Wine, cheese, chocolate and more
“I think restaurants need to be a little bit more than just a restaurant these days,” Elissa Drift said, “because anyone can go anywhere and get food at any time. And there needs to be a reason for people to come out nowadays.”
Drift is the owner of Local Street Eats, a Nashua restaurant that has been developing innovative events. Drift said that, for her, building customer loyalty has been rooted almost as much in promoting a fun atmosphere as in great food and innovative drinks. Part of that atmosphere comes from holding special events.
“What’s the point?’ she asked. “If you’re not having any fun, why do it? So honestly, these events are just like really a cool way to bring people together and have an experience beyond eating. I think anyone can go to a restaurant. And people like to do things and have some sort of tangibility to the experience. So, when they’re tasting and eating and drinking and everything like that, whether it’s something as simple as our Chocolate and Cheese Thing, we are guiding them. They love that because they can learn and people love to learn, believe it or not. They love to get tidbits of information in a not-so-school setting.”
The “Chocolate and Cheese Thing” refers to an event Drift has scheduled at Local Street Eats for Feb. 10, “A Sweet Affair: Chocolate, Cheese, & Wine,” which she described on the restaurant’s website as “a guided tasting experience led by a special guest, taking you through the ultimate night of sipping, snacking and savoring, with no pressure to share.” It is an event designed for female friends to bond over — a “Galentine’s Day” activity. (Although, she said, anyone is welcome.) Participants will taste five different pairings of cheese, wine and chocolate.
“I thought it would be a really cool way to just kind of like bring everybody together,” Drift said, “to have some really good cheese, have some really good wine, and chocolate, but also talk about why those items pair well, and maybe just taste some things that they haven’t tasted or pair some things together that maybe they would have never even thought about.”
Drift described the first tasting course as an example.
“I love prosecco,” she said, “so we’re going to start with a nice prosecco, a triple-cream brie, and a white chocolate with lemon. The brie is going to be really bright and creamy, and that prosecco is just going to be perfect with all the sparkly notes in there. Then, the prosecco is a little dry, so it helps that the white chocolate has a creaminess to it and then the tartness from the lemon. It’s going to be a fun pairing.”
By contrast, the final tasting course will also feature a sparkling wine, but the tasting profile of the pairing will be very different, Drift said. “[The wine is] a rosa regale; it’s a sweet red, but it’s sparkling. It’s really sweet so you kind of need to pair it with something that’s going to cut that so that we’re going to serve it with a blue cheese and a dark chocolate truffle. The dark chocolate will have [notes of] cassis and cherry and raspberries, so it’s going to play off that sweetness, but it’s going to have a bitter sweetness to it. I think those, the first pairing and the last one, are going to be my two favorites.”
Drift thinks this sort of guided tasting will be popular.
“I think chocolate, cheese, and wine are three things that basically everybody likes,” she said. “And if you don’t, I’m so sorry for you.”
A Sweet Affair: Chocolate, Cheese & Wine
When: Tuesday, Feb.10, from 6 to 8 p.m.
Where: Local Street Eats, 112 W. Pearl St., Nashua, 402-4435, local-streeteats.com
Tickets: $45 each, available at eventbrite.com or through a link on the Local Street Eats website. Visit local-streeteats.com/events.