Evening Star Cafe-An Invitation To Dinner At Planet Wine
Recently, I was fortunate to be invited to The Farm Table at Planet Wine. An intimate dinner for 14 was arranged to bring bloggers and local food writers together to experience Chef Will Artley’s seasonal food, which was smartly paired with wine from their versitile, well-crafted selection.
For those of you unfamiliar with Planet Wine, it is a wine and gourmet shop adjacent to Evening Star Cafe-a gem of a neighborhood restaurant that has garnered praise far beyond the bungalows of Del Ray. Together, these two institutions coalesce to offer a communal table for as many as 14 people. Under the stewardship of Chef Will Artley, local food is showcased with simple refinement, allowing the ingredients, not technique, to shine.
As I entered Planet Wine, the atmosphere was warmed by candlelight, stressed wood, and a cadre of fellow foodies. The communal table, dressed in white linen, was flanked on either side by a panoply of wines. The setting was evocotive of a wine cellar secreted away underneath an earthen floor, flush with fermenting barrels stacked high and aging slow. The evening was rife with thoughtful dishes presented by Chef Will; each refecting his solicitous care of ingredients. What makes Chef Will proud is not his ability to manipulate ingredients, rather, how to make those ingredients shine with the least amount of intervention. “Handle it only once” is his motto.
The menu for our gathering read like a stroll through area farmers markets, regional farms, and the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. Southern influences were also evident, from biscuits that made this damn yankee swoon and ponder just how one makes them so flakey, to braised greens; a classic Southern preparation. The meal flowed seemlessly from dish to dish, and flavor to flavor:
Virginia Ham Biscuits with Homemade Mustard
Dragon Bay Oyster Shooters
Pancetta Deviled Eggs
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Fried Softshell Crabs with Pickled Ramps and Asparagus Salad and Lemon-Basil Vinaigrette
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Ricotta Gnocchi with Spring Pea Ragout, Baby Carrots and Mint Pesto
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Grilled Red Apron Beef Sirloin with Braised Greens, Roasted Fingerlings, Morels and Green Peppercorn Sauce
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Spring Cobbler with Ice Cream
What made this meal so enjoyable, aside from meeting fellow food enthusiasts and our hosts in a convivial atmosphere, was the synergy which I felt. Somehow, knowing where many of the ingredients were sourced from made the dinner that much more special. I felt the culmination of nearly two years of experiencing local markets, and meeting producers and artisans, and blogging about them. From traveling the region to discover “our” food, to getting to know who is in that kitchen, or in that butcher shop, or behind that cheese counter-it felt like…getting a hug back. And, it felt familiar.
