“Our goal as a restaurant is to create meaningful relationships with local producers, farmers, and other like-minded individuals or groups to help make eating within your state, region, or backyard easier and more approachable to do. We understand that The Way Back is a small part of a larger system that has to feed millions of people, but we fight hard to support local systems that are slowly growing to support more sustainable distribution networks and allow more local food to be consumed by local people.”

Dirty rice; and kung pao bison heart.

A healthy dash of whimsy infiltrates The Way Back, where novel flavor combinations and playful plating collide with seasonal American comfort food. But the owners here take their sourcing quite seriously, seeking out not just local purveyors, but producers who are conscientious environmental stewards and humane employers. The dishes, then, are a cerebral exploration of local cuisine, and a fierce celebration of the connections that bind a responsible food system, for which the owners here are vocal advocates.

No detail is left unexamined here, and that sustainability-minded ethos extends throughout the restaurant’s practices, from its mighty cocktail program through its waste management. In cultivating its own community, the restaurant throws its support behind local environmental causes related to water and climate change.

“Playful, inventive, evolving. The Way Back is many things, but it’s never the same thing.” –Gretchen Kurtz, Westword