After a rough winter, U.P. chef brings northern Michigan bounty to the table in Hazel Park

Chef Jason Biega knew things were going to be rough for his Munising restaurant Tracey's this winter when he saw a noticeable lack of snowmobile trailers in the parking lot of nearby hotels.

Tourism that brings frosty-weather enthusiasts to hit the trails on sleds, snowshoes and skis and check out ice caves and frozen waterfalls was down the past three months because of a lack of snow and ice, and the hospitality industry in the Upper Peninsula suffered for it, Biega says.

To help make up for it with summer tourism, which is the bigger of the two seasons, Biega is packing up ingredients from U.P. growers and purveyors and heading downstate April 27-28 to present four dinners at collaboration restaurant Frame in Hazel Park. With these multi-course meals, he'll showcase the bounty of this region and get people excited about visiting in 2024.

"Typically, especially in Alger County where we reside, we see over 200 inches of snow in any given year. The amount of snow this year has been abysmal," he said, adding that it's gotten to the point where he's seen area businesses close their doors and lay off workers until the summer season.

The penny pinching trickles down from restaurant and hotel operators all the way to local farmers, said Biega, who helms the kitchen at elevated fine-dining bistro Tracey's at Roam Inn.

"If you have business owners whose pockets are being squeezed, decisions are being affected on how you purchase. Farmers that I know, their sales are different right now than they were," said the chef, who has cooked and lived all over the United States, including Hawaii and Metro Detroit. "It's a trickle-down effect everywhere. If the money's not flowing, everybody starts constricting and surviving to get to the influx that starts mid-May, starting with the Pictured Rocks cruises that start May 11."

For his Frame dinners, he'll employ produce and products from U.P. companies like Lake Superior's VanLandschoot & Sons Fishery, Circle K Ranch in Rudyard, Labar Poultry Farm in Manistique and Cloverland Farm in Marquette. The five-course dinners not only give Metro Detroiters a window into the fruits of the U.P. via Biega's expert hand, but it also gives those businesses a chance to shine downstate.

Frame in Hazel Park regularly hosts dinners like this, either with different themes or to host visiting chefs for one-off dinners or month-long residencies. Owners Joe and Cari Vaughn have hosted Biega in the past when he served a meal featuring the labors of VanLandschoot & Sons Fishery

In April, the first course is a celebration of ramps, a wild plant similar to onion and garlic that Biega says is typically harvested in May but is expected to pop up earlier because of the warm winter. He'll work the ramps with some house-made stracciatella cheese and shoulder bacon. Maple sap is also being tapped earlier than usual, too, and he'll use that in his second course, a dumpling with grass-fed bison and maitake mushroom from Up Gourmet Mushrooms.

"Everybody typically gets whitefish when they come up here, but something people don't get a lot of is Lake Superior lake trout, particularly the char species, which is something we're going to represent in course three," he said.

Ramps will show up again in the fourth course as pickled ramp butter served with prime ribeye that Biega will get from a Superior Home Farm in Rapid River. For that dish he's also using reserved root vegetables and king trumpet mushrooms. Finally, the April dinners at Frame will conclude with a dessert called "forest floor" ice cream. Biega will use wintergreen which grows in abundance in his area on the ground.

"I'm going to steep ice cream with it and then I color it with some spinach juice and then we're going to do a chaga waffle and replace the vanilla typically in waffle batter with chaga (mushroom) extract so it'll be kind of earthy. It's pretty awesome."

Biega is hoping for a stronger tourism season in the Upper Peninsula this spring and summer to make up for the weak winter. He also wants to emphasize the importance of buying and using local and keeping the money in the local economy.

"I'm not going to come down there and not bring a lot of ingredients that are from here. I know I can do that because I've taken years to build these relationships," he said, adding that it's gotten to the point where locally produced ingredients are on the same price level as the corporate stuff. "Ninety percent of the time the local produce is going to taste better, the quality is going to be higher and it's going to work for everybody around you."

Biega and his team will serve two dinners each night April 27-28. Tickets are $95 per person (plus tax, fees and beverage pairings) and they'll go on sale Wednesday at framehazelpark.com. Frame is at 23839 John R in Hazel Park.

Melody Baetens is The Detroit News restaurant critic

mbaetens@detroitnews.com