Chef Ryan Swanson leaving KAI restaurant

With the help of Chef Ryan Swanson, Kai restaurant was featured in Tastes & Treasures II with its accent on historic, indigenous foods. The chef of award-winning Kai restaurant is moving on. The Historical League appreciates his love of history and contributions.

Priscilla Totiyapungprasert Arizona Republic
USA TODAY NETWORK October 13, 2021 Ryan Swanson, the chef de cuisine at Kai, grew up in Ahwatukee just 10 minutes away from the award-winning dining destination. For the past 12 years, the fine-dining restaurant in the Gila River Indian Reservation felt like home as he worked his way up from line cook to head chef. Now Swanson — self-described “Arizona boy and a desert boy” — is moving on. A spokesperson for the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass confirmed that Swanson is leaving the resort’s flagship restaurant and his last night of service is Saturday, Oct. 23. Swanson told The Arizona Republic he is stepping into a new, more operational role at the historic Ocean House beach hotel in Rhode Island. While it’s hard to leave home, Swanson felt it was time to explore another side of the industry, as well as another side of the country. ‘It’s very Arizona-specific’ Swanson was promoted to head chef of Kai in 2015. In 2020, he was recognized as a semifinalist for the James Beard Awards in the Best Chef — Southwest category. Kai, which means ‘seed’ in the Pima language, is known for its upscale menu inspired by the Pima and Maricopa Tribes.
Recent dishes at the restaurant include a chilled cactus and melon soup made with lemon semifreddo, compressed Arizona melon, guajillo oil and citrus lace; the Kai lobster roll made with vanilla butter poached lobster tail served on Ramona Farms pinole cornbread and 60-day corn bisque; and a grilled tenderloin of tribal buffalo served with smoked corn puree, scarlet runner bean chili, cholla buds and saguaro blossom syrup. “It’s very Arizona-specific,” Swanson said. “That’s the reason why it’s so special. Not too many people are doing what we’re doing right now.” Kai restaurant
looks for new head chef Swanson said he was proud to collaborate with Indigenous farmers in Arizona and showcase their ingredients, from tepary beans to saguaro seeds. Swanson has worked with Native Seeds/ SEARCH and the San Xavier Co-Op Farm in Tucson, as well as Ramona Farms in Sacaton. He has also used for- aged ingredients from Tohono O’odham artist Terrol Dew Johnson. “I’d like to thank the community and the executive committee and everybody at the restaurant for the enormous support they’ve given me throughout the years in allowing me to be creative and do my best work at Kai...It’s been a real honor and a real pleasure and I’m going to miss them,” he said. Swanson feels like he’s leaving the restaurant in a good place for the next chef. The chef de cuisine role at Kai is now open. Interested candidates can apply online at jobs.marriott.com. Reach the reporter at Priscilla.Totiya@azcentral.com.

Native foods celebrated in Tastes & Treasures II

Chef Ryan gave the Historical League wonderful indigenous recipes for Tastes & Treasures II. He promotes more of these Arizona-grown grains, beans and more in this dinner concept. Native foods are so important. Kudos to Chef Ryan from Kai at Wild Horse Pass.

'Rarest ingredients in the world': Chef works with Native farm for indigenous dinner

Shondiin Silversmith

Chef Ryan Swanson from Kai Restaurant collaborates with Ramona Farms on a dinner service featuring a menu full of ingredients from Gila River. Video courtesy of Andrew Gooi, Arizona Republic

Kai's Chef Ryan Swanson is ending the season with something completely new: A dinner featuring indigenous ingredients. 

As a way to celebrate the holiday and Kai Restaurant's last night of service before their annual summer closure, Swanson is collaborating with the Gila River Community's Ramona Farms for a fine dining experience July 5, featuring a menu of products and ingredients from their farm.

Ramona Farms is a family-owned and operated business near Sacaton, Arizona, on the Gila River Indian Community that specializes in traditional indigenous foods.

"I wanted to do something to celebrate their farm and have fun," Swanson said in a phone interview with The Arizona Republic. "End the season on a high note." 

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Swanson has been working with ingredients from Ramona Farms for 10 years, but this specific dinner is a first.

"This will be the first collaboration with an indigenous farmer," Swanson said. "It's going to be an evening of just learning about the beautiful culture, the farm and the indigenous ingredients."

Swanson said he wanted to showcase the families' life work at Ramona Farms alongside his own.

Chef Ryan Swanson (Photo: Photo courtesy of Debby Wolvos)

"The menu is made specifically for Ramona Farms," he said. "We're going to be using almost everything that they got, in some fashion."

Ramona Farms was started in the early '70s by Ramona and Terry Button on a family plot of land. Ramona said she is excited to see what Kai plans on doing with their products. 

Velvet Button, Ramona and Terry's daughter, says Swanson has been enthusiastic about educating himself and his staff about indigenous food growing on their farm, spending hours on the farm harvesting and learning about each ingredient's history and cultural importance.

"Kai has been using and sharing our food and our food story for several years," Velvet Button said. "We've been tasting and sharing recipes over the last few years. Our nutrient-dense desert foods have really unique flavor profiles and incorporating them into a menu that is using all of our products is really exciting."

Some of the crops Swanson will be using from Ramona Farms includes tepary beans, ga’ivsa, pinole, pima wheat berries, black-eyed peas and more.

Swanson said one of his favorite ingredients in his whole career is ga’ivsa, which is mesquite roasted and cracked corn that is ground corse. 

White and brown tepary beans from Ramona Farms (Photo: Photo courtesy of Kevin Lewis)

"Their ingredients will be the heart of the dish, but we're going to build around it," Swanson said. "Showcase not only the farm, but the community that provides for it."

The menu will also highlight tepary beans, which are drought tolerant and native to the Southwest. Ramona Farms grows three different types of tepary beans, Velvet said. She is looking forward to seeing how Swanson is going to showcase these beans.

"We have a white tepary bean, which is buttery and sweet.  We have a brown tepary bean which is nutty and earth. The black bean is almost chocolatey, very rich and bold," Velvet explained.

The ingredients are rare, Swanson said, which will contribute to the only-in-Arizona feel of the meal.

"That dinner they will be having on Friday night, no one else will be eating," he added. "You can only use these ingredients in this part of the world."

Kai Restaurant at Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass is located at 5594 West Wild Horse Pass Blvd. The dinner service will take place the same night the resort will have their fireworks display, so guests will get to see the fireworks from the restaurant patio, said Samantha Fink, public relations and marketing director for Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass. 

Kai Restaurant fining room (Photo: Photo courtesy of Dean Stevenson)

Dinner service starts at 6 p.m. on July 5 and fireworks begin at 9 p.m. The cost is $140 per guest with an optional wine pairing for an additional $90. For reservations or for more information, guests can call the restaurant at (602) 385-5777.

Reporter Shondiin Silversmith covers indigenous people and communities in Arizona. Reach her at ssilversmi@arizonarepublic.com and follow her Twitter @DiinSilversmith.

Chef Ryan Swanson of Kai Restaurant at Wild Horse Pass

So happy to be working with Chef Ryan Swanson of Kai Restaurant on our new cookbook, Tastes & Treasures Volume II. He is passionate about the history of food in Arizona.
Below is an article from the East Valley Star Tribune. Wednesday, June 1, 2016: 
The chef of Arizona’s lone five-star restaurant is learning more about using indigenous foods on his menu.
Ryan Swanson is the chef at the Kai Restaurant, inside the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass resort.
Swanson found Mark Lewis, a Tempe resident pushing awareness of food foraged from the desert, when searching for information about cooking with native plants.
“As chefs, we first want knowledge,” Swanson said. It’s important that knowledge focus on food grown nearby, hence the Sonoran Desert in his case. “It can be fun to learn what’s out there.”
Swanson wants his menu to reflect the local culture and offerings.
“We try to represent who we are every day,” he said. It’s always best to find local food rather than cooking with food trucked in to Chandler.
“We care about the food that we serve,” Swanson said.
It’s important for chefs to evolve every day, he said. Finding indigenous ingredients is one way for him to do so.
“We try to learn more and more about food,” Swanson said.
Kai Restaurant is the only Arizona property to receive AAA’s Five Diamond award and a spot on the Forbes Five Star restaurant list.
Swanson incorporates the essence of the Pima and Maricopa tribes and locally farmed ingredients from the Gila River Indian Community, according to Kai’s website.
Swanson describes the fusion restaurant as “very rare, genuine and original.”
Serving high-quality food, some with an indigenous ingredient twist, results in customers finding it hard to believe they are eating “such a rare dinner,” Swanson said.
It also allows the restaurant and its employees to maintain a close relationship with the Gila River Indian Community, where the restaurant is located. The community is the ultimate owner of the resort and restaurant.
“We’re just tapping into some very interesting things in Native American cuisine,” Swanson said. “We’re tapping in to the history and learning more about these indigenous foods.
Swanson promises diners that his menu will continue to grow, evolve and move forward and the volume of local food on the menu will grow as much as possible.
“It’s a challenge we face, but we’re always up for it,” he said.
By Shelley Ridenour, Tribune staff writer