Mmm, Troppo Che Buono! — Tasting Menu #001: Italian Summer Recap
- 18 hours ago
- 4 min read
This past July, Blundt Cultural Centre pulled off its first installation of our Tasting Menu series, Italian Summer edition, and honestly? It couldn't have gone better.
To set the scene: one gorgeous table, 3 (plus!) glasses of delicious wine, 4 yummy course tastings, and 18 amazing people.
The night started with an ice-breaker: What's your favorite season?
Simple and effective.
Within minutes, people were defending Fall, making cases for Summer and doing the very human thing of revealing oddly specific pieces of themselves through a question that was supposed to mean nothing. Before we've even broken bread, the energy of the room shifted from Wow, I'm about to share a meal with a bunch of people I don't even know to something a bit...warmer.
Connection!
For our first dinner, we chose North Italia. Now, North Italia isn't exactly the pinnacle of Italian food nor is it super niche or unknown. It's actually super known — it's a chain restaurant. And while that may initially read as a bit gimmicky, I actually think that's part of what made the night (our FIRST installation, mind you) work.
There's this unspoken pressure associated with trying to experience food "intentionally" for everything to be completely new. But I will say, there's something so rewarding about getting to re-envision tokens of familiarity with new people. And that's the crux of our thesis:
Even when it IS a completely new food experience, you're living through it in this little vacuum of togetherness sustained by a dinner table.
You came here to try something, everyone else came on the same accord, and for the next few hours we're all committed to figuring it out together.
Which leads me to our opening course: Grilled Artichoke.
Yummy, but mildly confusing.
There was definitely a point where it became clear that several people at the table were not completely sure about the mechanics of eating an artichoke. But that's the thing about eating with other people: eventually, someone doesn't know something. And when nobody is focused on the charade of "knowing-it-all", that becomes part of the fun. Some knew what they were doing and offered demonstrations while others suggested their preferred method of ingestion. Stories were getting passed around amongst laughter. Before we've even received our first course pairing (because you know there's no real icebreaker like a glass of wine), we've already been forced into cooperation by a vegetable.
Perfect.
Our sommelier introduced himself at the beginning of the night, but continued to usher us through the entire experience— making sure we knew why each wine was paired with it's given entree and what characteristics we should pay attention to as we twirled, sniffed, sipped, and ate.
All a mere prelude to the highlight of the night: we were given a rating card with stars under each course pairing and told to put our best "judge" hats on. I mean, you give people a piece of paper and explicitly tell them to have an opinion, and suddenlyyyy everyone becomes a critic!
Rumblings of sentiments like "Was the wine good on it's own? Did it taste better with the food? Would you actually order this? Was the last pairing better? Why?" filled the privately reserved room.
We'd taste, we'd write, we'd talk, and then we'd do it again.
This is how I met my friends for the night.
Me, being the bashful gal that I am, claimed my spot at the furthest edge of the table (almost) as soon as I was free to do so. A couple took the only two seats to my right. They were newlyweds and had recently moved into central Houston after living on the outskirts of the city for a few years. The wife was a medical professional and the husband had done service in the Army.
They were looking for something semi-new, but still comforting to do for their first date night out in the city. They frequented North Italia, but had their interest piqued because they never thought to experience one of their favorite restaurants in this way, and couldn't pass up the opportunity to do so.
Perfect.
I decided that tonight, at least for the night, they and I were going to be friends.
Somewhere between the consistent flow of wine, the warm food and our sommelier teaching us about what the hell we were drinking, the conversation stopped feeling like a conversation between strangers and started to feel like we had formed our own little community, even if just for the night.
By the last pairing, they were turning to me and sharing their opinions before even asking for mine! I mean, at this point we had established context. After all, we had been through four entire courses together.
There was history! We became friends.
The love was spread evenly throughout the room, obvious in the way people lingered at the table to wrap things up as the final pairing came to a close. People came for dinner but they stayed because they were having fun. We shared an experience. That was the whole point of Tasting Menu.
Fostering community is about the circumstances you put in place to give yourself and others the opportunity to share. What's obvious to me after successfully executing this first Tasting Menu is that we could all use a reason to slow down and actually talk about what's sitting in front of us.
Sometimes, it's a wine you've never heard of. Or a restaurant you've passed up a hundred times. Or...it's realizing halfway through an artichoke that you have no idea what you're doing and having enough humility to let a stranger lead by example.
Whatever the case may be, we'll figure it out at the next table.
With Love,
Loosie
Director | Blundt Cultural Centre
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