Every morning Showthyme owner and chef Blu Funk descends into the basement kitchen, "the submarine," to prepare for dinner.

Later, in the main kitchen, he brings fresh ideas about food to the valley, as he has been doing for 19 years.

Trained by Europeans and a veteran chef, Funk's main asset is his knack for innovation. He makes a point to experiment with new dishes, many of which he discovers while traveling abroad.

FUNK CAME TO Bigfork in 1990 by way of Colorado. As a teen, Funk moved from Issaquah, Wash., to Vail, Colo.

"I kind of fell into [being a chef]," he said. "My first job in high school was in a restaurant. I enjoyed it. I moved to Colorado to be a ski bum in the '60s. I got a job in a kitchen. I ended up apprenticing for several European chefs."

Funk notes that in the beginning, learning to be a chef wasn't always fun.

"Working for Europeans, the hardcore, non-fun-loving European chefs I learned from, instilled a tremendous work ethic in me," Funk said.

His main mentor was a Swiss chef named Marcus, though he also apprenticed with French and German chefs who skied together but were nationalistic about their food and considered the other's inferior.

He snagged his first chef position at the Bridgewater Inn at the Lionshead Village in Vail. Becoming a chef cut into Funk's slope time from 60 days a year on skis to 30.

"It was very stressful, it was corporate," Funk said of the time he worked there. "It was a great lesson for me. It made me realize if I was going to do this, I needed to do this for myself."

FUNK AND HIS wife, Rose, moved to Montana and opened Showthyme, so named for the Bigfork Summer Playhouse next door and the herb thyme, on June 5, 1990. The Funks partnered with Bob and Suzie Keenan, who had taken over the Bigfork Inn.

Living in Vail in the years before Interstate 70 was built had prepared him for the difficulties of obtaining fresh ingredients when the restaurant opened.

"Food today is a whole lot different today than in the 1960s, especially in a mountain town," Funk said. "Restaurants today have herb gardens. In those days, the only fresh herb you ever saw was parsley. At the [beginning] we spent a lot of time at the airport picking up fresh fish. There was nothing worse than going to the airport and finding out that your fish had been bumped."

Funk said the ultimate reason he and his wife moved to Bigfork was for the lifestyle. He golfs three days a week or more. On July 19, he is hosting the first annual Blu Burger Benefit & Ice Cream Social from 2 to 6 p.m. All proceeds will go to the Abbie Shelter, a center for women and children who are victims of domestic violence.

"If I wanted to be a cutting-edge restaurant, I would have moved to Seattle or L.A."

he has noticed that keeping up with food trends and learning new methods and recipes is made easy by the Internet.

"When I was learning, you learned from somebody hands-on or from books, but most were in a foreign language," he said. "I'm almost 60 years old and because of the Internet I'm still enthusiastic about what I do."

Funk and his wife travel in the winter, leaving the restaurant in the care of his 13 off-season employees.

"When we travel, wherever we go, my eyes are wide open," he said. "There's so much going on with food. I went to Tasmania this winter for a month and the food was fantastic. It's walking into little tiny cafes and seeing sandwich ideas I would never think of. It's very enlightening. The food world is wide open for imagination."

Funk also mentioned a trip to Scotland where he discovered sticky toffee pudding, now one of Showthyme's most popular desserts.

He asked the chef for the recipe, but the chef refused. So, ever resourceful, Funk got on the Internet and discovered that a simple Google search of sticky toffee pudding yielded two million hits.

"Turns out sticky toffee pudding is to the Crown as apple pie is to America," he said.

He spent a day experimenting with recipes and settled on a method. He makes 24 puddings a day now, and said they go quickly. His special twist is creme anglaise on the bottom of the pudding and caramel on top.

SHOWTHYME IS OPEN five days a week during summer. In the winter Funk operates a smaller restaurant in the basement called The Vault, which offers cheaper meals in the $9 to $13 range.

The building that houses the restaurant was built in 1908 as a bank.

When Funk purchased it, it was an art gallery and a basement restaurant called the Sea Star.

The old wood and stained-glass windows from a Minnesota monastery give the building a comfortable feeling.

"I love coming in here in the morning. Showthyme is an entity, a living, breathing entity," Funk said. "You see how the old gal's doing. You walk in, it just brings you alive. I spend more time here than anywhere in the day."

Funk said he greatly enjoys his staff, which burgeons to 22 in the summer. He said that some staff members have worked at the restaurant for 10 years.

Citing the fact that the restaurant is in its 19th year, Funk said that he enjoys seeing familiar faces.

"It's cool, you have clientele that you've seen every summer since day one," he said. "We've stood the test of time. We're constantly evolving."

Reporter K.J. Hascall may be reached at 758-4439 or by e-mail at kjhascall@dailyinterlake.com