This article is excerpted from the Utah Eats newsletter, compiled by Kolbie Peterson, The Salt Lake Tribune’s food and drink reporter. To get the full newsletter in your inbox every Wednesday, become a subscriber by going to sltrib.com/newsletters .
Hello, Eaters! Last week, Utah’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services gave a liquor license to a future bar called Eight Settlers Lounge in downtown Salt Lake City. Set to open in December, this bar will be located at 44 Exchange Place, near The Green Pig and Earth & Stones . To get an idea of what some of the tastes will be at this bar, my dining companion and I went to the business’s original location, Eight Settlers Restaurant & Distillery in Cottonwood Heights, to try some of the food and drinks.
The distillery, at 7321 Canyon Centre Parkway, was opened in 2020 by Katia and Radu Dugala, who grew up distilling with his grandfather in Romania. Katia Dugala told me they wanted to open a bar to get the word out about their distillery business. We started with two appetizers that Dugala said likely would be on the menu at Eight Settlers Lounge, which will focus mostly on craft cocktails and small plates, she said.
We ordered the baby back ribs ($14) and the tempura cauliflower ($13), and you can read more about them in the “Apps of the Week” section of this newsletter. To sip, I got a cocktail called the Sego Lily ($14), made with Eight Settlers Green Ditch Gin, lavender-blueberry shrub, Earl Grey and club soda. It w.