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Creative Loafing Tampa Bay
Chef’s Table, a new tasting menu experience from Lolita’s Wine Market, debuts in St. Pete this weekend
By Kyla Fields,
2024-05-16
Typically, a la carte restaurants and smaller, tasting menu eateries are two separate concepts that have different clientele, but one St. Pete wine bar and restaurant is trying its hand at both styles of dining.
Chef’s Table by Lolita’s, a multi-course tasting menu from the owners of St. Pete’s Lolita’s Wine Market, welcomes its first customers at 16 18th St. this weekend.
Inspired by Lolita's Wine Market owners Kelly and Chef Alex Rodriguez’s global travels, their new Chef’s Table experience is aimed to give guests an “artistic” and curated culinary experience, vastly different from the wine bar’s casual tapas offerings.
While some tasting menus can be formal and avant garde, Lolita’s wants its Chef’s Table experience to be fun and interactive, offering gourmet twists on everyday fare. For example, one course that folks may expect is a playful interpretation of the classic steak frites dish, where Chef Rodriguez offers what can be described as a “fancy tater tot” topped with steak tartare and garnish.
The first installments of Chef’s Table happen this weekend on May 17-18, featuring 12 courses and wine pairings for $200. There’s still a few slots for both Friday and Saturday night’s dinner; folks can call or text (954)-854-6082 to snag seats at the Chef’s Table debut weekend. Sales tax and gratuity are included in the price.
“The idea for Chef’s Table began over 2 years ago. It was meant to be a passion project…a place where we could bring an elevated pop-up experience with food and space that was still grounded and not too serious,” co-owner Kelly Rodriguez writes about their newest venture. “Ironically, this is why we originally ended up with the space at the Morean Center for Clay where Lolita’s Wine Market has moved to.”
Chef’s Table is located at the former downtown location of Lolita’s Wine Market which was supposed to be razed to make way for new condos. Last spring, Lolita’s relocated to the Warehouse Arts District, a few months before Texas-based developer Trammell Crow’s 1700 block development ultimately fell through. [content-1] With the wine bar and tapas restaurant comfortable at its new home inside of the Morean Center for Clay at 420 22nd St. S, Kelly and Alex decided to take over the former Lolita’s space for their Chef’s Table concept instead.
These curated, multi-course dinners will happen at Chef’s Table about twice a month to start. Next month’s installments will happen on Friday-Saturday, June 21-22, as well as June 28-29. Patrons that are alcohol-free can opt out of the wine and beer pairings and save $50 on their dinner reservation.
Rodriguez tells Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that the dinner’s 12 courses will take about three to three-and-a-half hours to complete, and that its tasting menu is “not meant to be an in-and-out type of experience.”
The downtown St. Pete Chef’s Table space will also be available for private events when dinners are not being hosted.
“In true Lolita’s style, this space is meant to be comfortable, yet as stylish as walking into a home curated with a global feel—it was not meant to reflect a specific culture but show the diversity of it,” Kelly writes about Chef’s Table’s dining room. “It is warm and textural with a bit of history from all the spaces prior to it.”
She tells CL that she didn't want the dining room to be recognizable as the previous Lolita’s space, opting for globally-inspired, earth-toned decor instead of the wine bar’s classic bright colors.
Each Chef’s Table dinner will seat no more than 24 patrons, who will be able to watch the chefs prepare and plate their dishes from the open kitchen. Even guests that are not facing the kitchen can still watch and interact with the chefs due to large mirrors on every wall of its dining room.
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