The short version from us: 1) Plate and bowl giveaway. 2) Winemaker dinners coming up. 3) Heirloom will take a break from February 27 to March 4.
The longer version from Matt at Heirloom:
Three announcements in no particular order:
1. We’re giving away our opening plates and bowls. Every opening restaurant
(or any other business) makes decisions about how to budget their capital. We
spent money on glassware and wallpaper and staff dinners; we didn’t buy, um,
should I call it top-of-the-line china? Following the installation of our new
banquette benches in December, we decided to continue the breathtaking overhaul
of the Heirloom physical plant by buying, this time around, really nice china.
We’re happy, the food looks happy (I swear last night I saw a gnoccho wink at me
under a blanket of parmesan and black truffles), the eaters look very happy.
In spite of the fact that the average reclamation time for abandoned objects at
21st and Folsom is about twenty seconds, and we’re sure that we have a few neighbors
who would enjoy a couple of our old (mostly chipped) salad plates, what the hell we
figured, why not see if any of our regular guests would like a souvenir? The staff
has differing opinions on whether or not anyone will take us up on this, but there it
is, come get ’em, limit one per person, just tell us you want one next time you’re around.
2. We have two really great winemaker dinners happening in next month.
BERNARD MOREAU, February 22nd
In order to mitigate the pain some of you may feel at having been shut out of one
$4,000 dinner or another over the course of this weekend’s Burgundy extravaganza,
La Paulee Tickets. you might join us a week from tonight for a dinner with Alex Moreau of Domaine Bernard Moreau (who happens to be in town for La Paulee).
Many people, including me, regard this Burgundy domaine, which traces its roots to
1809, to be among a small cadre of Burgundy houses which produces very high quality
wines that remain relatively affordable. It has been said that their strength lies
in their whites (their vineyard holdings are focused in the chardonnay parcels of
Chassagne-Montrachet), and next Wednesday our prix fixe menu will be four courses
including dessert, and will feature five different Moreau wines.
The menu is here.
If you want to have that menu (or meet Alex) all you need to do is make a reservation
for the 22nd. The prix fixe menu that night, including five wines, will be $85 per
person.
CHANIN and CERITAS, March 20th
THEN, on March 20th, while eschewing hyperbole, we’re going to be joined for a dinner by two guys who might be the two best young winemakers working in California. The second annual ‘In Pursuit of Balance’ festival of pinot noir is happening the prior weekend, and we’re thrilled to have a chance to host two of the top presenting wineries from that celebration.
There might as well be a Ceritas billboard in the middle of the Heirloom dining room—it’s hard to miss our affinity for John Raytek’s wines. He works on the Sonoma Coast, he made some wines for Copain while he launched Ceritas, I could go on about how great these wines are, and consistently have been since his first vintage in 2005. Suffice it to say that I
don’t think there’s a more talented winemaker working in this country.
Gavin Chanin has been working for a few years under Jim Clendenen (Au Bon Climat) and Bob Lindquist (Qupe), which is a credential in itself, but he’s also obviously figured something out about the little micro-climate in which those guys toil between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, because his last couple of vintages have been downright superb.We’ll be closing the restaurant for service on the evening of March 20th, John and Gavin will both be with us, and we’ll take a leisurely stroll through a roster of their 2009 and 2010 wines. The menu has yet to be determined, but we’re starting the evening with a riesling Gavin made from a vineyard that went untouched for the entire growing season, and then moving into a four-course dinner with six different chardonnays and pinot noirs.
Tickets are $100 including tax and tip, are available here and we’ll have a menu nailed down the first week of March.
3. The third announcement is that we’re going to take a break the week after next, we’ll be closed from February 27th until March 4th—we’ll kick-start an exciting spring on Monday March 5th and look forward to seeing you then, if not before.
Wishing you all the best,
Matt