SALT LAKE CITY — Zach Wade, the chef and co-owner behind Cosmica, is experiencing a pretty epic year.
He got engaged recently.
He opened Cosmica in downtown Salt Lake City, a restaurant that specializes in house-made bread and pastas.
Then that restaurant landed a coveted spot on The New York Times’ best restaurant list. It’s the first time a Utah restaurant has received the honor in more than a decade.
Cosmica was already busy from the start, so Wade didn’t have much time to celebrate the big win.
“My partner sent me this text with the article, and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s great,'” Wade said. “But at the time, I’m working at a pizza station, and we don’t have a dishwasher. So I couldn’t really celebrate. And then like afterwards it hit, and it was like, ‘Oh, this is insane.'”
He said his way of celebrating is having happy customers who walk out of the door having enjoyed their night.
“So we can celebrate every night I get to walk out of this dining room, and there’s people here, and everyone’s smiling, and I couldn’t ask for anything else,” Wade said.
A journey in becoming ranked one of the best restaurants in the US
Wade started cooking at the ripe age of 15 by pure chance.
He needed a job, and the only place that called him back was a restaurant. He said they asked if he could cook, and he lied and told them, ‘Yes,’ and then he “fell in love with it right away.”
What really drew him into the restaurant culture, working at a beachside cafe in Florida, was the camaraderie that comes with working in a restaurant.
“I developed the passion for food later in my career, but it was just the feeling of being a part of a team and having so many people depend on each other and caring about each other, it’s cool,” Wade said.
Fresh pasta was the first thing Wade cooked that made him think he wanted to continue developing recipes.
“I was like, this is rewarding. This is really rewarding,” Wade said. “And then it developed into, now we can make pizza doughs, we can make bread, do all these things.”
Coming to Utah
Wade’s business partner, Zak Pelaccio, called one day to tell him that he found a spot that was ideal for a restaurant concept the two had been workshopping.
It just so happened to be in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, a place Wade visited when he was a kid for an outdoor leadership course where he spent months backpacking and whitewater rafting.
Despite not having much experience in the state before moving here, he said he’s happy to call the Beehive State home.
“I love it out here,” Wade said. “The quality of life is so good. The people are amazing. And it just seems like there’s so much opportunity.”
The goal is to keep growing in the Salt Lake City area, potentially expanding into another space with a similar concept.
When asked if there’s someone who inspired his culinary journey, Wade points to his business partner and co-owner.
“Zac’s been my biggest champion,” Wade said. “And when he called me to do this, it was life-changing, really.”
Another influence on the restaurant is Wade’s dog Leo, a Maltese mix whose painting hangs over the bar, a pleasant little focal point within the restaurant. He even has his own space in the upstairs office so that Wade can bring him in when he’s working.
What I ordered
When Cosmica was first listed on the Times’ best restaurant list in November, I had to come check it out for myself.
The Times wrote that Wade described it as “Italian diner meets spaghetti Western,” and added that “It’s big, kitschy fun, with a serious kitchen.”
The vibe reminds me of a Kacey Musgraves album — Western themes with a little flash of neon and rhinestones mixed in. And the food is not an afterthought.
After eating the pasta and the bread, I get what the Times saw in Cosmica. The puffy bread alone is worth a stop by the restaurant.
Here’s what I ordered.
- Puffy bread: The Times described the bread as “a piping-hot saucer of char-spotted bread straight from the oven, a sort of pita by way of Parma.” Just like its description, it’s puffy and hot and delicious. I had it served with the stracciatella and house salted chilis, and I highly recommend having it with that. It made for a creamy dip while the acid from the chilis cleaned it all up for a balanced bite.
- House Pizza: The crust makes this pizza a star. It’s fresh and hot and crispy on the outside, soft and puffy on the inside.
- Gulurgiones: This was a Sardinian potato-filled dumpling with creme fraiche, fresh peas, guanciale and cracked black pepper. It also has crispy bacon served on top. It’s a decadent bite.
- Mafaldine & Bolognese Bianco: This was definitely my favorite dish I tried. It’s a mafaldine pasta with rich ground beef and pork ragu, red pepper flake, cream, butter, Grana Padano and fresh herbs. It’s creamy and delicious.
“I get to walk out here full and people are happy, and it’s just a beautiful scene and that will always make any bad day, anything worth it because it’s something that we were able to create and offer that people were receptive to,” Wade said.
Storefront information
- Address: 945 S. 300 West #102, Salt Lake City, UT 84101
- Hours: Monday-Saturday 5-10 p.m., Sunday 5-9 p.m.
- Price: $$
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
