Fine dining doesn’t look like it used to. For many diners, long ago are the days of sparkling white tablecloths and servers donning suits. But don’t get it twisted — fine dining isn’t dead; it’s just disguised in pop-ups, an intimate dining experience with fixed menus, casual clothes and creativity.
According to Erin Donahoe, wine expert and co-founder of Thirst Club, a pop-up wine event and club that started in 2022 and is based in Eugene, pop-ups are often equally spontaneous and meticulous.
Thirst Club has hosted various wine-pairing events over the last couple of years with chefs at Junglefowl/Izakaya Meiji, The Campbell House, Same Same and, most recently, Fisherman’s Market.
“If you’re working in a restaurant there’s generally a realm that you kind of have to stay within,” says head chef of King Estate Winery Stevie Provencio and Thirst Club collaborator. “But when it comes to a pop-up, you can do something that you wanted to do for a long time that might not fit the bill for that restaurant that you work at.”
“With a city of this stature it’s hard to support this kind of dining, so it’s nice to be able to sprinkle it in,” says Tony Ngo, the mastermind behind Vietnamese food-cart Denang and restaurant Same Same.
Thirst Club’s June pop-up with Same and Same and Provencio consisted of seven courses of creative dishes, plated, cooked and designed by Provencio with Ngo’s help. Each dish was paired with a glass of wine handpicked by Donahoe and her husband and Thirst Club’s other co-founder, Joseph Meyer. Between Meyer and Donahue, the couple has 20 years of experience in the wine industry.
“Wine is supposed to be complementary to the food, and finding these amazing marriages or making one plus one equals three is what it’s all about,” Meyer says. “When you get to try these things, these components together and find something, it is just magical.”
The first dish, a chicken liver mousse on top of toasted brioche soaked in duck fat, was paired with sparkling white wine, a Maison Antech Extra Brut mixed with a splash of Umeshu saké. This dish was savory and salty on its own but with a sip of the wine cocktail, it became brighter and more intense.
“It’s fun to surprise people with a wine cocktail,” Donahoe says. “People are sometimes a little scared, intimidated by saké, but we like finding ways to incorporate it.”
In addition to the chicken liver mousse, this dinner consisted of amazing cold-smoked mezcal oysters, fried chicken with yuzu kosho (a paste of chili peppers, yuzu peel and salt) potato salad and tom yum tartare sauce, grilled lettuce with kimchi vinaigrette, lap cheong Chinese sausage, fried rice with duck fat harissa and koji cured wagyu New York strip steak, all polished off with banana ice cream with a butterscotch fish sauce honeycomb.
A self-described big meat and potatoes guy, Provencio says steak was essential to the menu.
He also spent four and a half years in Beijing working in restaurants, which he notes was an inspiration for him.
“Chinese food in America is nothing like Chinese food in China,” Provencio says. “So just being able to learn from different cultures, I think it’s so fun.”
Most of all, says his cooking experience with Ngo was a driving influence for collaborating on the pop-up.
In 2018 the two paired up to cook in an iron chef competition in Eugene. Ngo was set to cook with another friend of his, but at the last second had to ask Provencio to fill in after his friend had to bail on the event. The two didn’t make it out of the first round but became good friends after.
Provencio won the following year after filling in again for a friend of former Marché head Trevor Rivera.
“He is a closer,” Donahoe jokes.
Both Provencio and Ngo say that they were excited to be given the challenge to work on something creatively together again, this time in the form of a pop-up.
“Although we may love working together, you know, we don’t get the opportunity very often, so events like this are really special because we’re able to work with other like-minded individuals who, you know, want to go after and make it happen,” Ngo says.
The pop-up with Same Same had a sticker price of $150 per ticket, and Thirst Club and the chefs emphasize the quality and quantity at the best price they can provide.
”This wasn’t a cheap dinner, but you should feel like you’re getting your money’s worth, right?” Donahoe says. “You should not be going home empty-stomached.”
Personally, between the seven courses and seven glasses of wine, diners didn’t go home empty handed, either — leaving with a box for all of the food they couldn’t finish and a bottle of sparkling wine to take home and share with friends.
“The best part about a fixed menu meal is that we’ve figured out everything for you,” Meyer says.
”All you have to do is show up and enjoy yourself,” Provencio adds. Learn more about when the next Thirst Club pop-up is by going to Instagram.com/thirst_club.