Meet Tim Payne: Coho’s New Executive Chef

Coho Restaurant is pleased to welcome Executive Chef Tim Payne to our team. Chef Tim’s passion is deep-rooted in farming. Having grown up in a farming family, he loves cultivating relationships with small farms and food purveyors to showcase local ingredients in his dishes. Whether it is an heirloom carrot, beautiful head of tender red lettuce, or a sweet onion, these ingredients, usually the sides, transform a dish, often making them the stars.

Colorado Roots

Prior to Coho Restaurant, Chef worked in several farm to table restaurants in Colorado. He was looking to move to a small community with lots of outdoor activities and a good food scene. After several vacations on Orcas Island, he realized that some day he would call San Juan Island home.

Once here Chef Tim wasted no time visiting the local farmer’s market forging new relationships with farmers in San Juan County and throughout the local region. Each day his kitchen is brimming with the bounty of the season. Chef loves the high quality of the produce and ingredients the farmers offer. He enjoys the seasonality of ingredients.

Chef Tim presented many wine, beer and farm dinners in Colorado and looks forward to continuing that tradition here at Coho Restaurant.

These collaborations yield an amazing synergy of food and drink. “It’s all about fresh ingredients, simple preparations and proper techniques.  What makes food memorable is the combination of flavors and textures that contrast and complement each other.”

Chef Tim loves the great outdoors and on his days off you’ll find him jogging, hiking and biking, exploring the archipelago of his new home.

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