Blackstar brings together diverse food and beer menu

After the Great Northern Brewing Company closed its doors in early 2020, the Whitefish building lay dormant with possibility. Over two years later, real estate developer Rob Isackson partnered with bar and restaurant owner Scott Gerber to breathe new life into the space with a brewery of their own.

Now as Blackstar brew pub prepares to celebrate its one-year anniversary, general manager Daniel Nally and head chef Michael Priore say the menu has a variety of influences.

Priore, who grew up in Los Angeles, got his chops working alongside renowned chef Ori Menashe. Menashe’s restaurant Bestia is a multi-regional rustic Italian restaurant specializing in big cuts of meat. The framework of Priore’s credentials can be seen at Blackstar through the steak, ribs, Neapolitan-style pizzas and panuozzos (pizza sandwiches).

“The pizza takes multiple days to ferment so it's a labor of love,” said Nally. “Each pizza is well balanced in their flavor profiles, the dough is fantastic, and the crunch is there.”

A diverse collection of pizzas are available from the classic margarita to a spicy calabrese covered in spicy salami and fermented chilis to a more sophisticated pizza with pears and gorgonzola. In addition, one of Blackstar’s beloved appetizers, the falafel bites, has a longtime recipe that can be traced back to Israel and across several generations, according to Nally.

“Customers really like the smash burger and I think sales would back me up on that,” said Nally. “The process is to take balls of meat, put them on the flat top and smash them with a flat cast iron. This allows the meat to cook from both sides and it develops an amazing crispness.”

The key to the smash burger is to use a blend of 70% lean meat and 30% fat. Apart from this, Nally said the burger maintains a classic feel with pickles, shredded lettuce, tomato, and their secret Blackstar sauce.

“We use a lot of local purveyors,” said Nally. “Sonny Johnson at Alpine Chopp Shoppe makes a custom blend for us. He has trims from New York and rib eye and all these amazing cuts.”

But no meal would be complete without partaking in one of the specialty Jeremiah Johnson brews only available at Blackstar. With deep roots in the Flathead Valley, Jeremiah Johnson, owner of Jeremiah Johnson Brewing Company, utilizes Blackstar’s brewing space to provide a way for Northwest Montana to experience their beer.

“The owner [of Blackstar] had this whole section to brew beer, but didn’t know how. Then he met Jeremiah,” said Nally. “Jeremiah comes here once a month since he grew up in the valley so it made sense for him to tap into the market here.”

While there are two other Jeremiah Johnson breweries in Great Falls and Coeur d’Alene, the Whitefish location is not one of their breweries. The restaurant simply leases space to the company in order to brew an assortment of beer with barley malt sourced from Montana’s Golden Triangle, an area of Montana known for its good wheat growing conditions.

“The head brewer Alex Johnson has carte blanche to do whatever he wants,” said Nally. “We have six Jeremiah Johnson staples and the other seven or eight are brewed only in this building. This is kind of a way for Jeremiah to experiment with the beer.”

Some of their innovative concoctions include a raspberry smoothie sour, a lemon ginger saison brewed with 4 pounds of freshly ground ginger and 40 pounds of lemon puree, and a cerveza Mexican lager made with Saaz hops grown near Bigfork.

With two indoor floors and a rooftop floor with views of Big Mountain, Blackstar lends itself well to providing space for private parties and events.

“This is a striking place,” said Nally. “A lot of thought went into the interior design and it’s the prettiest restaurant I've worked in. The cool thing about our setup is we can host an event on the second floor while still maintaining normal operations on the first floor. We’ve had nothing but positive responses to people hosting their events here.”

Blackstar’s future plans include opening up for ticketed after-hours events, vendor pop-ups, farmer’s markets, film showings and live music.

Blackstar is located at 2 Central Ave in Whitefish and is open Monday through Sunday from noon to 9 p.m. For more information, visit blackstarmt.com or check out their Instagram page @blackstarmt. Blackstar can be reached at 406-730-1480 or by email at info@blackstarmt.com.

Reporter Summer Zalesky may be reached at szalesky@dailyinterlake.com.