In addition to coconuts and guava juice, Kauai is great for ideas. At least if Chef Alex Lira’s latest dinner series is any indication. Lira, who left The Lot last month to take some time off, is back from a trip to Hawaii and comes bearing one of the most clever ideas for a pop-up dinner series we’ve ever heard — Rest in Feast: Last Meals of the Famous.
“We’re gonna try to make it last meals significant throughout history, with a little dark stuff too,” says Lira of the theme. The series will take over Elliotborough Minibar each Tuesday of September and to kick things off, on Tues. Sept. 1 he’s got a love triangle planned.
“Cleopatra ate figs and had a snake venom chaser to off herself,” says Lira. “Julius Caesar was glutinous. He ate mussels, shrimp, and a pork chop. But Cleopatra also married Mark Antony, so we’re going to do his last meal as a course too.”
To really put the nail in the coffin, so to speak, Lira has asked ukulele player Noodle McDoodle to emcee the event. “He’ll come out between courses to give some background on the dishes and history,” Lira says.
Lira doesn’t have all of his famous last meals picked just yet, but that poster is correct — one dinner will feature the final meal of … Adolf Hitler? Yikes.
Elliotborough Minibar’s Valerie Nelson explains. “It’s actually a really ironic, fascinating story,” she says. “After killing 750,000 Italians, he chose an Italian meal as his last meal with his newlywed wife of 40 hours. They refused to talk about the war, and only talked about trivial things before he ultimately killed himself.” According to Nelson, McDoodle will provide context in a way that’s enlightening to people. “We want to grab people’s attention while also providing an entertaining and educational format in which to do so,” she says.
The five-night series begins next Tuesday. There will be two seatings, one at 6 p.m. and one at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30 for the three-course dinner that includes drinks. Tickets may be purchased at restinfeast.brownpapertickets.com.
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