Dining - Circle Z Ranch

The Circle Z Ranch is officially open for our 96th Season as Arizona’s Oldest Guest Ranch! Our Ranch family is excited to serve you on your horseback riding vacation this season.

Our off season  was filled with fixing fences (always!) and working with our young horses. The progression of our 3 and 4 year old youngsters has been very positive under training with Kelly, Diana, Jennie, Miko, and Omar. We were finally able to get Ginger, Lexi, Flash, and Dolce under saddle and riding out on the range this summer. We look forward to many more rides with them!

The summer monsoons started late but brought an above average amount of rain, always appreciated with our drought conditions. If you are here earlier in the season you will see the lovely green grasses and the trees lush with leaves. This Fall should bring some amazing colors to the Sycamore, Cottonwoods and Ash trees  which adorn our native habitats.

We are looking forward to introducing you to our new staff so check out the article below introducing the new and the return staff. This is a talented and friendly bunch and we have all been having a great time getting the ranch ready and doing some team building.

Please join us this Season at our beautiful ranch property. We continue to fuss over every detail from the corrals to the kitchen and in the rooms.

We can’t wait to see you!

The Circle Z Family

Our 96th season runs from October 30, 2022-April 23, 2023. We look forward to welcoming our friends from around the world back to the ranch for our 96th year!

                                                                         Order Our New Circle Z Ranch Cook Book!

The Circle Z Ranch Cookbook features over 150 recipes by Pastry Chef Lydia Fairlamb and Chef Eric Williams that have been branded with an “outstanding and seriously good” approval rating by our valued Ranch Guests, A culinary tradition of our fine cuisine from The Circle Z Ranch kitchen can now be recreated in the comfort of your own home. This historic collection of recipes is now available to you in the first edition of The Circle Z Ranch Cookbook, available in our gift shop or from our online publisher. ORDER ONLINE

 

                                                                                   Our Staff for 2022-2023!
George, Jennie and Miko Lorta have put together an incredible and talented staff and look forward to introducing them to our guests. Jenna is back in the office and will be assisting you with your reservations. In our kitchen we are happy to have Lydia and Eric returning, and they are joined by the equally talented Natasha. Our waitresses are all new and so much fun: Diana, Sarah, Savanah and Taylor, and Chris will be helping them with dishes and other duties. Our wonderful housekeepers Myrna, Maria and Anna are back, and Raul will be keeping our grounds beautiful. At the corrals are Kelly, Alice and Omar, and the new faces are Wade, Brittany, Peyton and Mariah, all expert at handling horses and people!

We believe a fine dining experience is a special and unique moment; a warm setting, a chef taking great care in their planning and executions, and an atmosphere of invigorating conversations. This is the dining magic at the Circle Z Ranch, where our guests are left both satisfied and longing for more. And this season we are so pleased to  introduce our exceptional dinner and pastry chefs, who have a deep love for their creations and a love of the ranch life.

Pastry Chef Lydia Fairlamb

Lydia Fairlamb is the pastry chef at Circle Z Ranch. She is originally from York, Pennsylvania but loves the warm weather of Arizona. She graduated in 2019 from The Culinary Institute of America with a degree in Baking and Pastry Arts, and in 2021 from Johnson & Wales University with a Bachelors in Food and Beverage Entrepreneurship. While she loves baking of all kinds, her favorite dessert to eat is ice cream, the weirder the flavor the better! Bring on the mint-peanut-butter-ripple! In her spare time she loves going on long hikes, knitting, playing the harp, and dreaming up the fun flavor concoctions she might someday sell in a bakery of her own, (lasagna cake anyone?) Good food is a huge part of a good vacation, and Lydia can’t wait for you to try what we’re cooking up here at Circle Z.

Chef Natasha Billiot

My name is Natasha Billiot and I was born and raised in Houma, Louisiana. I had the passion for cooking since I was younger and my father helped nurture it. As I got older I learned that I loved learning about different cultures and ethnic groups though the cuisine that they cook.
Even now I love learning about new cooking styles and ingredients that I bring into my everyday cooking. I graduated from the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute in Thibodaux, Louisiana with a bachelor’s degree in Professional and Pastry Culinary Arts. Through out my culinary career I have worked at some amazing dude ranches such as Brush Creek Ranch in Wyoming and Bar Lazy J in Colorado. While working in New Orleans I worked as the Pastry Manager at Maypop, an award winning restaurant. Now I am doing seasonal work to move around and learn more about things I could only read about.I am so excited to join the Circle Z team this season!

Chef Suzanne Surber

Hello! My name is Suzanne E. Surber. As a child, cooking beautiful meals with my grandmother introduced me to the gift of food and the joy of smelling it cooking. As an adult, traveling has given me a chance to work with Michelin star chefs and learn in French restaurants on the coast. I have over 30 years of experience in various kitchen disciplines as an executive chef, pastry chef, and kitchen manager. Farm-to-table gardening is also an interest of mine and I enjoy growing vegetables, micro-greens, and edible flowers for my kitchen. Outside of work, I enjoy being an artist, creating abstract realist nature-inspired paintings.

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