WILMINGTON — Chef Roberta Campani is returning to the Port City for a one-night event, bringing the food of Tuscany to a downtown pop-up event.
Campani and husband Jim Gannon owned and ran Le Gemma Fine Italian Pastries from 2008 to 2013; the couple eventually sold the restaurant and moved to Italy. Wilmington personal chef Lori Eaton – a long-time friend of Campani – has kept in touch with her; Eaton recently visited Italy and met up with Campani.
“We’ve cooked together and talked many times about doing a food tour,” Eaton said. “We would just hang out and talk chef.”
After years of discussing it, Campani made plans to visit Wilmington to work as a menu consultant for a new restaurant opening later this year. Since Eaton and Campani were finally able to align their schedules, they set about planning a pop-up event. Eaton chose Black Sea Grill to host it.
“I’ve known them for a long time, since about 2006-ish. I remember I had an event, and the client wanted a heart-shaped Baklava,” Eaton said. “I do all my cooking on premises and I was thinking, oh man, how am I going to do this? John (Murrisky, owner) just told me, ‘no problem, what size?’ He wanted to know exactly what kind of baklava I needed. Later that day he had all these different sized pastry cutters. And that’s what I admire about him, his love and his attention to detail with food.”
Campani and Eaton will take over the Black Sea Grill for two dinner seatings on Sunday, Aug. 20; Campani planned most of the menu, Eaton said.
“I wanted her to be able to do her thing — it’s unique, it’s Italian. I’ll add my own little touch, but I wanted her to be able to bring the food she’s been cooking to Wilmington,” Eaton said.
“We initially thought about doing one long five or six course dinner, but it was pricing out to be too expensive and we wanted to do something more approachable. So we’re doing two seatings, with the second seating being a little longer.”
Tickets for the two meals are being sold separately, Eaton said. The 6 p.m. seating will have three courses (tickets and menu available here), while the 7:30 p.m. seating will add an appetizer (tickets and menu available here). The cutoff for tickets sales in Friday night at midnight.
“That’s an important one,” Eaton said. “We really need a firm number of reservations by getting tickets, we’ve got a lot of food prep to do Saturday, so, we had to cut it off at some point.”
While this is the only pop-up event planned this year, Eaton said Campani hopes to return next year for additional events.
“We’d love to lay the groundwork for future events, definitely,” Eaton said.
The pop-up dinner will take place on Sunday, Aug. 20, at 6 and 7:30 p.m. The Black Sea Grill is located at 118 S. Front St. For more information, contact Lori Eaton at 910-524-5400 or info@eatonathome.com.
On the map: Black Sea Grill in downtown Wilmington.
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