THIS IS OUR HOME
We’re Charissa and Chef Trilby, and there isn’t a day of the year we aren’t working on this room. We built one place on El Paseo where the food is Trilby’s, the wine list has opinions, the music is live, and you’re welcomed like a friend walking into our living room. We are so happy to see you.
CHARISSA FARLEY-HAY, OWNER
I came to this table the long way. I built Farley Interlocking Paving across California and sold it, and on every job I was hunting the best restaurants, chefs, wines and food festivals the state had to offer. I’ve eaten my way through France and come home with a notebook. I write recipes, I cook, and I can’t walk past a farmers’ market.
When I’m not here, I’m in Indian Wells, Ontario, Canada, or Kauai, sourcing the best local ingredients and trying new recipes to bring back to Wildest.
Wildest is what happens when you bring all of that back to the desert and put a chef in the room who can cook it better than you dreamed it. I work on this place every day of the year, from the floor, from the office, or from wherever I am. When I’m in, come find me.
TRILBY TATRO, EXECUTIVE CHEF & PARTNER
I grew up at the door of the original Spago. My mother was its maître d’ and a publicist to chefs, so my childhood was Wolfgang Puck, Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton. Then I left that world and cooked everywhere else: the Viceroy, the Purple Palm at Colony Palms, the ARRIVE Hotel, where I built the kitchen from the ground up, and three years running one of the largest banquet kitchens in the desert at the Waldorf Astoria La Quinta, from TED Talks to Marine Balls. When the hotel turned into a film set, I fed every season of The Bachelorette and Chopped, and the cast of Don’t Worry Darling.
Then Charissa handed me this kitchen. The food here is mine: grass-fed venison, Texas quail, Santa Barbara uni, pasta we now roll ourselves. I don’t cook by trend and I don’t cook by label. I cook what I’d want to eat, and I’ll come out and tell you why. And this year I get to cook it at the James Beard House in New York. I can’t wait.
FAROUK CHAABI, MANAGER & SOMMELIER
I grew up in the Northern Rhône, in school with the Chave, Robin and Chapoutier kids, and paid no attention to the vineyards around me. I was going to be a doctor. Then came a brasserie job in Richmond, Virginia, and a wine director named Robert Talcott, who handed my own home region back to me as history, craft and identity. That was twenty-one years ago.
I was sommelier and wine buyer at Cuistot and Le Vallauris before I came to Wildest, and since then the desert has named us its best wine bar. Wine should be fun, approachable and yours. Tell me what you like, and I’ll find you something you’ll love.
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OUR MISSION
This is our home, and the people who work here are part of it. Happy people make a happy room. Chef Trilby cooks what excites her, Farouk pours what he would drink, the band plays the desert’s own sound, and we treat every guest, and everyone on our team, the way we treat our friends. We are so happy to see you.
Charissa, Chef Trilby, Farouk, Jane and the Wildest Team
GRATEFUL TO OUR PURVEYORS
CANYON CREEK MUSHROOMS · AZIZ FARMS · TEMALPAKH · TSAR NICOULAI CAVIAR · SANTA BARBARA UNI · DATTIER DATE WHISKEY · COACHELLA VALLEY MICROGREENS, DATES & CORN
GREAT FOOD. GREAT DRINKS. GREAT FOR YOU.
