Chef Anna Vogel is offering $25 Prix Fixe Dinners on the Luna Daily Fresh Sheet inspired by the communal dinners she remembers from childhood that were served each night during the grape harvest. “Grape Picker Dinners” they are called and come with a choice of two small plates, an entree, and two options for dessert.
I stopped by Tuesday night to try the dinner along with the Vin du Jour that is offered alongside the Prix Fixe for $5 a glass. Both the dinner and the wine were a delight. I started with the Organic Roasted Beet Salad featuring greens from the restaurant garden fifty feet from the side door, and finished with a simple vanilla bean ice cream served in a martini glass and topped with grappa macerated concord grapes. Yet on the food front it will be Vogel’s “Pork Ragu” that I’ll be dreaming about for a while. She braises the pork in tomatoes and fennel along with plenty of bacon and serves the pork and the rich sauce over creamy parmesan polenta. Think high caliber comfort food.
But the other star of the evening arrived in a glass: an 2007 Cotes du Rhone from Le Pas Du Meunier.
The menu noted that this particular Cotes du Rhone was only available with the Prix Fixe dinner, and I’d say it is worth ordering the dinner just to get the wine. Of course the huge bonus is the great food, but the wine itself was quite satisfying even before the food arrive. Drinking it felt like sipping the best of autumn in a glass.
