About Lucé Nuovo

Food and wine, Italian and French, fine dining and casual bar snacks—Lucé Nuovo is a place of complementary dualities. Dishes such as fresh-tomato bisque and creamy shrimp risotto are united by their locally farmed ingredients ingredients, and their ephemerality: because the executive chef relies on the freshest produce, his menu changes with the seasons. (His staff do make mozzarella and pasta in-house all year long.) In the bar, surrounded by beer taps and wine bottles, diners peruse more streamlined snacks such as mortadella-stuffed stromboli and roasted portobello sliders topped with caramelized onion and arugula.

If you really want to drink in an oenophilic atmosphere, there's the option of booking a private dinner in the wine cellar. The bottles filling the ceiling-high wine-storage system have all been selected with an eye toward complementing the food, never overwhelming it, and menus offer many seasonal pairing suggestions. Elsewhere in the sprawling villa-style buiilding, a stone fireplace dominates the main room amid earthenware floor tiles, exposed ceiling beams, and rustic wooden half-walls. Outdoor seating fills up during the warmer months, although Lucé Nuovo draws crowds indoors on Thursday evenings for live jazz performances.