When it was announced that Tom Spicer would be losing the retail space at Bryan and Fitzhugh that housed his Spiceman 1410 storefront, everyone knew that the resilient gardening whiz wouldn't be down for long. Right after Spicer made it known that his storefront would be closing due to plumbing and structural concerns with the building that housed it, the food community stepped up and helped him get back on his feet.
Especially Garden Cafe. Last month, owner Mark Wootton opened the doors to his restaurant to Spicer, offering up a place for the Spiceman to continue serving Dallas' best restaurants with his spicy arugula and other carefully-tended local produce. The storefront has yet to find a permanent new home, but it looks like Spicer is ready to get back to serving his non-restaurant customers with a series of dinners planned for March.
Of course, because Tom Spicer is involved, these won't be your average pop-up dinners. As SideDish reported yesterday, Spicer's March dinner series will be hosted in the garden space adjacent to Garden Cafe, where Spicer hopes to reestablish his farm. Hosted every Thursday, the dinners will include Cajun- and Creole- influenced dishes, with a touch of Spiceman's eccentric charm. Soft-shell crab Louie, roasted stuffed Cornish game hens, and plenty of surprises from Spicer's garden, like his classic salad mix, will be on offer throughout the series.
Spicer's dinners in his former garden were often the hottest foodie tickets in town, and were frequented by great guest chefs and wine connoisseurs. This, of course, means that tickets to the four dinners in March will likely go very quickly. Spicer has not indicated how many seatings are available for each dinner, but we're guessing that they're going to be limited.
At $75 per person, a five-course dinner in the garden with Spicer's farm wisdom as an amuse bouche sounds like a bargain. No word yet on whether or not Spicer will continue the dinner series throughout the year, but allowing him to cook dinner for you is easily the most delicious way to support a guy who has been so integral to Dallas' food scene for so long. With any luck, these dinners are just a stepping stone to another Spiceman's 1410 location, where you can get those sorely-missed dime bags of deliciously foraged mushrooms on demand.
