- On Friday, June 21, Tasty Chomps’ Ricky Ly will co-host a dinner with Christner’s Prime Steak & Lobster featuring the Macallan, my favorite scotch. The four-course dinner will feature four scotch pairings, including the 2019 release of Rare Cask Batch No. 3. (I might ask you to trade my Rare Cask pour for your 15 year Triple Cask Mature that will be served with the USDA prime ribeye.) Cost is $145, which includes tax and gratuity — a bargain for a dinner at Christner’s even without the Macallan pours. Dinner is at 7 p.m. Call 407-645-4443 or get more info here.
- Thursday is Bite Night, an event that host Orlando Weekly seems to want to keep a secret this year, will be Thursday, June 20, at 6 p.m. It could be one of the last times you can attend an event in the Orchid Garden Ballroom before it is demolished. I’d give you a link for more information but I couldn’t find one on the Weekly’s website.
- Speaking of the Weekly, Faiyaz Kara wrote that Camilo Velasco has signed on as executive chef at Disney’s Old Key West Resort. I wonder if he had even unpacked his knives after moving to Ravenous Pig from 1921 (not by Norman Van Aken) the first of the year. Velasco is one of the area’s top culinary talents. Not sure Olivia’s Cafe is the best venue for him, but maybe something will open at one of the Disney’s top-tier restaurants. Don’t unpack your knives just yet, chef.
- Hinckley’s Fancy Meats and other vendors at East End Market will offer an Anthony Bourdain Day Pig Roast on June 25 from 4 to 8 p.m. The cost is $30 with proceeds going to Devereaux Advanced Behavioral Health, a local charity dealing with mental health issues. Bourdain committed suicide last year. Buy your ticket here.
- Wine Barn, the Winter Park retail shop that also serves a mean pizza, has a new name to go with its new owner. It is now known as Vines & Forks by the Wine Barn. This announcement is an excuse to tell you to watch for a new wine column coming to this space from Brittney Couts of the Wine B…I mean Vines & Forks.
- Humbl, a plant based restaurant, will open soon at Windermere Village. Celebrity chef Matthew Kenney, who is described on Humbl’s website as “one of the world’s leading plant based chefs,” though he certainly looks like a flesh-and-blood person, is involved. If the name sounds familiar it may be because Kenney was also a part of Cafe 118 Degrees, a raw food restaurant that opened in 2008 in Winter Park.
- Alex’s Fresh Kitchen has opened at 1015 State Road 436 in Casselberry. The breakfast and brunch restaurant is owned by Alexander Diaz.
- DeLand chef Hari Pulapaka is teasing on his Facebook page that “Cress 2.0” is coming this August. It apparently is an indication that Cress will go back to being a restaurant with regular hours. In 2017 Pulapaka and his wife, Jenneffer, converted the restaurant to an events concept, offering cooking classes and wine dinners but no regular dining hours. Cress’s concept has changed before and they always take place in August, the month the restaurant first opened in 2008.
