“Date Night, Delivered.”
This is what Bre Goldsmith, owner of Bites By Bre, advertises when she posts each week’s soul-hugging menu items on Instagram. (She prefers the term “soul-hugging” to “comfort food” because we need an extra bit of love right now.) If you opt in, you get a three-course meal for Friday night, plus flowers(!), for only $38 per person. It’s the perfect quarantine date, both for people who are sheltering in place together or those who simply wish to have a virtual dinner.
Prior to COVID-19, Bites By Bre was both a meal delivery service and a restaurant space. She had recently opened for “In the Round” dinners, an enchanting multi-course meal offered exclusively on Friday nights, with a new menu each week. That’s what she hopes to continue in the midst of quarantine: “To cook with love, wild abandon for flavor mashups, and artful respect for the comfort foods that make us feel whole.”
Take, for instance, a recent April menu: a smoky chorizo and “clam chowdah” sourced by Andrade’s Catch chicken cacciatore with Baffoni Farms chicken (and copious amounts of booze) and sticky Malva dessert pudding topped with coffee milk sauce a lá Dave’s.
Best of all, Bre is the kind of person who will make your experience special, even if it’s from a contactless distance. “You can feed a guest, and you can nourish a community,” she says, “and we’re trying to do both.”
Visit @BitesByBre (on Instagram) for links to dinner dates. If opting for pick-up: 11 Aleppo St; For meal delivery service: bitesbybre.com