Wandering Goat Recap

A view of the masses attending.

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Sunday night marked the first of Stephanie Izard’s Wandering Goat dinners, a series of “traveling dinners” that lead up to the opening of her new restaurant, The Drunken Goat, this coming winter. Tickets sold out in a matter of minutes but the lucky ones that got them were told the dinner would be at “Roger’s House.” Turns out Roger is Stephanie’s friend Roger Herring, chef/owner of Socca in Lakeview. We arrived at a large town home and shown to the spacious backyard, filled with friends, food lovers, and a notable goat piñata that we imagined was filled with truffle infused bacon mousse. (It was never cracked open so we will never know.) Three Floyd’s Alpha King and Gumballhead were on tap and an array of red and white Australian wines were offered as well.

The Wandering Goat series is meant to highlight/give people an idea of what kind of food will be served at The Drunken Goat. Several stations throughout the backyard served dishes like: oyster with bacon and chives, lamb-stuffed calamari, braised pork shoulder, and an octopus with fried pancetta salad. Stephanie plated dishes alongside Top Chef Season 1 semifinalist Lee Anne Wong, who was in from New York to assist and hang out. At one point we looked over and it felt like we were watching an actual episode of Top Chef, but better because we could actually eat the amazing food, exclaim "This is del-liiicious!" in our best Padma voice, and then go back for seconds. Dessert was Black Dog Gelato - a choice of roasted red pepper, banana curry or lemon ginger, along with a selection of cheeses including a “drunken cheese” spread with bacon that we wanted to eat nine plates of.

Very simply put, it was a fancy backyard barbeque. It was lovely. Most of the people there didn’t know one another and yet we found ourselves making friends left and right because everyone was so excited to be there (if not for the food, for the “celebrity” aspect of it, we suspect) and at one point heard someone declare, “this is the party of the summer!” We couldn’t recommend more trying to score tickets to her next event, a feat which seems only possible by twitter stalking Stephanie for the next update on when tickets go on sale.

All photos by Jacy Wojcik