Nectar Dinner Club: Green Tomatoes

Nectar in Mount Lookout continues its Dinner Club, which focuses on a single ingredient from a local farmer or artisan food producer, with a dinner featuring green tomatoes from Walnut Ridge Acres.

Menu:

• Green Tomato Soup with Cumin Gouda, Rye Croutons, and Bacon
• Cornmeal Crusted Fried Green Tomatos with Saffron Shrimp and Scallop Remoulade, Corn Sage Sauce
• Green Tomato BLT with Chile Aioli, Fried Farm Egg
• Niman Ranch Pork Shoulder with Summer Bean and Chard Gratin, Green Tomato Relish
• Green Tomato Tart Tatin with Local Plum and Black Walnut Ice Cream

Thursday, September 9 and Thursday, September 16
7:00PM
Nectar Restaurant
1000 Delta Ave
513-929-0525

Nectar Dinner Club Announces Spring/Summer Offerings

 Nectar Dinner Club, which highlights farmers and growers of fresh, seasonal, sustainable food in our area, has announced its offerings for Spring/Summer.  From their newsletter:

May 6
May 20
Rhubarb with Vicky Tewes of Thistlehair Farm, Union Kentucky. Ed and Vicky Tewes have been growing produce on their farm since 1986. In 2002 they started selling at farmer's markets. They are Certified Naturally Grown, which follows the same guidelines as Certified Organic. Vicky grows the green stalk variety of rhubarb called ''Victoria'' which, when it arrives in April through June, signals the beginning of summer. Although rhubarb is technically a vegetable, it is usually combined with fruits and used in pies, compotes, or traditionally made into wine. We will discover delicious new ways to use this versitile, brightly flavored vegetable which is high in vitamin C, fiber, and calcium.

June 10
June 24
Summer Greens with Sarah and Adam Mancino, Farm Beach Bethel, Bethel Ohio. What started as a small garden in 1998 is now a working family farm and CSA growing heirloom vegetables with organic and biodynamic methodology. Sarah and Adam focus on growing many wonderful types of lettuces and greens. They grow leaf lettuces, escarole, dandelion, tatsoi, and arugula, and put together beautiful lettuce mixes like Spectrum and Spicy Mesculin. We will sample many of Sarah and Adam's  tasty greens in the classic salads of French cuisine, or in salads with seasonal vegetables, cooked fish, meats or local cheeses. Summer is the time to enjoy these bountiful greens just picked from the garden.

July 22
July 29
Squash Blossoms with Sallie Ransohoff. Sallie has been farming sustainably and chemical free on her farm in Batavia, Ohio for over 20 years. Area chefs eagerly await Sallie's squash blossoms to become available-hers are always just picked, pristine, and easy to stuff, batter and fry, or use as is. The beautiful male blossoms, and female blossoms with small squash attatched, are one of the wonders of the summer garden. Learn some new ways to cook with these edible flowers.

Price per person: $55  Dinners starts at 7pm.  Reservations required; call Nectar at 929-0525 to reserve.

Nectar Dinner Club

Nectar in Mt Lookout (1000 Delta Ave, 45208) has announced the next three in its fabulous Dinner Club series featuring local foods.  The first series features local artisanal food producers Blue Oven Bakery, Chocolats Latour, and Fab Ferments.  

Handcrafted Bread with Blue Oven Bakery
January 21st & 28th

Sara Schuck and Mark Frommeyer of Blue Oven Bakery produce memorable breads made with fresh, local, and organic ingredients baked in their custom built wood-fired oven. With close to twenty different intriguing flavors such as Cider Raisin Rye, Buckwheat Pear or the popular Bad Boy (a white sourdough with fennel, poppy, sesame and flax seeds) their bread sells out quickly at area farmers' markets.  Nectar Chef Julie Francis will use Blue Oven's handcrafted breads not simply as accompaniments but as the basis for creating the entire menu. 

Chocolate with Chocolats Latour
February 18th & 25th

Shalini Latour's love of chocolate was nurtured while living in Brussels as a teenager. She's been a pastry chef/chocolate artisan for over 15 years, formerly worked at the Bonbonerie, and is the author of The Icing on the Cake. Shalini now creates unique truffles, molded and hand dipped chocolates with classic and modern flavor combinations like Chai Spice, Lime Thyme, or Dark Chocolate Sage. Shalini uses fairtrade chocolate, local ingredients, and earth friendly packaging.  The Nectar menu will be inspired by Shalini's creative use of sweet and savory in Chocolats Latour's artisan chocolates.

Kimchi with Fabulous Ferments
March 18th & 25th

Kimchee is a spicy Korean sauerkraut served at all Korean meals and is a delicious condiment for rich, full flavored foods. Fabulous Ferments, created by Jennifer De Marco and Jordan Aversman, make a number of traditional fermented foods such as sauerkraut, pickled vegetables, kimchee, beet kvass, and kombucha. They use local, pesticide free produce and make the products in small batches by hand, preserving the unique health properties of raw, lacto-fermanted foods. Kimchee is spicy, cooling, and effervescent. It is delicious alone or as a condiment and can also be used as an ingredient in a wide variety of foods like egg and meat dishes, stews, dumplings,and vegetarian dishes.

Price per person: $55  All dinners are on Thursdays at 7pm.  Reservations required.  To reserve your space, call Nectar at 929-0525.

Locavore Series of Dinner Parties at Nectar

Polly Campbell announced the upcoming Locavore Series of dinner parties at Nectar in Mt. Lookout, which regularly sources locally. The dinner parties start next week and include The Rustic Flavors of Bourbon with Woodford Reserve's Whiskey Ambassador Peter Wagner, A Taste of Honey with State of Ohio Bee Inspector Andrew Kartal, and Spinach: A Tasty Green with Turner Farm's Bonnie Mitsui and Melinda O'Bryant, with more local-food dinner parties to follow. Price per person is $55; for reservations call (513) 929-0525.

Restaurants Sourcing Locally

Local independents sourcing locally.  For reviews, click on the Urban Spoon button beneath each restaurant's listing:

Chalk Food+Wine (Covington KY)

Green Dog Cafe (Columbia-Tusculum)

Greenup Cafe (Covington KY)

Lavomatic (Over-the-Rhine)

Local 127 (downtown)


Melt (Northside)

Mayberry (downtown)



Murphin Ridge Inn (Adams County)


Nectar (Mt Lookout)



Slims (Northside)

Symphony Hotel Bed & Breakfast (Over-the-Rhine)

Vineyard Cafe (Hyde Park)

Virgil's Cafe (Bellevue, KY)

Wildflower Cafe (Mason)