Local chefs and businesses celebrate Evansville's first Restaurant Week

The idea of Restaurant Week started in New York City in 1992, explained local gastronome Brian Buxton. 
“At that time, the Democratic National Convention was in New York, and late summer was a slow time for restaurants,” he said. “With so many people in town, they wanted to offer affordable meals at restaurants the visitors might not normally go to. So they conceived the idea of restaurants offering prix fixe meals to increase everybody's business and exposure.” 
They called it simply “Restaurant Week.”
Since that time, cities around the country have taken up the Restaurant Week trend. This year, Buxton, along with Chef Tim Mills and Joe Notter of Evansville Events, have gathered a bevy of local chefs and businesses together to celebrate Evansville's first Restaurant Week, from Sept. 12-18.
“I think this is good for the camaraderie of all the chefs here in town,” said Mills, owner of Madeleine's and Walton's restaurants in Downtown Evansville. 
Evansville will be exploding with excellent local dining experiences ranging from the very upscale to the down home to the wildly exotic, and not always at the places you'd expect to find such fare. Prix fixe (say it pree-fix) simply means one price for an entire multi-course meal. This is the time chefs can stretch themselves or create the new and unexpected. An upscale steakhouse might feature creative chili and peanut butter sandwiches. A diner might let their chefs go off the chain with stuffed tenderloin and hollandaise asparagus. 
“So often people go out to the same restaurant and eat the same dish,” Buxton said. “We want people to try different places and dishes, because that's the factor that really will excite people.”
To open the week long event, a special limited-attendance VIP dinner will be held at Walton's International Comfort Food on Sept. 11. 
For this special dinner, seven local chefs -- Mills, Jayson Munoz of Kanpai and Commonwealth Kitchen & Bar, Doug Rennie of Just Rennie's Catering & Cookie Co., Raffi Manna of Oasis Cafe, Scott Schymik of Sauced, Wanphen McDonald of Pangea Kitchen and Doros Hadjisavva of Acropolis -- will each be offering a course based on their own heritage or experience. For example, Hadjisavva will be preparing pork and chicken souvla Cyprus-style, McDonald will be making a Thai green curry with lamb and Schymik will be offering braised short ribs with homemade tagliatelle and shaved white truffles. 
Only 150 tickets will be offered for the opening dinner, and all seating will be communal at long tables. Courses will be plated individually with the exception of charcuterie platters or family-style salad. 
“This whole Restaurant Week event is about getting chefs together for camaraderie and cooperation between businesses here in Evansville,” said Buxton. “When one person does well at Haynie's Corner or on Franklin Street, everybody does well because the crowds go to the area. Working together for that kind of success is essential.”
“All the businesses participating in Restaurant Week are local,” he continued. “As a small business owner, I'm interested in championing anyone who devotes the time and takes the risk to own their own businesses. We really want to champion locally-owned restaurants and get people in there that usually go to the chains and get exposure to the chefs and people who work there.”
Restaurants participating in the week long event with their own Restaurant Week menus are: Acropolis Restaurant and Catering, Angelo's Italian Main Street, Cavanaugh's Fine Dining, Cork & Cleaver, Eclipse Tapas Bistro, Hickory Pit Stop Championship BBQ, Jimmy Gao's Szechwan, Just Rennie'e Catering & Cookie Co., Kanpai Asian Bistro & Sushi, La Campirana, Little Angelo's Newburgh, Madeleine's Fusion, Pangea Kitchen, Raffi's Oasis Mediterranean, Sauced, Tin Man Brewing Co., Walton's International Comfort Food and Wolfe's Bar-B-Q. 
A portion of the proceeds from the opening night VIP dinner will be donated to 911 Gives Hope, It Takes a Village No-kill Canine Rescue and the Tri-State Food Bank. Tickets are $125 per person.
For more information, visit facebook.com/EvansvilleRestaurantWeek/
To purchase tickets to the opening VIP dinner, visit bit.ly/restaurantweekevv.

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