A sign reading, “Get Sauced This Friday Night” greeted me before I was shown into the Davis Wine Bar at 611 Second St. by Chef Ryan Schmidtberger. Several tables were already set for dinner, white tablecloths, vases with delicate flowers, and sparkling silverware awaiting guests.
“During the week Davis Wine Bar is the wine bar that’s always here. It’s open Tuesday through Saturday,” Ryan explained, as we sat at one of the inviting tables. “It’s a snacks, wine bar that has artisanal wines … there’s a retail side to it as well, all the wine on the back wall is retail, so you can come in and get a bottle of wine just like you could go to a grocery store.” Ryan gestured towards the wall where an extensive selection was displayed.
“Davis Wine Bar is a cute little wine bar downtown. They have a tapas-style snack menu during the week and on a monthly basis they do a pop-up where a chef comes into town … on a regular basis.”
For instance, the guest chef this month is Christopher Wong, whose Nov. 5 menu included cauliflower soup, roasted pork tenderloin with garlic braised cabbage and pomegranate salsa, and a cheese cake with maple sauce and almonds.
From this monthly pop-up event came the new culinary collaboration, launched Oct. 3. “So there’s that, and then this pop up came from that” Ryan continued, sharing that when he moved to town, he met Davis Wine Bar’s owner, Ken Patel, over a glass of wine, saw that they were doing these pop-ups and asked him where they get their talent, explaining that he’s a chef who just moved from New York and after being home with his kids for the last two years, now that “things have settled,” was looking for something to do again.
“I proposed this idea of an Italian pasta pop-up … over the summer, every June, July, August … a fun Italian style meal,” he recounted, Ryan’s version of a meal at Olive Garden but like “going to Nona’s house in Italy and we’re going to do big pile of meatballs, big salad, homemade foccacia with some dip, and then shared pasta for everybody. And that was the $50-per-person prix fixe that we did over the summer. All of our customers hadn’t seen something like that and they really loved it…we got such positive feedback… customers saying, ‘Oh my god, you’re doing fresh pasta,’ and the pasta that I’m making is not dry pasta … we’re doing extruded pasta from scratch…I have the fun shapes…but it’s not dried, pre-cooked, it’s cooked to order.”
He shared that they had customers come in who just happened to come back from vacation in Italy and who told him that they hadn’t had “pasta like that in Italy…”
Ryan does most of the prep on the premises while the pasta is made at home, where he has a pasta maker, a “200-pound machine” with which he can make “five different shapes of pasta.” He wanted to “make something new, and fresh, and different,” and the customers “loved it.” Ryan continued to say that people who came to the wine bar could have a glass of wine and snacks but not a full meal. So Ryan and Ken decided to try turning the already existing space into an Italian restaurant every Friday night.
He wanted to “dip toes” before revamping the whole place. “Being in a small town that’s only 60,000 people, it is geared towards college students in a lot of ways. I didn’t want to go all in and say let’s just convert the place into another restaurant … because also it’s an established wine bar. So we decided to dip our toes in the water and we started Oct. 3, and said we’re going to run this through the holidays and see what happens.” They changed the room “a little bit” and made it look like a restaurant. They have a reservation set-up and so far they’ve done five of these evenings.
“Our capacity … about 65, 70 people … going in tonight, we’ve got 45 reservations, we usually have about twenty people walking in the door, coming by, seeing the place, and sitting down,” not having known that this is now an option on Friday nights. “It’s really cool, we’re gonna take this through the holidays, we’re gonna take a break Dec. 19 …then we’re going to turn it back around the second week of January and start doing it again, just because we need a break, I need a break, I’m the only cook…”
Ryan relocated to Davis with his wife and kids after having lived in New York for 25 years. “Love New York City but wanted a different environment for our kids, and Davis clicked the boxes. UC Davis extended a very generous offer to my wife to build a lab … for her research in infectious diseases. I wasn’t working, I had just left my restaurant a couple of years ago because I was spending too much time.”
The move to Davis provided that much-needed time with his family. “I have a lot of work to do during the week but I don’t spend time away from my kids.” Ryan can now take his kids to school and pick them up and “if this turns into something…it can easily be a couple more nights and if that’s the case, I’ll find the staff.”
“This place is 21-and-over” but Ryan has an application in to change that so parents can go out to dinner with their kids. Although many Davisites may appreciate a restaurant that is not “fast casual” and where they aren’t vying for space with college students. “Davis doesn’t want to drive to Sacramento,” Ryan continued. “We want to have our own restaurant to go to,” and from what he has heard, “Mamas is closed, Seasons is closed…” and people want a new place to be able to enjoy dinner and take guests who come to town.
“The pasta sizes they’re not small portions … we’re not sending you home with leftovers to eat the next day, I’m not sending you home with lunch … but it’s adequate enough that everyone’s happy. We’re not skimping on the food…We wanted it to be pleasing. It’s not a huge menu…because I’m in the kitchen by myself but also, I didn’t want to have that Italian menu that has 15 items on it. We do things all very well and it’s all fresh.”
They offer gluten free pasta as well and they have a lot of vegetables on the menu. “We try to gear towards vegans, vegetarians, I can take cheese off menus … we want to click the boxes, we want to make sure that it’s not just this bar food, trendy style place. We don’t want it to be a heavy meal, like I said, vegetables are important and I think they’re fun.” Ryan works with the vegetables that are in season, and right now he’s switching to squash and is planning to do a “fun squash carpaccio that would be cool.” He wants people to know that “they don’t have to get a salad if they’re a vegetarian, they don’t have to get stuck with a plate of steamed vegetables.”
Ryan is “not expecting everybody in this town to go out to dinner every Friday night,” but he is aware that there are plenty of people going out. “It could be parents on date nights, it could be people that are in town visiting their kids, it could be just people that don’t have kids or kids are gone for college, on their own, and I think that this town has some really great potential. And it’s not a place where you have to go up to the counter and you get a number and then you go sit down, and that was one thing we also didn’t want to do here, we wanted to have real service.”
Their “budget is light right now” and there are other things that they would like to do, but they know that “if this grows, and becomes more and more popular then we can expand and change things around a little bit more.”
This “boy from western Kansas” who wanted to be an architect when he was a kid, “then all of a sudden decided not to” and instead, decided that he wanted to be a chef, graduated from high school “and five days later…was in New York,” where he found a job and started working. “I got accepted into culinary schools but I never went because I didn’t want to get into debt.” Instead, he “landed under some of the great chefs that said ‘you don’t need to go to school. You need to work, you need to learn it,’” then two, three years later sent him to work and learn from someone else. “I was able to go to Europe…I worked for some great people there…learned all aspects of it…”
Chef Schmidtberger has brought his talents and enthusiasm to Davis’ culinary scene, where he has exchanged big city life for “a tree, a backyard, no dump trucks, a house,” and more time with his family.
“The Wine Bar has its identity itself,” he said, but on Friday nights they’ve created “something a little bit different…something new is happening.”
On the menu for that evening for dips and snacks were white bean puree and focaccia, homemade meatballs, and soppressata antipasto among others. Choices of vegetables were burrata and heirloom tomatoes, roasted cauliflower, and kale Caesar salad. While the pasta options were conchiglie shells with shrimp, scampi butter and bread crumbs, whole grain tagliatelle and braised mushrooms, tortiglioni a la vodka sauce with house made spicy Italian sausage, and pinwheel lasagna with roasted chicken, spinach and artichoke and pomodoro.
Ryan shared that there is one guest who has come every Friday night with her husband just to have a glass of wine and the cauliflower. “That’s what I want, somebody craving that…”
According to their press release, “Expect a rotating list of wines by the glass & bottle selection guests can also take home via Davis Wine Bar’s retail wine list. The Pasta Exchange has also created a wine-based cocktail list with twists on classic cocktails like the Negroni and the Gin & Tonic.” Dinner is served on Friday nights from 5:30 to 10 p.m. and since there is limited walk/in space available, reservations are encouraged and can be made at https://the-pasta-exchange.resos.com/booking, www.daviswinebar.com, www.thepastaexchange.com
The information has been elusive despite the mailed ads and TV commercials for Planet Fitness, the gym moving into the space that used to house Rite Aid, at 2135 Cowell Blvd. in the Oakshade Town center. As I walked past the location this morning, I could see that some exercise equipment had already been moved in, yet construction was still very much ongoing.
In a truck in the parking lot sat Lynn Wilkinson, superintendent of RCP Construction who shared that the opening “depends on PG&E” because they are waiting for a transformer from them, and “if all goes well,” they expect to be ready mid-December. Jordan Brennan, project manager for this site, reiterated that “PG&E needs to replace the transformer,” that they are “waiting for permanent power to the building,” and are on PG&E’s “timeline.” From his understanding, Planet Fitness aims to open “before the new year.”
Still in time for all those resolutions …
Construction goes on at the coming Planet Fitness location in South Davis.
Karen Levy/Enterprise photo
Everyone in the community is welcome to attend the Davis Craft & Vintage Fair on Sunday, Nov. 16, at Central Park, 301 C St. in Davis. The holiday shopping event will go from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the open-air pavilion.
Visitors can enjoy free live music all day long, including Sammy and Lauren Leverone, plus music by The New Heliophonics. This festive gathering provides an ideal setting for seasonal shopping and discovering unique finds, all within a lively and creative atmosphere.
Discover unique gifts created by local artisans. The market features artwork, crafts, vintage and upcycled products, handmade pieces, spa items and gourmet foods — making it easy to support small businesses and independent creators.
The Davis Craft & Vintage Fair is sponsored by Couleurs Vives Art Studio, a nonprofit design and art organization based in Davis. Couleurs Vives Art Studio is committed to fostering community talent and providing quality service and support. Its special artists focus on design and development of their own art and craft products to sell at the Davis Craft and Vintage Fair.
Dining and Cooking