New York Cork Report

Carmelo's Restaurant Introduces "Butcher's Supper"

By Bryan Calandrelli, Niagara Editor

Foodies who pride themselves on eating local have found Carmelo’s Restaurant in Lewiston, NY as a destination for some of the best “farm-to-table” cuisine in the region. Never before has that term been more literal than with the restaurant’s “Butcher’s Supper.”

Chef Carmelo Raimondi and sous chef Bruce Wieszala have created a three-course feast featuring a suckling pig from T Meadow Farm in Lockport, NY as the main attraction.

“We’re breaking new ground here,” says Raimondi.

And he’s doing it with style.

When I was lucky enough to share in the first of such dinners, our main course was met with cheers and applause by the other diners as the chefs carried the whole roasted pig through the restaurant. By the time they set it down the rest of the staff had gathered around with other patrons taking pictures and admiring the sight.

Raimondi has helped establish T Meadow Farm as the go-to for locally raised meats and while you may see pork chops on most of their menus, Raimondi is connecting the customer with the farm like never before. He sees it as turning back the clock on how people appreciate food.

“It reminds me of traveling through Italy with my family when I was a kid,” says Raimondi. “A feast like this brings people together and brings us back to a time when we knew where our food came from.”

Dinner started with a locally cured charcuterie plate adorned with delicate slices of prosciutto, pancetta, coppa, lardo, bresaola vitello, paté and rabbit rilletes.

Alongside the suckling pig was a roasted beet salad with hazelnut, tarragon, grapefruit and dried balaton cherries, a dish of farro as well as hard-cider-braised savoy cabbage. For dessert it was Carmelo’s signature chocolate bar – a flourless chocolate cake with torched homemade marshmallows.

Raimondi, who rarely finds himself in the front of the house, actually carved the pig himself at our table – making for one of the most memorable meals I’ve ever had. For Raimondi the experience was just as enjoyable.

“I felt extremely proud and satisfied to come full circle from my days in Sicily as a child and now as an adult, enabling that intimate connection between the farm and table with a local humanely raised whole pig,” says the chef.

Carmelo’s Restaurant is now accepting reservations that are required at least one week in advance for these dinners. The cost is $55 per person, excluding beverages, service & tax, and requires a minimum of six and a maximum of eight guests. Reservations can be made by calling 716-754-2311.

TasteCamp North 2011: A Photo Diary

By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor

With TasteCamp North 2011 attendees, including most of the NYCR team,  back home and pondering the stories that we'd all like to write -- and they are numerous -- I wanted to share some of the pictures I took over the course of the weekend.

We tasted some outstanding local wines, enjoyed meals prepared by farm-to-table chefs and met some incredibly passionate and talented people in the wine industries on both sides of the border. Over the next few weeks, you can expect some great stories from the event right here on the site.

In the meantime, here's a bit of a photo diary of TasteCamp 2011.

Vineyard at Chateau des Charmes -- in the St. David's Bench appellation.

 

The group listening to Paul Pender, winemaker at Tawse Winery. Tawse is one of the region's organic and biodynamic producers.

 

The vineyard at Tawse Winery has the most densely grown clover cover crop I've ever seen under the vines -- by design.

 

Dinner the first night was at Ravine Vineyard -- and included some delicious wood oven-roasted suckling pig (and crispy pig skin that I've been dreaming about ever since.)

 

Vineland Estates winemaker Brian Schmidt likes to hold back his riesling to show how it ages. And, he was generous enough to open up a bottle of 1989 Semi-Dry for us -- and it was deliciously alive.

 

It was great to hear some history of the St. Urban vineyard at Vineland Estates.

 

The now-famous BYO dinner at TasteCamp was held at Treadwells -- a terrific farm-to-table restaurant. Rumor has it that more than 70 bottles of wine were opened from all corners of the globe.

 

On our final day of TasteCamp, we crossed back into the United States. This is a picture of Arrowhead Spring Vineyards.

A handful of Niagara USA wineries poured for the group before brunch at Carmelo's in Lewiston, NY. Here, the well-hatted Jonathan Oakes from Leonard Oakes Estate Winery speaks with our Finger Lakes editor, Evan Dawson.

 

 

TasteCamp 2011: Going International this May 13-15

The Niagara River divides two wine regions as an international boundary between the USA and Canada.

By Bryan Calandrelli, Niagara Region Editor

As you’ve probably heard by now, TasteCamp is going where it’s never gone before: international. With an agenda that reads like a wine industry A-list, organizers Rick Van Sickle, Remy Charest, Suresh Doss and I have put together an all-star lineup of Niagara, Ontario and Niagara, USA wineries and restaurants that are eager to open their doors to this year’s attendees.

TasteCamp kicks off on Friday, May 13 with a Grand Tasting at one of the region’s oldest wineries, Chateau des Charmes. The afternoon will be spent at Hillebrand Estate Winery with winemaker Craig McDonald, followed by a tasting of Stratus, Lailey and Thirty Bench wines.

Icewine will be the main focus later in the day as Inniskillin, Jackson Triggs and Le Clos Jordanne guide us through tastings at the official hotel of TasteCamp North, the White Oaks Resort and Spa.

The first night wraps up with a dinner at Ravine Estate Vineyards, hosted by two of the most interesting and knowledgeable people in the Canadian wine industry, Ann Sperling, winemaker at Southbrook and Sperling Vineyards, and wine consultant and industry veteran, Peter Gamble. The focus will be on Bordeaux varieties, organics and biodynamics in the Niagara region. I can’t stress to attendees what an opportunity it is to have this husband-and-wife team available for our questions at this venue.

Saturday begins with a vineyard walk, tour and tasting at Tawse Estate Winery. Tawse makes a serious lineup of vineyard-driven biodynamic wines, and winemaker Paul Pender will be on hand to demonstrate the differences between their cuvees. The morning doesn’t end until we head over to Vineland Estate Winery for a tour of St. Urban vineyard, one of the oldest in the region. Lunch will follow with a grand tasting of wines from the Bench area.

Saturday afternoon also includes a tour and vineyard walk of Flat Rock Cellars, one of the most progressive in the region. Inside the winery’s picturesque tasting room, Ed Madronich, president of the winery and of the Wine Council of Ontario, will talk Niagara wine with attendees. The day is capped off with a sure-to-be-epic BYOB dinner at the region’s premier farm-to-table restaurant, Treadwell’s, located in Port Dalhousie.

Sunday May 15 begins with a trip back across the border for brunch and a grand tasting of Niagara USA wineries at the region’s most influential farm-to-table restaurant, Carmelo’s, located in historic Lewiston, NY. Area wineries will be showcasing their best as we explore the early success and overall potential of the United States side of the region. The afternoon will be spent on the bench of the escarpment at Arrowhead Spring Vineyards and Freedom Run Winery, with barrel samples and production and vineyard tours.

Niagara is without a doubt one of the most exciting and cutting-edge wine growing regions in the world. Ontario, which is now hitting its stride with a diverse collection of world-class wines, is virtually unknown to most American wine drinkers.

Ice wine may be the only Niagara wine in your store but there are exciting Bordeaux blends, cabernet francs, pinot noirs, sauvignon blancs, chardonnays, rieslings and much more in these tasting rooms. The same geography that created Niagara Falls lays the foundation for a diverse growing region influenced by the Niagara Escarpment itself, the Niagara River and Lake Ontario. It also created a wide range of limestone rich soils, elevations, aspects and microclimates. 

The unique geography doesn’t end at the border. The Niagara, New York area benefits from the same influences. Even though the Ontario industry is some 20 years older, there’s already a common thread in the best wines from this side of the river.

TasteCamp North will bring all of this together in an action packed weekend of events thanks to this year’s organizers and the welcoming spirit of the wineries and restaurants. We’d like to let everyone in on the secret that is the Niagara region, from the wines, to the cuisine, to the geography and the people.

If you’re interested in attending, the official agenda is posted here and the link to the TasteCamp North website can be found here.

Niagara Restaurant of the Year: Carmelo's Restaurant

By Bryan Calandrelli, Niagara Region Editor

I’d love to say that deciding Niagara’s Restaurant of the Year was a difficult one, involving dozens of meals and a few days of intense deliberation. In reality it was the opposite. Carmelo’s Restaurant in historic Lewiston wins hands down in Niagara Wine Country, USA – and it would be hard not to declare it restaurant of the year in Western New York in general.

The fact is there’s no other restaurant that comes close in matching the effort chef Carmelo Raimondi makes towards sourcing local ingredients and local wines.

The result is an ever-evolving menu that not only highlights the chef’s ability to blend Italian-inspired dishes with the best local produce and meat, it’s a menu that puts a spotlight on the individual farms and wineries he’s partnered with.

The cuisine here has been top notch as long as I can remember but only in the last five years or so has the focus been so dramatically local. Today you will find Niagara wines, both red and white, on the wine list and, more importantly, on his wines by-the-glass chalkboard menu above the bar.

The local wine options are as diverse as the region itself. I’ve seen local syrah, pinot noir, chambourcin, pinot gris, chardonnay, cabernet franc and Meritage blends on the restaurant’s list. The bottle prices are completely reasonable and the servers are helpful in pouring samples upon request.

This past summer the restaurant also added three taps for craft beer, focusing on regional selections. The first tap beer menu I saw included Flying Bison, Sixpoint, and Great Lakes Brewing.

The great local food, wine and beer menus here surely make it an option for restaurant of the year but the service and hospitality of the staff clinch it for me. No matter how busy or how late, the staff is always friendly and accommodating. Need a high chair for the little one? Carmelo’s has them. Want to just come in for a drink and an appetizer? No worries, try the local pork belly.

In the past couple of years, the Niagara region has become increasingly self-aware of its bountiful farmland, burgeoning wine industry and its growing community of locavores. Carmelo’s has worked hard to bring it all together in what is ultimately the region’s most satisfying dining experience.

The New York Cork Report 2010 Restaurants of the Year: The Concept

By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor

One of the goals for the New York Cork Report is to shine the spotlight on the people, places and things that we are excited about in the New York wine community. Our "Wines of the Year" program was born of this goal and in discussing our goals going forward, the other editors and I have decided to add "Restaurants of the Year" to the site as well.

As with the wine program, this series of awards isn't strictly about the best restaurant in each region."Best" is vague at best and fact is, none of us claim to have eaten at every restaurant in any region.

But, our love of food, wine and everything local does result in us meeting many chefs, eating in their restaurants and understanding their style.

Based on those experiences, each of our regional wine editors has idenitfied a restaurant that shares and embraces many of the beliefs we ourselves have -- local ingredients, local wines and local community.

With 2011 bearing down on us quickly, come back tomorrow for posts from me, Evan and Bryan as we tell you about our restaurants of the year from Long Island, the Finger Lakes and Niagara respectively.