Sections
Neighborhoods
Features
Follow Us
NHI Newsletter
Legal Notices
Some Favorite Sites
- 5 Snacks After 10
- Abram Katz
- African independent
- At Risk for HD
- Back To Basics
- barista
- Branford Eagle
- Business NH
- Conn Art Scene
- Cornwall-On-Hudson
- Crosscut
- CT Business Litig
- CT Capitol Report
- CT Energy Blog
- CT Enviro Headlines
- CT Green Scene
- CT Law Tribune
- CT Local Politics
- CT Mirror
- CT News Junkie
- CT Watchdog
- CTV
- Design New Haven
- Gotham Gazette
- Hartford Guardian
- Josiah Brown
- Karman Turn
- La Voz Hispana
- Laurel Club
- Len's Lens
- Magrisso Forte
- Media Attache
- Media Nation
- Medical Intelligence
- Middletown Eye
- MinnPost
- My Left Nutmeg
- NBC Connecticut
- NH Advocate
- NH Register
- NH Review of Books
- NH Youth Map
- Northampton Media
- OneWorld
- Only In Bridgeport
- Oral History Project
- Reddit NH
- Road To Greenness
- Saved By Design
- See Click Fix
- Smartpill Design
- Specials In NH
- St. Louis Beacon
- Taste Of NH
- Tom Ficklin
- Valley Independent Sentinel
- Voice of SD
- VT Digger
- WFSB-TV
- WPKN Today
- WTNH
- Yale Daily News
- YourCT
Government/ Community Links
- Advocate Calendar
- Agency on Aging
- Animal Shelter Volunteers
- Arte Inc.
- Arts Council
- Beth El Keser Israel
- Bike New Haven
- Chamber of Commerce
- Children's Museum
- City of New Haven
- CitySeed
- Citywide Youth
- Community Loan Fund
- Community Mediation
- ConnCAN
- Creative Arts Workshop
- CT BAEO
- CT Tech Council
- Dariba Referrals
- Data Haven
- Elm City Cycling
- Elmseed
- Empower NH
- Friends Of Wooster Sq.
- GAVA
- Habitat For Humanity
- Info New Haven
- IRIS
- Jazz Haven
- Jewish Federation
- Job Finder
- Junta
- Labor History
- LEAP
- Legal Aid Network
- Literacy Coalition
- Magrisso Forte
- Mary Wade
- Music Haven
- New Haven 828
- New Haven Chorale
- New Haven Reads
- New Life Corp.
- NH Bulletin
- NH Land Trust
- NH Symphony
- NH/Leon Sister City
- NHS
- Orchestra NE
- PAR
- Parents Available to Help
- Pat Dillon
- Peace News
- PechaKucha
- Planned Parenthood
- Police
- Promoting Enduring Peace
- Public Allies CT
- Public Library
- Public Schools
- Public Works
- Rainbow Girls
- Register Calendar
- REX
- ROOF
- SAMA
- SCSU Events
- Share Our Voices
- Shubert
- Solar Youth
- Soul-O-Ettes
- Squash Haven
- United Way
- Urban Design League
- Urban Resources Initiative
- Ward 25 Blog
- Ward 26 Blog
- Westville Chabad
- Westville Renaissance
- Westville Synagogue
- Workforce Alliance
- Yale Events
- Yeshiva NH Shul
- Yeshiva Of NH
- Youth Continuum
Stars Come Out For 1st Food & Wine Fest
by Sarah Vanderbilt | Aug 21, 2008 8:36 am
Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author
Posted to: Arts
Mayor John DeStefano stopped by New Haven’s first food and wine festival, held Wednesday night as part of the Pilot Pen tennis tournament. He put a question to Union League head chef Jean-Pierre Vuillermet: “Do you think this should be a stand-alone event?”
According to original plans, the festival was supposed to be just that, a large, stand-alone festival, located near the downtown restaurants, perhaps on Yale’s Old Campus or Beinecke Plaza. But creating such an event from scratch was going to cost six figures; the necessary funding from sponsors just wasn’t there.
So organizers of the festival, led by Pilot Pen and Market New Haven chief Anne Worcester, decided to take advantage of the existing staff, infrastructure, and marketing of the tennis tournament to put on a smaller festival at Pilot Pen. After 18 months of planning, the result was Wednesday evening’s event, which sold out three weeks in advance.
Arriving guests, who had shelled out $105 for food, drink, and box seats to evening session tennis, were presented with a wine glass and food tray set and ushered inside the festival’s tent, located just steps away from the stadium.
Once inside, they found chefs from 19 local restaurants stationed around the tent, each offering small platters of two dishes, one savory and one sweet.
“It’s Important To Be A Glutton”
“I think I tasted everything,” said Jacques Pepin (at right in photo), the chef, author, cooking teacher, and tennis fan who was a special guest at the festival. “I am a glutton — It’s important to be a glutton here.”
Pepin had special praise for the lamb chops from Thali and the braised veal cheeks from Union League Cafe. He worked the tent with ease, eating, drinking, and chatting with guests.
Three-time Grand Slam winner Lindsay Davenport, who is playing doubles at the tournament this year, stopped by to sample some of the offerings.
One of her favorite New Haven chefs, Arturo Franco-Camacho, was preparing miniature corn arepas topped with lobster and avocado. Davenport (pictured) doesn’t like lobster, so she requested a plain one. “Is that bad?” she wanted to know. Franco-Camacho assured her it was fine.
Davenport, a veteran of Pilot Pen, used to go to Roomba for dinner when she was in town to play the tournament, but returned this year to find it gone. She was happy to see Roomba’s owners, Franco-Camacho and his wife, Suzette, still on the New Haven restaurant scene, with Bespoke and Sabor.
Davenport said she had hoped to play singles at Pilot Pen this year, but that it didn’t work out because of the Olympics. “It’s a tough trip to recover from,” she said, as she picked out a mini Lithuanian coffee cake from Claire’s Cornercopia.
The other American tennis star to make an appearance was John Isner (pictured), who lost to second seeded Russian Igor Karlovic Tuesday in the second round.
At 6’9’‘, Isner made an easy target for the cameras in the room; he also had the best view of the offerings. He made the rounds, snacking on lamb chops, sushi, and pork dumplings.
“The players are coming up here to make an appearance and asking to stay,” said Worcester.
Worth Every Calorie
Linda Smith-Tellier (pictured) of Milford was celebrating her husband’s birthday with a full day at Pilot Pen. After watching players like Amelie Mauresmo play in the day session, she and her family and friends enjoyed some local cuisine before heading to the stadium for the night’s two headline matches.
When I found her, Smith-Tellier, was working on a small but rich chocolate cake from Barcelona, garnished with fresh raspberries. She also recommended Ibiza‘s flan with poached pears. “It’s worth every calorie.”
Jason Sabocinski, owner of Caseus, stood behind a table laden with cheese, from hard to gooey to crumbly in texture. Located next to one of the two wine tables, this cheese station was a big hit.
Sabocinski said the crowd Wednesday night was “definitely my niche,” and he was excited about the opportunity to spread the word about Caseus. “I’d much rather do this, where I can talk to people, than pay more money to have an ad that can’t say what I could say,” he said.
Sabocinski used to work for Pilot Pen in operations, so he’s been aware of the buzz over past two years about getting a food and wine festival together. “This is a great start,” he said. He said he hopes that next time, the festival can be brought out of Pilot Pen and made more accessible in terms of price and location.
What’s Next?
Worcester described the festival as a way to promote New Haven as a “foodie destination” while also promoting traffic to individual restaurants.
She envisioned a stand-alone event in the future modeled on the South Beach Food and Wine Festival, where a “grand tasting” is complemented by individual events at restaurants.
But Worcester said that without a major title sponsor, building an event from scratch would be a huge financial risk. The only way this year’s event was possible was to “piggyback on Pilot Pen tents and Pilot Pen infrastructure an Pilot Pen staff and Pilot Pen marketing,” Worcester said. “So the interesting question is: Where do we go from here?”
As the first evening tennis match got underway, the tent started to empty. Guests emerged into the crisp evening air and made their way to box seats, souvenir tote bags in hand. Back inside, Suzette Franco-Camacho came over to the Union League table to present Vuillermet with two arepas, in exchange for two servings of veal.
Sampling the food of fellow chefs, Vuillermet said, is one of the highlights of any food festival. And he, for one, is happy to see two of his passions, food and tennis, brought together. He’ll be back at Pilot Pen Thursday, but this time without his chef’s hat. He’s taking the day off to watch some tennis.
Post a Comment
Comments
There were no comments
