year-old from Washington, he stepped into the Commander’s Palace kitchen, quickly working his way through the ranks under such chefs as Emeril Lagasse.
Wearing a chef ’s jacket and long white apron, McPhail is at the midpoint of his day bouncing between three restaurants. As mentor and executive chef for the teams at Jam!, Revelry, and Dave’s Sushi since January 2021, his day is full and widely unique.
“Each restaurant has its own thing going on. There’s a different swagger to each place,” he says. It is precisely this that seems to excite him most about his role. He enjoys the opportunity to contribute to already-well-established Bozeman restaurants, all the while learning the groove of each one.
Chef Tory McPhail’s openness to honoring the local gestalt has led him to find products that the state is known for—lentils, bison, and wild game, as but a few examples—and employ them in familiar yet creative ways. The menu at Revelry is sprinkled with this influence: Montana beef, smoked trout, and locally sourced produce
“It is wildly gratifying to be in a Japanese restaurant and learn from that team,” he says of Dave’s Sushi. In fact, he already speaks of each place like one would describe their children: “Jam! is bumping in the morning; you have to be a morning person to work at a breakfast restaurant. Dave’s is groovy, with Grateful Dead or Jeff Austin playing in the kitchen. Revelry is the laid-back one—a classic Montana wine bar.” McPhail reminisces about sitting at the Revelry bar two years ago while on a scouting visit with his wife before they made the move from New Orleans to Montana. “I remember loving the space and the history of the building before I even knew I would one day be working here.”
McPhail has an appreciation for place that shaped his earlier career at Commander’s, where he revered the authentic Creole cuisine of the American South. This guides the way he approaches the cuisine in Montana. His openness to honoring the local gestalt has led him to find products that the state is known for—lentils, bison, and wild game, as but a few examples—and employ them in familiar yet creative ways. The menu at Revelry is sprinkled with this influence: Montana beef, smoked trout, and locally sourced produce. In May, McPhail further represented Montana as a proud ambassador of these local ingredients in Louisville at the Taste of Derby, a charitable fundraiser held two days before the Kentucky Derby. His team loaded a plane with maple-wood- smoked bison brisket, Montana cracked wheat grits, cowboy caviar, huckleberry jam, smokehouse sauce, and bourbon from Dry Hills Distillery in Bozeman.
As I sip on the Mint Julep he mixes for me, we laugh together about his bold decision to bring whiskey from Montana to Kentucky bourbon country. “It is really good bourbon,” he says with a sincerity that speaks not just to his boldness but to a pride of place he feels for his adopted community. McPhail feels like he has come full circle: growing up in the West, honing his culinary craft in New Orleans, and now finding a home and new delights in the Gallatin Valley.