Palmer’s Market is offering customer’s something different next Monday and Tuesday, Jan. 25 and 26: A pop-up Italian restaurant in the store for two nights only.
One of the Italian organizers of the event is also the Italian food exporter who teams up with Palmer’s for group tours in Italy featuring behind-the-scenes looks at gourmet food providers. This year, Palmer’s has three tours.
How this came about
Both the pop-up restaurant and tours of Italy were suggested by an Italian export company, aTTavola, which has had a relationship with Palmer’s for years. Back in 2012, Megan Palmer Rivera, the store’s culinary director, took a “buyer’s tour” of Italy, visiting small gourmet food suppliers from all over the country.
From left: Gioacchino Passalaqua, co-owner of aTTavola and Chef Claudio Ruta
“She met a ton of artisan food providers that we now carry in our store,” said Valerie Robbins, marketing director for Palmer’s.
When customers heard about the trip, partly through Megan’s blog posts, they asked if they could come on future tours, Robbins said. Gioacchino Passalaqua, a co-owner of aTTavola and a native Sicilian, now offers the tours to customers of some of the American stores he shipped to, including Palmer’s.
Passalaqua is now traveling around the U.S. with Claudio Ruta, a Michelin-rated chef from La Fenice in Ragusa, Sicily, who has been showing off Italian cuisine at various events around the country — and, on Jan. 25 and 26, in Darien.
The pop-up restaurant: “A Taste of Italy”
Ruta will be cooking a four-course dinner with pan-seared scallops, artemide rice salad, fusilli pasta, peppered filet of beef and, for dessert, pineapple carpaccio.
Photo contributed
“With the assistance of Gioacchino, Claudio will showcase some of Italy’s most talked about foods in an artfully crafted four-course dinner,” Palmer’s says on its website.
“We’ll have a chance to talk to Gioacchino and Claudio about the foods, regions and tours of Italy,” the website says. Well, Ruta speaks no English, Robbins said (“so its as authentic as you can get!”). But he should have have plenty of people with him who can translate. Palmer’s catering and events department will also be working at the event.
Photo contributed
“Gioacchino will be here to talk about the food — and he is really awesome to talk to because he’s super knowledgable about the food of Italy and the wine,” Robbins said. And he’ll be a tour guide on the upcoming trips to Italy, she said.
Bring your own wine, and Palmer’s advises that you make your $80-per-seat reservations early for the limited number of seats — 40 guests on each night.
“We’re getting these farm house, communal-style tables and we’re literally popping up the restaurant in Palmer’s, inside the market,” Robbins said. The restaurant will be set up in the back of the store, between the prepared foods section and the butcher shop, she said.
“The dinner starts promptly at 7:30 p.m., and we recommend arriving a few minutes early to check in and find your seat,” Palmers says on its website. Dinner ends at 9:30 p.m. “Cancellations must be made at least 48 hours prior to the night of the dinner in order to receive a full refund. After that time, no refunds will be available.
“Credit cards will be charged $80 per person (does not include tax or 18% gratuity) on Sunday, Jan. 24.” The 24th is also the deadline for registering, if there are any seats left, Robbins said.
“Culinary Adventure” Tours
The tours of Italy will have 10 to 16 people traveling together and will be offered on these dates (see Palmer’s website for more details):
- June 3 to 12 — in Sicily for 10 days and 9 nights
- Sept. 20 to 30 — featuring Puglia, for 11 days and 10 nights
- Oct. 25 to Nov. 2 — featuring Piedmont, for 9 days and 8 nights
Where this year’s tours take place.
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