Gluten-free wine dinner planned at Merchants (and other Tasting Notes)

Merchants Pub & Plate will highlight its less-glutenous side (recall, this is a gastropub that hangs its hat on having 30 craft beers on tap) next week by offering a special gluten-free wine dinner.

“Inherently we’re a beer place, but we do offer within our menu several conveniences for people with dietary restrictions,” chef/owner TK Peterson said. “We’re taking it one step further by kind of dedicating a night to those people.”

The dinner is at 7 p.m. March 6. Cost is $70 per person. Reserve a seat by calling the restaurant at 843-4111. The planned menu includes appetizers, three dinner courses and dessert (sticky toffee pudding cake, FYI) paired with Chilean wines from Emiliana Organic Vineyards.

Merchants’ regular menu notes items that are gluten-free or modifiable to be, which Peterson said helps diners feel more comfortable ordering them without having to ask for special favors or feeling like they’re disrupting the whole table.

“They don’t want to be the people that show up and say, ‘I can’t do this and I can’t do that,'” Peterson said.

Other upcoming drinking/dining events:

Thursday: Tuscan wine tasting, 6 p.m. at Genovese, featuring a five-course menu paired with selections from Brancaia Winery. Cost is $59 per person. Call 842-0300 to reserve a seat.

March 6: Exploring Argentina wine dinner, 6:30 p.m. at the Eldridge. Cost is $65 per person. To reserve a seat call 749-1005 or email lindsay@oliviacollection.com. (Here’s the menu)

March 8: Kansas Craft Brewers Exposition at Abe & Jake’s Landing. Tickets are long sold out, but if you nabbed some, don’t forget to go!

March 11: Rogue beer dinner, 7 p.m. at Mariscos. Oregon-based Rogue Ales is known for some off-the-wall brews, even for craft beer. The planned menu for this dinner includes duck-fat-seared scallops paired with Morimoto Soba Ale, roasted carrot and almond soup with Hazelnut Brown Nectar, steak and ale samosas with Brutal IPA and cherry and stout upside-down cake with Double Chocolate Stout. Cost is $65 per person; to reserve a seat call 312-9057.

Tips welcome!

Try something unusual or know of something interesting going on at a Lawrence restaurant? Send me an email at sshepherd@ljworld.com or contact me on Twitter @saramarieshep. For more local food and restaurant news, click here.