The front-of-house staff stands in a line in a small, private dining room at Frasca Food & Wine. Guests will begin arriving in about 30 minutes. The restaurant’s co-founder, Bobby Stuckey, in an exquisite gray suit with a crisp white shirt and patterned tie, invites one of Frasca’s chefs to go over menu changes — halibut with a green garbanzo puree is new.
The chef advises that, because halibut season has returned, the dish will be a “celebration of halibut, with beautiful spring vegetables in the house again.” Stuckey asks servers to talk about the menu, one at a time. One server describes the duck entrée on the menu.
Frasca’s lead sommelier, Jeremy Schwartz, asks him what wine to pair with the dish. Stuckey chimes in. “If you and I were on a romantic date, I’d go with Schiava,” a light-bodied red wine from northern Italy, he said.
The team then explores Frasca’s amaros, an Italian liqueur commonly savored as an after-dinner digestif. Schwartz follows the amaro quiz with talk about a by-the-glass red wine he’d like to promote on the floor. Stuckey tastes it for the group.
He holds the glass out in front of him, brings it to his nose and inhales, tastes, spits the wine into a vessel. “It’s got this great savory tomato leaf aspect to it, also sour cherry pie, but more baked than the Chianti Classico version,” he said. “Medium-plus tannins.
Makes my mouth water. I want food. It’s really good.
” The pre-service testing ends. Stuckey reviews alo.
