Word is getting out about Tavolata at Hummingbird Pastaria, not just on Signal Mountain, but all over Chattanooga and surrounding areas.
Held the last Monday of each month, Tavolata is an Italian word that lacks an exact English translation, but it basically means to enjoy food and friendship around a large, communal table. Hummingbird typically hosts around 20 guests around a long communal table, and serves a five-course tasting menu family-style, spacing out numerous heaping bowls or platters of food along the table for guests to serve themselves and pass down.
Guests are told to sit anywhere they like, as long as they are sure to not leave an empty space. Some diners come alone; some come as a couple or bring a few friends.
Patrick Halloran, chef and co-owner of the restaurant along with wife Sally, said Hummingbird started offering Tavolata last spring, around the time of Hummingbird’s one-year anniversary.
“It’s a really enjoyable, family-style dining experience,” he said. “It’s exciting and fun, and you end up around people you wouldn’t normally come in contact with.”
At the most recent Tavolata, the table included a wide variety of guests of all ages, including a cattle farmer from Pikeville, a Signal Mountain attorney, an entrepreneur from the Southside, a financial advisor from North Chattanooga, and a man who started a company that at one time was the sole manufacturer of the volume controls found on the armrests of airplanes.
That is the type of interesting things one learns when seated next to strangers for five courses, starting with appetizers such as olives, cheese and figs, followed by salad, pasta, fish and main courses, and finally, dessert.
The menu changes each time and corresponds with what is currently in season, Halloran said.
Karl Kunisch, who recently attended his third Tavolata with wife Louise, said one reason they enjoy them is the opportunity to try dishes they might not normally choose for themselves off the menu.
“[Halloran] is so versatile and so knowledgeable about the food,” Karl Kunisch said. “You want to try everything that’s served to you.”
Louise Kunisch said she never would have thought to order the pork cheeks served as the entrée that evening, but found the dish to be absolutely delicious. Her husband added that he rarely sees amberjack, the fish course served that night, on a menu.
The couple said they consider themselves foodies, and have traveled all over the world to chapters of the world’s oldest food and wine society, La Chaine des Rotisseurs, of which they are members.
“I’ve been to a lot of Italian restaurants in the U.S., and there’s none like this,” said Karl Kunisch, who grew up in an area of upstate New York with many residents of Italian descent.
Lookout Valley resident George Bairaktaris said he heard about Tavolata from friends who had been to a previous dinner, loved it and wanted everyone they knew to try it. He said he has family on the mountain and had been to the Pastaria under its previous ownership, and felt the family-style multi-course dinner would be a good way to give Hummingbird a try by getting a good sample of different types of dishes.
“I thought it was amazing, especially for the price. I don’t know how they do it,” he said. “It’s one of the best Italian meals I’ve had in Chattanooga in a while, and I thought the menu was well thought out.”
The cost is $20 a person, with the option of adding a $15 wine flight, with each wine chosen to correspond to and be served with one of the five courses.
Hummingbird Pastaria is at 720 Mississippi Ave. To make a reservation for Tavolata, call the restaurant at 886-1900.