Filtering by Tag: Guide,Beer Dinner

CT Guide To Outdoor Dining Guide: Igloos, Fireplaces, Greenhouses + for 2023

Features Restaurant Guide Outdoor Dining Best of CT Winter Dining Igloo Homepage

Carly Terzigni

Dining outside in the middle of winter may seem like a wild idea to some, but many Connecticut restaurants and bars are fully embracing the weather with everything from firepits to private igloos to keep you warm and cozy this season. In fact, moving the dining experience outdoors in the winter has been growing in popularity in recent years, with every kind of environment from firepits to heated patios to full-on private igloo villages. 

Listed below are restaurants across the state that offer some kind of winterized dining experience, proving that you do not have to move everything indoors just because the temperatures have dropped. Who knows, winter may soon become your favorite time of year to eat outdoors!


CT Shopping Guide for Recreational Cannabis-Legal in CT TODAY!

Features Cannabis CBD Chocolate CBD Marijuana Guide Medical Marijuana Health & Wellness Highlight

Carly Terzigni

CBD-infused products have risen in popularity in recent years thanks to de-stigmatization, and a new law passed in the state of Connecticut could see yet another spike in public interest. In 2021, Connecticut made it legal for those with prescriptions to purchase cannabis in-state. But as of today, January 10th of this year, the recreational sale of adult-use cannabis will become legal, with nine medical marijuana operators already approved for business. But in addition to those businesses, there are a wide variety of shops around the state that already sell CBD-infused products, such as oils, creams, and edibles. Perhaps you are just as curious as the rest of us to learn more about the benefits of CBD (for starters, it won’t get you high), or maybe you are a seasoned pro and want to find new local businesses to support while shopping for all of your favorite CBD products. 

Today, we are going to focus on that final category (since, after all, we’re all foodies here). CBD can be used in a wide variety of ways, including as an infused ingredient in gummies, coffee, seltzers, cookies, honey, candies, and more. Check out some of the shops around the state where you can pick up some of these CBD products, as well as a few national brands to be on the lookout for the next time you head to the store.


60+ Restaurants & Caterers for Christmas Eve & Christmas in CT: 2022 Edition

Features Restaurant Christmas Eve Christmas Guide Holiday Guide Caterers Homepage

April Guilbault

Sparkles and decorations, music and merriment, parties and gift-giving and of course, holiday dining. New traditions to begin or a revisiting of favorites from year’s past. We all have those special dishes or holiday sweets that make us pause as nostalgia fills our hearts. For those reasons and more, it is one of the most wonderful times of the year. We would like for you to be able to create new memories with those you love, so we have compiled a list of Connecticut eateries that are going above and beyond for the holiday season. They are categorized by county-Fairfield, Hartford, Litchfield, Middlesex, New Haven, New London, Windham-so you don’t have to waste time researching, you can just swan dive into celebrating the season. From our plates to yours, Happy Holidays. May it be delicious!


100+ CT Restaurants, Caterers & Farms for Thanksgiving 2022

Features Restaurant Holiday Thanksgiving Guide Catering Homepage

April Guilbault

If you can cut through the increasing daily frenzy, it really is a glorious time of the year, isn’t it? And we should all make the effort to not get swept up in the busyness, because what is at our doorstep is a season of gathering with family and friends, enjoying meals and celebratory occasions together. We’ve come a long way, baby, and it’s time to celebrate everything that we hold dear, rejoice in it, savor it. And us-being-us (CTbites), we are offering suggestions now to help put your happy over the top. Sharing a meal is, indeed, a special thing with the people you love most and we want you to love this part something fierce. Forks up and Happiest Thanksgiving wishes!


40+ Places For Great Holiday Pies in Connecticut (2022 Edition)

Ingredients Features Holiday Thanksgiving Catering Pies Asian Desserts Guide Pie Guide Homepage

Carly Terzigni

It might be hard to believe with such an unseasonably warm start to November, but Thanksgiving is right around the corner! And that can only mean one thing: it’s pie time. Once again this year, there are dozens of restaurants, markets, farms, and other businesses across the state offering a variety of pies to preorder and have ready to add to your holiday table. Whether you are keeping things simple with a traditional pumpkin or apple pie to compliment your turkey dinner, or you want to mix things up with unique flavors and ingredients, there are desserts on this list for just about every palate. Happy Thanksgiving!


2022 CT Catering Guide: 18 Caterers For Your Next Event

Features Catering Caterers Catering Guide Holiday Entertaining Meal Delivery Guide Homepage Highlight

April Guilbault

You’re probably still recovering from the seasonal avalanche of candy corn, but the “other” holidays are now peeking around the corner-and it’s always better to be ready for them when they jump out at you. Whether for cozy and familial Thanksgiving gatherings, spirited and sparkly holiday parties, a Let’s-Get-2023-Right New Year’s celebration or any of your special events and holidays next year, these caterers will help you feast and fete with panache. Best part about this listing is that many of these caterers work throughout the entire state of Connecticut and even the tri-state area. Go forth and celebrate! Here are 18 Connecticut Caterers who will make your next event a stress-free delicious success!


Guide To 2022 Fall Cooking Classes in Connecticut

Features Cooking Cooking Classes Education Guide

April Guilbault

You’ve gotten the kids settled in school so, hey, maybe there is some schooling to be had for you too. Maybe you are looking to spice up your girls’ night out or do something beyond-the-water cooler with office mates. Maybe you are wanting to try a new hobby with a partner or honestly, maybe you just need some You Time. Something for yourself that expands your mind, your curiosity and possibly your palate. Take a class. The possibilities are endless and you’ll learn some skills that follow you through your life. What is not to love about that?


2022 Guide to Catering Rosh Hashanah + Yom Kippur

Features Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur Jewish Holidays Homepage Catering Guide Catering Guide

April Guilbault

Holiday time is family time and good food is a central part of these celebrations! With Rosh Hashanah (Sept. 25-27) and Yom Kippur (Oct. 4-5) coming into focus, we have a handy listing of markets, caterers, and restaurants for you so that you may fill your table with traditional and new favorite dishes to mark the occasion. Our wish is that your holidays be happy and, of course, delicious. Shanah Tovah!


20+ Connecticut Local Canned Cocktails, Spritzers, + Hard Seltzers (2022 Guide)

Features Canned Cocktails Hard Seltzer Brewery Distillery Guide Homepage Highlight

April Guilbault

At the beach, at a picnic, on a boat, maybe a pool floaty shaped like a flamingo, in your backyard, or hell, even just sprawling on your favorite chaise. What do all these places have in common? They are spots where it would be a great opportunity to crack open a can of something refreshing and well, lightly, fabulously spiked or mixed. Yep, cocktails or spiked seltzers in a convenient can! Ready that index finger and pop into fizzy, fabulous libations made with fresh juices and your favorite alcoholic beverages. Take the party outside this season, pop those tops and keep it easy and fun.


40+ Places in Connecticut for Lobster, Clambakes, + Seafood Shacks (2022 Guide)

Features Seasonal Restaurant Seafood seafood boil Lobster Lobster Roll Clambake Homepage Guide Dining Guide Highlight

April Guilbault

One fish, two fish, red fish…lobster. And seafood in all its forms. Oh yeah, baby! Get the bibs, the frosty beers and get crackin’, shuckin’ and lovin’. Nothing signals the start of summer quite like eating by the water while the sunshine sparkles on the waves. Picture, if you will, your teeth sinking into a lobster roll dripping with drawn butter, or wistfully dragging fresh steamers through (more) butter or popping hot-out-the-fryer clam strips and fritters into your mouth. Whether dining on land or by sea, seafood rules the roost this season. These simple summer pleasures make time stand still for a few blissful moments. Summer is here, and food is easy.

Enjoy our guide to over 40 summertime—or anytime—spots to get buttery lobster, chow down at a clambake, and sit and eat at a seafood shack!


Guide to Kids Cooking Classes & Camps in Connecticut (2022 Edition)

Features Cooking Cooking Classes Kids kids activity Kids Cooking Classes Guide Education Highlight

April Guilbault

Feels like we were all just stuck home together and dreaming of getting OUT and low and behold, now we can! Let’s start with getting those kiddos some cool stuff to do once school lets out. Let’s hear it for cooking camps! To learn (in a fun way) about food, where it comes from, what the heck we can do with it, and yummm, how it tastes-what could be better? Follow it with some parent-kid trips to your local farms or farmers’ markets, and lookie there, you’ve just filled the calendar a bit for the summer months. Here’s to brilliant and tasty new discoveries!


Friday Froth: Beer Dinners at Little Pub- Featuring New England Brewing

Features Friday Froth Beer CT Beer Beer Dinner Craft Beer Brewery

James Gribbon

Anyone who's ever hit happy hour and subsequently remembered they hadn't eaten dinner while staring into a beer at another location sometime around midnight can probably feel the pain of the next morning right now, as you're reading this. Remember that? Well, let's not let that happen again, or allow ourselves to slap late night drive-thru - the FlexTape of Shame - over the leaky bucket of our decisions.

What we need is food with our beers, whether we're adding plates to pitchers and pints at the taproom, or exploring flavor combinations at home. Inspiration struck while I was at my first beer pairing dinner in over two years at The Little Pub in Fairfield, hosted by Greg Radawich, director of brewing operations at New England Brewing Company in Woodbridge. I'll get into what you can have from the brewery and pub, plus a few more ideas to serve as springboards for your own dives into brews and foods.

And if you missed this beer dinner, Little Pub will be hosting another beer pairing dinner with Fat Orange Cat brewery at Little Pub, Fairfield on Tuesday, March 1.


Stamford's Winter Wonderland Market & Beer Garden Opens Dec. 6th

Features Beer Beer Dinner CT Beer Pop-Up Bar Stamford

CTbites Team

Half Full Brewery and Mill River Park Collaborative announced today the return of Winter Wonderland Market & Beer Garden to Stamford, Conn.’s Mill River Park.  The Winter Wonderland is intended to celebrate and unite local residents and professionals through a diverse and expanded slate of programming, which will run from Friday, Dec. 6 through Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2020.


East Rock Brewing Company Opens In New Haven

Features New Haven Brewery Openings Beer Dinner CT Beer

James Gribbon

Pull back the hour hand on the clock of geologic time and the land in what was once New Haven begins to fill in. The sandstone rises up, glaciers come and go again in reverse, and the scenery levels off. The view across the water isn't Long Island - the glaciers pulled that land back with them - it's what will become Morocco. Now spin the clock forward again. The continents drift - ice, then not ice again - and the land erodes away until something seems to rise up again: the traprock scarp we know as East Rock. There's a lot of history here, and the newest bit to crop up is East Rock Brewing Company.


Beers & Bites August 15th Tickets On Sale Featuring Skinny Pines & Chef Geoff Lazlo

Features CT Beer Beer Dinner Food Truck Stamford Events

Stephanie Webster

Half Full Brewery and CTBites are beyond excited to bring you this year's most creative and collaborative food and beer-pairing event series. Not to be missed, "Beers & Bites" 2018 pairs limited release beers from Half Full Brewery with totally off-menu food items from some of Fairfield County's best chefs and food truck operators. Tickets for our August 15th event with Skinny Pines pizza truck & Chef Geoff Lazlo are going fast, so get your tickets now! 


Nibble: CT Food Events For April 29- May 6

Features Events Beer Dinner Pop-Up Dinner

Emma Jane-Doody Stetson

The 5th Annual Ridgefield Gone Country BBQ Festival in Ridgefield starts Saturday May 5 at 11am and runs through Sunday 5pm. The Event will be held at the Historic Lounsbury House at 316 Main Street. Tickets: $10 for adults and $5 for students. Children under 12 are FREE.

Sunday, April 29th, Half Full Brewery is hosting a pig roast with Hoodoo Brown BBQ. Doors open at 12:00 for beers, starting at 1:00 Hoodoo will be serving up BBQ Wings (tossed in Red Bee Honey Sauce), and a Pig Roast that will feature a whole hog, apple-vinegar slaw, slider buns, cornbread, and mac and cheese. Reserve tickets here.

Tickets for The Schoolhouse at Cannondale’s Farm to Fork series go on sale May 1. Each evening includes a cocktail hour, a farm tour, and four locally sourced courses under the stars by Chef Tim LaBant. It takes place at Millstone Farm in Wilton, CT.

On Monday April 30, head over to Terrain Garden Café in Westport for “Dishing Local.” CTbites and the Westport Farmers Market welcome foodies to a food-focused evening and open forum in the terrain Garden Cafe. They’ll gather with some of the local food community's leading talents to discuss the latest trends, everyday eating, and tips and secrets from farmers and restaurateurs. This event is free and open to the public. Food and beverage available for purchase.

On Tuesday May 2, Fairfield Cheese Company presents “Cheese 102: Beyond the Basics with Arethusa Farm.” The class will expand on the basics and delve into cheese making, history, science, and more. Plus, taste plenty of cheeses and complementary wines. Tickets are $50 and the class runs from 7-9pm.

CLASP Homes 14th TASTE OF WESTPORT will take place on Thursday May 3 from 6-9pm at the Westport Inn. Enjoy samplings of specialty dishes from Amis, Harvest Wine Bar, Hummock Island Oysters, Pearl at Longshore, Saltwater, Bobby Q’s Cue & Co., Tablao, and more. There will be plenty to drink as well! Tickets are $75 prepaid, $85 at the door.


Recap: Beers & Bites at Half Full Brewery with Knot Norms and Hapa Food Truck

Features Homepage Dinner Events Beer Dinner CT Beer CTbites Invites

Andrew Dominick

Did you ever hear the one about the food truck chef and the restaurant chef at a local brewery? 

Wait, that’s a real thing. There’s no punchline. 

What I’m talking about here is the first ever Beers & Bites event that was held on April 5, 2018 at Half Full Brewery in Stamford. Beers & Bites is a collaboration between CTbites, Half Full Brewery, local food trucks and chefs. 

The idea behind Beers & Bites is to team a food truck chef and a restaurant chef to collaborate on a menu that gets paired with Half Full’s thirst-quenching brews. Think of it as a beer dinner where you won’t leave feeling overstuffed; it’s just enough food and drink. For $50 you get four-courses, four beers (refills were common so it’s a little more than four), a commemorative Beers & Bites snifter glass, and a damn good time in a non-pretentious, not overcrowded taproom. 


Nibble: CT Food Events for April 2-9

Features Events Wine Dinners Beer Dinner Homepage

Emma Jane-Doody Stetson

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford hosts A Taste of History 2017 on Monday April 3 at 5pm.  The evening begins with a premier reception at 5pm and culminates with a food tasting, a cocktail tasting, music, a tour, and art inspired activities. 

Fermented beverages are prevalent, but what about fermented foods?  Learn about them and their health benefits at the Barrel Room in North Canton, CT on Monday April 3.  The class will cover foods like water kefir, milk kefir and kimchi. 

Connecticut Hops For Hope returns for its second benefit, Beers For Brittany, on Sunday, April 23rd. The event will be held at the brand new Counter Weight Brewing in Hamden, and 100% of ticket sales, in person donations, and on site raffle ticket sales will benefit Brittany Vellucci, a young woman fighting through brain cancer. Tickets go on sale tonight at 7p.m. RIGHT HERE


Nibble: CT Food Events for Week of March 20-27

Features Events Wine Dinners Beer Dinner

Emma Jane-Doody Stetson

On Monday March 20, Mikro Beer Bar in Hamden invites you to a Kent Falls Brewing Beer Dinner.  Chef Mike Fox will create a four course dinner to complement craft brews.  The event is limited to 50 people, so get your tickets soon. 

Which is better: beer or wine?  The question is difficult and divisive… but Fairfield Greenwich Cheese Company will help you decide!  Beer and wine will go head-to-head alongside a cheese plate to see which makes for the best pairing.  Join them at the Greenwich location on March 21 from 7-9pm and the Fairfield location on March 23 from 7-9pm.  It costs $50 per person. 

On Wednesday March 22, Cask Republic South Norwalk and Allagash Brewing Company are teaming up for a beer dinner.  Chef Carl will prepare a five course menu that will be paired with six Allagash beers.  It costs $85 per person and advanced reservations are recommended. 


Community Table & Kent Falls Brewing Co. Host Beer Dinner July 26

Restaurant Beer Dinner Brewery Washington

Amy Kundrat

Community Table & Kent Falls Brewing Co.
 are teaming up for a special evening of food and beer on July 26. Executive Chef Marcell Davidsen has collaborated with Barry and Derek at Kent Falls Brewing Co. on a summer-inspired menu fit for Connecticut locavore beer lovers. 

"We are very excited to host this event, and share some great beers and great food. And there might be a few surprises too," said Marcell Davidsen.

We have a sneak peek of the menu, which at last count is 7 courses and 6 beers, and as many reasons to get excited for this evening at Community Table. Tickets are $75 per person. Reservations are available on OpenTable.com.

July 26 Menu

Sourdough Bread
Toasted hay butter

Smoked Trout & Squash Blossom

Hazelnut crème 

Beer: Lade Øl 4.8 % Abv. 
A farmhouse ale brewed with smoked hay. This beer takes on delicate notes of sweet grass, vanilla and spice notes from the hay complementing our house yeast culture.