L'Oca d’Oro To Host An Off The Menu Supper Club To Support The Texas Food And Wine Alliance

The Texas Food And Wine Alliance crafted the “off the menu” dinner series as a place “where some of Central Texas’ most acclaimed chefs and bartenders [can] offer a one-night-only menu that showcases their culinary vision across new themes and styles of cooking.”

The L’Oca d’Oro dinner is the first “off the menu” supper club of the year, and it which arrives on Burns Night, an internationally celebrated evening honoring Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns (Auld Lang Syne | A Red, Red Rose) with traditional food, whisky, poetry readings, and toasts.

The Details:

• On Monday, January 27th, at 5:30 pm, L’Oca d’Oro will host an “off the menu” supper club to benefit the Texas Food and Wine Alliance. (Tickets).

• Eat: Guests will enjoy “a unique and intimate three-course dinner will highlight traditional Scottish culinary traditions through the creative lens of one of Austin’s best Italian restaurants.”
• Drink: “VIP tickets include early access and welcome cocktails featuring the Bruichladdich Whisky and The Botanist Gin.”
• Be Merry: “The evening will be topped off with music, poetry and fabulous wine pairings.”

A Wider Lens:

• The Austin Statesman’s food critic, Matthew Odam, called L’oco d’Oro “Austin's best Italian restaurant” and awarded it the paper’s #1 spot in its 2022 Austin restaurant guide. Meanwhile, the city’s reigning Queen of food influencers, Jane Ko from A Taste of KoKo, says the blend of a “cozy and romantic atmosphere” with “delicious food” at the “sure to charm” Mueller “neighborhood restaurant” makes for a “great date night.”
• How The Texas Food And Wine Alliance Supports The Community:
  
  • Jessica Sanders, TFWA’s President, told Social Stimulus that events like these have helped the organization provide “over $600,000” in grant funding that has gone both to “well-known Austin-based businesses like Antonelli’s Cheese Shop” and “emerging food & beverage businesses like Comadre Pandaria and Chef Grace Aguilar’s forthcoming Honduran-Creole restaurant.”
  • Grants from the TFWA have also helped to “establish the state’s first organic apple orchard with Argus Cidery”, cultivate a “farm producing stress-free, free-range meat while helping wounded veterans with Snodgrass Farm,” and enable “Barton Springs Mill [to] become the state’s only processing facility for heirloom grains emmer, einkorn, and spelt.”

In Conversation:

Social Stimulus talked about the upcoming supper club with Jessica Sanders from the TFWA, and with L’Oca d'Oro’s Fiore Tedesco & Adam Orman. Here are our favorite exchanges:

• Jessica Sanders, President of TFWA And Owner Of DrinkWell In Austin’s North Loop.
  
  • Social Stimulus: What makes a supper club magical? And do you consider food and beverage an art form in the same way that, say, the symphony, is an art form?
  • Sanders: “Food and beverage are a unique and multi-dimensional art form where food makers and beverage artisans are able to share their culture or authentic life story with an audience … It’s storytelling come to life.
  • It’s not unlike a painter or musician or sculptor who is able to create connections with visitors to a museum or concertgoers. Perhaps, most uniquely, [culinary art is] only captured for a moment in time—when the meal is over, the artist must return to the canvas.”
  
  
• Fiore Tedesco, Chef And Co-Owner, L’Oca d'Oro.
  
  • Social Stimulus: We love L’Oca d'Oro, and sign us up for your pasta all day, but … Scottish food at an Italian restaurant? What makes you excited about this journey?
  • Tedesco: “I definitely see how there is not an obvious connection …  I have great great great grandparents who were immigrants from Scotland. I have traveled there a good bit, have friends there, and love the culture and cuisine.
  • Also, over the years I have heard many times from fans and critics alike that we are not a REAL Italian restaurant. I agree!
    
    We are a restaurant that is in deep conversation with Italian cuisine, its history, its terminology but our influences have always been from as much outside the Italian diaspora as within it. Consider our Spaghetti al Limone with lime kosho (a very traditional Japanese fermented condiment) or Malfadine with smoked brisket & XO sauce which is on the menu right now.
  • Exploring the connectedness of and finding common ground with all cuisines is of great importance to us. We hold up an aesthetic veil of Italian-ness as the lens through which our cuisine speaks.
  • So, the kitchen is very excited to stretch our wings for this event. We hope to create a night to remember that would have made Burns proud.”
  
  
• Adam Orman, Co-Owner, L’Oca d'Oro And Co-Founder, Good Work Austin.
  
  • Social Stimulus: Why is the Texas Food and Wine Alliance and its mission so important to you?
  • Orman: “We are big fans of community building around food and that's what TFWA does—-cool cultural food events that support locally owned restaurants, bring people together and raise money for local businesses to pursue innovation and sustainability.”
  • “Also, Texas Food and Wine Alliance has supported Barton Springs Mill, who we've been buying from for years. They’ve supported Confituras, who has helped us provide meals for food insecure Austinites. And they’ve supported Boggy Creek and Cielito Lindo, who we've collaborated with on fundraisers at the restaurant.”
  
  
  • Social Stimulus: You are very involved in policy advocacy on behalf of the food and beverage industry in Austin—and throughout Texas. What’s happening that we should know about?
  
  
  • Orman: “We’re working on a number of things.” For example:
  
  
  • “Collaborating with United Way and Early Matters Greater Austin on some innovative solutions to the lack of non-traditional hour childcare that makes it really difficult for hospitality employees to find affordable childcare.”
  
  
  • “Working with Good Work Austin, the non-profit we co-founded, to make sure restaurant owners and employees are ready for the threatened mass deportations.”  
  
  
  • “Making sure service charges are not subject to payroll taxes [and other financial regulations that help] small businesses that guarantee their employees living wages and important benefits like healthcare and paid time off.
    
    These businesses need incentives, rebates and promotion to help them stay competitive with businesses that are not [maintaining these high standards of care for their employees].
    
    We should do the same for restaurants that source their ingredients sustainably and locally, thereby helping Central TX reach some of our climate goals.”  

‍