Adelina’s is putting on another pop-up Meatless event, this time collaborating with Mississippi Vegan‘s Timothy Pakron for a truffle-themed dinner. Greenpointers chatted with Adelina’s Toby Buggiani about the mycological meal that he and Timothy have planned. Who doesn’t want truffles on everything, especially Italian food?
GP: We’re really excited about this particular fungi. What’s the dinner going to be like?
Toby: We have titled the event Gusto del Tartufo, the Flavor of Truffle. The concept behind this dinner is to highlight one of most exquisite foods available to humans, the truffle, which also happens to be vegan! We’ve sourced the highest-quality truffles for this season of the year, the Marzuoli variety, also known in Tuscany as “Bianchetto”. We will be serving a four-course prix fixe menu and will offer a la carte items at the bar and table seating for the prix fixe.
The menu will include truffled roasted mushroom and garlic pâté on herbed crostini using local mushrooms from Phillips Farms and local micro greens from Windfall Farms; a salad of tender local greens from Two Guys from Cambridge tossed with a citrus vinaigrette topped with local root vegetable confetti from Norwich Meadow Farms; freshly-shaved Marzuoli truffles over piping hot pasta with plant-based butter and sea salt, with gluten-free pasta available; and Dolce Coconut chocolate truffles with toasted crushed pistachios.
GP: Who is the chef, and who came up with the idea for this one?
Toby: The Chef for this pop-up event is Tim Pakron aka The Mississippi Vegan. Tim has been curating pop-up vegan events at Humboldt & Jackson as well as operating food booths at the Vegan Shop-Up. His passion for sourcing beautiful, local, plant-based ingredients and working his culinary magic has garnered him a real following.
GP: Where are the truffles sourced from?
Toby: We have been dialoging directly with a small cooperative of truffle hunters in Umbria and Tuscany who have been truffle hunting for years and scour the Tuscan and Umbrian forests with their trained dogs, locating and unearthing these hard-to-find mushrooms. We wanted to go directly to the source to try to obtain the very best truffles, without having any intermediaries. They will be sending us the truffles in a complex system in order to preserve the truffle’s integrity and flavor. We want to get as close as possible to delivering the true Italian truffle experience of having freshly-unearthed truffle.
GP: What are the best wine pairings for the truffle dishes you’re having, and why?
Toby: We recommend wines from Piedmont. We have two bottled wines that are from Piedmont that are vegan, native yeast, unfiltered natural wines. A Dolcetto and a Barbera D’Asti, both by wine maker Andrea Scovero and both medium-bodied. From our tap wines, we recommend the Chianti Classico, also medium bodied & certified vegan.
GP: What was the inspiration for these Meatless dinners?
Toby: As a vegetarian for over two and a half decades, I wanted to do something to promote some of the wonderful chefs working in Brooklyn today doing innovative plant-based cooking. Sarah Gross from U.S. Veg Corp was having a meal at Adelina’s one night and I approached her about doing a Meatless Monday collaboration. She loved the idea and we have been working closely to find the right matches for these pop-up events. I wanted to offer vegans and vegetarians a variety of great options and let omnivore eaters have some great food they might not normally be exposed to.
GP: How has the Greenpoint vegetarian community responded to these events?
Toby: We have had so many Greenpoint locals really embrace these events and are so happy to be offering them these options. I really believe Greenpoint is one of the Brooklyn neighborhoods that most feels like a community, and we have found so much support here in general.
Meatless Monday is on a Wednesday this week, but you can still head to Adelina’s any night for a great vegetarian meal. Reserve tickets here for 7:00 p.m. or 9:30 p.m seatings for this Gusto del Tartufo, and send us a tweet or an Instagram with your truffle feast.