Mezze

Mezze Bistro + Bar, in its third month of Breaking the Boot, is cooking from the South - Campania, Calabria, Molise, Basilicata, Puglia.

Mezze Hospitality Group will open Bluebird & Co., its forthcoming restaurant celebrating the outdoors, in Hancock, MA, near the base of Jiminy Peak. Bluebird & Co. is the group’s first new restaurant since selling allium, in Great Barrington, Mass., almost five years ago

Did you hear the one about the time the Duke of Burgundy Philippe the Bold, outlawed the cultivation of Gamay back in 1385? He claimed it was a "disloyal and bad plant." He reserved his region for the more elegant Pinot Noir. You may wonder why we have such an affection for Gamay at Mezze. We often root for the underdog. 

Participating cultural organizations include Barrington Stage Company, Berkshire Botanical Garden, Berkshire International Film Festival, Berkshire Theatre Group, Community Access to the Arts, The Clark, Hancock Shaker Village, Jacob’s Pillow, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, MASS MoCA, The Mount, Norman Rockwell Museum, Shakespeare & Company, The Trustees and Williamstown Theatre Festival. 

As the leaves began falling to the ground, Chef was inspired to create ramen: only available for takeout! Why do ramen? It's sustainable, comforting, and delicious. 

Mezze in Williamstown changes with the seasons. Now in a heat spell they are creating chilled beet soup garnished with cucumbers, green olive, gammelgarden yogurt and salmon roe.

Our staff pick is inspired by tagine Djaj Mqualli, from Meknes, one of Morocco's imperial cities and an incredible agricultural region producing and trading olive oil since Roman times. This dish is often featured as part of Iftar, the evening meal following 15 hours of fasting, prayer, and reflection that is eaten at sunset during Ramadan.

Mezze is a destination for fine dining in Williamstown. Last week, Chef Nick broke down his first whole East Mountain Farm heritage pig since before the pandemic. This brings us hope. Hope to continue supporting our farmers, hope to continue to serve you from nose to tail, and hope that we'll continue expanding how we gather together, together. hich hails from Italy; it is a zero ABV spirit that replaces gin though possesses a similar flavor profile.

Old

Railroad Street Youth Projects annual culinary arts celebration dinner highlights youth with a work based apprenticeship program in Berkshire county.

During a luxury tour of the Mediterranean we were wined and dined with an array of themed restaurants aboard the Silversea Spirit. After days of exploring on land it was a pleasure to return to the ship for relaxation and entertainment.

During the winter season Mezze in Williamstown offers Comfort Sunday weekly specials. A three course meal at the upscale restaurant costs $29. Or $22 if you skip desert. On a snowy winter night we joined friends to share a super spicy Moroccan menu. It was perhaps too authentic as the owner Nancy Thomas, who created this special dinner, is Moroccan American. It evoked a gastronomical heat wave on a cold gloomy night.

At two hours with no intermission Steel Hammer the avant-garde deconstruction of the traditional ballad John Henry was physically and emotionally demanding on the performers as well as the audience. The company was co founded in 1992 by the Japanese master Tadashi Suzuki and Columbia University professor and director Anne Bogart. After the first five years Suzuki ceased participation but the company continues to follow the Suzuki method which entails cult like discipline and dedication.

Chef Kirk Grippo has owned and managed the popular Berkshire pub Olde Forge Restaurant, in Lanesboro on Route 7, for the past fifteen years. He was setting up for a party but paused long enough to chat with us. The annual Festival of Trees at the Berkshire Museum is among the events which he caters. He discussed how it takes a staff of 60 to keep up with the busy restaurant.

Many recall the fine cuisine of Chef Gerhard Schmid from his Gateways Inn in Lenox in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, and the Devonfield Inn, formerly known as Haus Andreas in Lee, from 1980-1994. He is now presiding over the kitchen of Haflinger Haus an elegant mansion in Adams, Mass. Some 40 members of the Berkshire International Club gathered there to enjoy his special Octoberfest menu.

Now in its 14th year the Williamstown Film Festival has been compressed from two weekends to one Wednesday through Sunday stretch. That saw an increase of guest artists and visitors who hung in for the duration of the unique cinematic event. Yet again, artistic director, Steve Lawson, concocted a heady mix of many short films and several stunning features. There was a sell out for the thursday opening night of Dreamscape, followed by a party at Mezze. On Friday Mass MoCA was packed for Knuckleball. This is the first of two reports and several interviews.

The documentary film Dreamscapes by Wolfram Hissen will be screened on Thursday October 18 at the annual Williamstown Film Festival. Following the film, its subject the artist Stephen Hannock, and Top Chef producer and chief judge, Tom Colicchio, will engage in a dialogue with tasting at the restaurant Mezze. Hannock has been involved by creating paintings for a dozen new restaurant projects with Colicchio and his partner Danny Meyer. We met with Hannock in his Berkshire studio to discuss the film and his latest art projects.

The Williamstown Film Festival's 14th season will run October 17 through 21. On the schedule: 37 films (many of them premieres) a half-dozen parties, and events at MASS MoCA, the Clark Art Institute, and Images Cinema.

The two time Pulitzer honored translator of Moliere, Richard Wilbur, was present for a reading of The Misanthrope at the Clark Art Institute. The Williamstown Theatre Festival event, sponsored by the Williams Inn, was a benefit for the Williamstown based charity Higher Ground. We discussed the presentation and Moliere with John Douglas Thompson who portrayed Alceste.

The evening begins at 7 p.m. with a reception in the Beard House’s charming Greenhouse Gallery as guests enjoy an assortment of hors d’oeuvres. A seated tasting menu begins around 8 p.m. The James Beard House is located at 167 West 12th Street. The price is $130 per person for James Beard Foundation members and $170 per person for the general public.

The Mission Bar and Tapas in Pittsfield has become a popular destination for live music and light dining. It will participate in 10x10 on North Street from February 16 to 26. Recently the Pit Bulls stopped by for lunch.

In the cold winter months, comfort food is what most diners crave at mealtime. The Staff Menu evolved from the popularity of Comfort Sunday at Mezze Bistro – a three-course prix fixe menu available on Sundays from November through May. Comfort Sunday has created a strong following with many regulars coming back week after week.

The Restaurateur by Roger Sherman provided a tasty start for the second weekend of the Williamstown Film Festival. It was a nasty, stormy Thursday night but Images Cinema was packed for a film about New York entrepreneur Danny Meyer. He and Sherman were on had for a post film chat with organizer Steve Lawson. Then the audience decamped for a tasting party at Mezze.

After three days and nights in the dark there is much to sort through in the particularly rich, varied, fertile and provocative 13th annual Williamstown Film Festival curated by its tasteful and insightful artistic director Steve Lawson. The festival continues through October 29.

Steve Lawson, the artistic director of the Williamstown Film Festival has created a remarkable program for its 12th season. In addition to a program of shorts and three feature films the highlight of the first of two weekends was a packed house at Mass MoCA for a tribute to Billy Wilder with a dialogue between actor Alec Baldwin and Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne.