You may know it as a go-to in Tahoe/Truckee’s yoga-verse or for its growing music scene, but Mountain Lotus in downtown Truckee is also fast becoming a haven for your next delectably healthy and affordable meal out. 

A big step in the metamorphosis happened last June when it brought on Rich Selden, experienced know-your-farmer culinarian/restauranter, as executive chef and director of food and beverage.

“With Rich in place, we are ready to become a wellness destination, a true healing-arts studio: mind, body, stomach,” says Alex Rey, Mountain Lotus marketing manager. “We have some great-tasting restaurants in town, but there is something about a homecooked meal. And with the organic ingredients we offer, the nutrition we offer, it really feels like you’re getting a homecooked, nourishing meal at a really good price point.”

In a time when the $30 burger seems to have become the norm at many area restaurants, at The Café, Mountain Lotus’ plant-based, Pacific-Rim-themed restaurant, both versions of its Bahn Mi still ring in at $17. You can get three (damn good) breakfast options for under $13; and the shiitake miso soup, which fills you up more than some $20 meals in these mountains, only runs you 10 bucks. 

A life in food

Selden has been entwined in the region’s culinary scene since he started Electric Blue Elephant, his farm-to-table vegan food truck in Incline Village, back in 2011. He eventually moved the operation down to Reno where he then ran two hip-and-healthy restaurants, Café Deluxe on Wells Avenue and The Deluxe at the Biggest Little City’s vegan mecca, West Street Market. For three-plus years before his hiring by Mountain Lotus, Selden was at the Tahoe Food Hub, the renown slow-food market. 

But Selden’s experience in, and love for, food goes way farther back than his time out West. 

“I come from an Italian and Jewish household in Long Island, and my mom and grandma were always cooking,” he says. “I was exposed to a diverse food culture from a very young age, and we were always going around the city; to Flushing, to Queens, eating amazing Chinese, Japanese, all kinds of ethnic food. That’s when I kind of fell in love with Asian food in general.” 

Selden moved to Reno to finish college in 2003 while also being pleasantly introduced to Vietnamese food and unpleasantly introduced to the absence of the mom-and-pop eateries he loved so much in New York.

After graduating, Rich moved to Tahoe to pursue skiing full time and “found an itch to scratch with food.” That’s when he broke into the food truck scene, and his winding culinary path led him straight into the open petals of Mountain Lotus. 

He plans on changing The Café’s menu with the seasons, creating apex dishes based on what’s available from the local food shed and paired for the essence of the time of year. Summer’s light and fresh Cali bowl, for instance, has been replaced by fall’s yaki bowl, a hearty serving of teriyaki chicken or tofu, jasmine turmeric rice, shiitake mushrooms, kimchi, persimmons, and sauteed seasonal veggies, including winter squash. 

It’ll stick to your ribs and help you take on the cold. Plus, it just tastes really good.  

It’s all about who you know and why you do it

One of the great strengths that Selden brings with him to Mountain Lotus is his decade-plus-long relationships with area farmers and producers. Forged from his time in Reno that afforded him the oppprtunity to work intimately with its Great Basin Community Food Co-op; from his experience with the sustainable- and giving-oriented Tahoe Food Hub; and his foremost fervor for finding the finest of naturally farmed foods, Rich’s relationships allow him to buy direct — keeping ingredients organic and fresh, and price points low. 

He’ll regularly buy from five to eight different farms each week, ranging into the Grass Valley/Nevada City/Penn Valley and Capay Valley to the west.

A husband and a father entrenched in the Tahoe/Truckee community (his wife, Mary McCallam, owns and runs Mountain Song in the herbal medicine sphere, and his son is a student at Tahoe Expedition Academy), Selden takes his ingredients seriously. He explains that, “‘Organic’ has a USDA definition of essentially being food that is produced either without pesticides or with pesticides that are approved by the USDA.”  

Rich Selden’s definition of organic goes further than that. “We [Mountain Lotus] serve food that is never touched by pesticides and is completely non-GMO,” he notes. “All of our farmers are vetted by California Organic, certified, or they are utilizing organic procedures that they have communicated and that we have seen firsthand.”

Mountain Lotus’ food is also completely seed-oil free. 

Selden discourses on the restaurant industry’s widespread use of seed oils — canola, peanut, soybean, sunflower, et al. — and how, despite their having been touted as “healthy oils” since the ’70s, they are actually heavily refined, produced using a high-chemical extraction process. 

That’s why Mountain Lotus uses avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil, and, on occasion, animal fats such as tallow or gee in its food preparation. “Our seed-oil-free menu fits the overall athletic and wellness ethos of our mountain community,” Selden says. 

As a self-proclaimed “label fanatic,” if there is something the chef may be considering to use in his kitchen but can’t buy directly, Selden will “dive really deeply into that product’s producer to make sure they have transparency and are using whole foods.” 

The culinary troubadour also speaks of a sort of philosophic manifesto, one that he encourages diners to take with them wherever they look at a menu: “There is nothing wrong with asking questions about where your food is coming from,” he states. “They [the restaurant] should be able to tell you who their producers are and where their food is coming from.”

Seems like an obvious enough statement, right?

“But the list of restaurants who cannot is long,” Selden laments, his voice singed. “Longer than we think. Most of the time they are buying their food from large food distributers. I think that needs to change in restaurants. I think restaurants need to be operating at a higher level of integrity.”

To witness the revolution of integrity in food — how it is procured and how it is prepared — look no further than Mountain Lotus. Take a hot vinyasa class or see the studio’s next Afrolicious or Rambo Party show. And let its natural, from-the-farmer-who-Rich-shook-hands-with-a-day-and-a-half-ago food give your body, your mind, and your soul the fuel it deserves. 

The Café at Mountain Lotus is open from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday; elixirs and adult beverages are available in addition to food. Mountain Lotus also offers full-service and bespoke catering through Provisions, its 4×4 food truck. Go to mountainlotusyoga.com/food for menus and more details.