Wiener window (and bar!) construction is humming along at Chez Pascal! Tucked in a cozy space next to the main bar, the wurst-nook is looking pretty snazzy–even in the magenta-haze of our poorly executed photo. There’s a full mini-kitchen being created behind that gorgeous new woodwork; Matt Gennuso tells us it should be all [...]

The hiss of the radiator. The crack of the fire. The clink-clank of the baseboard. Whatever your poison, the price of cozy toes is always the same: dry as bone. Upside? The crisp, cool white wines of winter. I’m not talking run-of-the-mill sauvignon blanc–the kind you chug in summer with reckless abandon. I’m talking about [...]

  by Leigh Ranucci, Wine Traditions, LTD When it comes to schlepping for the holidays, I strap on my party shoes and take the high road. Eat your heart out Arthur Miller, I walk with Champagne! I’m not talking about Dom Perignon to match my Louis Vuittons (LVMH you eat your heart out). This is [...]

The 3rd & final part in a series…Maybe. After our first encounter with cocktails at the Dorrance, we knew once just wouldn’t be enough. So on another rainy night (what is this, Blade Runner?) we found ourselves again stationed at the bar in front of Jay Carr, as well as John Dille, who’s known to [...]

Part 2 of 3. Rhode Palate: The cocktails at the Dorrance are clearly culled from the past, but are thoroughly modern; was that the intent from the outset, or was the approach more organic than that? Jesse Hedberg: Our biggest goal is to make our guests happy, to give them a release from the pressures [...]

A bracing wind and rain swept through downtown, the first deep chill of the season. Undeterred, we navigated lamp-lit puddles, the promise of cocktails at The Dorrance adding a spring to our step. One of us had visited the restaurant the week prior and had been dreaming of the Mezteca ever since; the vanilla scented [...]

  Do you know where your car keys are? I hope so…because in four and a half minutes I predict you will have the urge to drive to a wine shop and demand this bottle. I’m not gonna front. In the fall and winter months I don’t often wax rhapsodic about white wines, despite the [...]

Newport Mansions Wine & Food Festival  Seminar: Drink Bravely with Mark Oldman @ The Viking Hotel   When opening a bottle of prosecco you want to put a cloth over the cork and face the bottle away from you, our wine seminar instructor Mark Oldman advised as he began class, bottle in hand. Lucky for [...]

  There’s lots of weird stuff out in the world, and oddly, much of it is food or drink related. I’ve been finding things here and there for years; some things I stare at and have no idea what the heck they’re supposed to be. I know what some other things are, but wonder what [...]

   Each Labor Day I go to visit my Aunt Sally at her camp in Liberty, Maine. It’s not fancy. With running water a relatively new addition to the camp’s amenities, the place is…well, rustic.  But in the 40 years since Sally and her friends first put nail to board to build, Sally—an artist by [...]