|
Oliveto has a tradition of putting on special dinners. Besides being great fun and a break from the usual, the dinners have become increasingly important to us over the years for providing the opportunity to deeply examine a province of cooking and for reinvigorating us all.
 Some of our dinners (Truffles, The Whole Hog, and Tomatoes) are so popular that we wouldn't think of discontinuing them. Then, too, we'll get interested in something new that simply must be explored. You'll find some first-time dinners in this calendar.
| For previous Special Dinners and Events, please visit
SPECIAL MENUS |
We also have smaller, spontaneous events during the year for which there will be only e-mails and mention on our NEWS AND EVENTS page. To be notified please sign up for our e-mail lists HERE.
 OCEANIC DINNERS
Wednesday through Saturday
June 11 - 14, 2008
Over the years that we've been celebrating "everything good from the sea" (as we used to call our Oceanic Dinners), we and our customers have been all too aware of the degradation that pollution, global warming, and exploitation by industrial fishing companies have wreaked on our oceans. It has therefore been crucial to this event that we partner with an ethical, well-informed, experienced, and passionate supplier of fish, for not only do we want fish that are vibrant, fresh, and diverse, but it is also essential that the complicated moral issues involved in choosing sources be resolved in good conscience and by someone who knows all the practices (by-catch management, fishing methods, and so on) of all his suppliers.
Tom Worthington, partner at Monterey Fish Company, has the years of experience and passion for fish and sustainability to be that person. And he's a full and exuberant participant in our dinners, thinking of new inventive ways to showcase the beautiful fruits of the sea and even helping devise dishes. He set up our bella vistas of extraordinary whole fish, and conceived the raw bars we had in the dining room the past two years. (He also supplies us with a list of how each of the more than 60 species of seafood he brought in was harvested to pass on to all interested customers.) Because weather affects species availability, Chef Canales will finalize his menu only when he gets a confirmed list from Tom. That menu will then be emailed (see p. 2) and posted on our website.
>> See 2007 Oceanic Dinner Menu
|
 TOMATO DINNERS
Wednesday through Saturday
August 27 - 30, 2008
Our oldest on-going special event, Tomato Dinners, remains many people's favorite, and possibly not simply because of the endlessly varying roles Chef Canales devises for the scores of heirloom tomatoes available each year. Coming into season as tomatoes do mid-summer, at the same time corn, summer squashes, eggplant, peppers, melons, berries, plums, apricots, peaches, sour cherries, figs, garlic, grapes, avocados, cucumbers, various beans, edible flowers, wild nettles and fennel, artichokes, chanterelle and lobster mushrooms, softshell crab, and salmon-to name a few-come into their own, tomatoes must share the limelight with a cornucopia of seasonal produce at its peak.
Unlike those others, however, tomatoes are equally well suited for soups hot or chilled, salads, antipasti, gelatinas; with braises, grills, or roasts; over ice cream in a compote, in tarts, and in cookies. Even their leaves can make a subtle flavoring which conveys tomatoey-ness for such accepting items as braises and panna cotta. Delicate or intense, sweet or acidic, whatever the color, texture, or size of the tomato variety, Chef Canales and the other cooks at Oliveto will seek the most appropriate use for each in some traditional or striking new dish.
>> See 2007 Tomato Dinner Menu
|
|
Risotto Dinners for aceto balsamico
RISOTTO DINNERS for aceto balsamico