Some restaurant evenings are built around a single plate. Others are built around a bottle. The wine pairing dinner at Local and Company in Foley one Thursday evening in late June 2022 was built around both: five courses, five Italian wines, and a co-owner who could tell the story behind nearly every glass because she had spent time in the vineyards where they were made.
About 45 guests filled the Highway 59 restaurant for the event, a deliberately limited crowd that allowed the hosts to move from table to table between courses. The wines leaned heavily on northern Italy’s Piedmont region, home of Barolo, Barbaresco and Barbera d’Alba, and the menu was designed to walk diners from a light, crisp opening through progressively richer dishes before finishing with something sweet.
A Restaurant Inside a Piece of Foley History
Part of Local and Company’s appeal is the building itself. The restaurant, which serves American cuisine for lunch and dinner, occupies the space long known in Foley as the Old Antique Mall. Before the antiques arrived, the structure was built as an armory, and by the time of the June 2022 dinner the building was 83 years old. Repurposing a large, sturdy civic building like an armory into a dining room is the kind of adaptive reuse that gives a restaurant character that new construction rarely matches: high ceilings, solid walls and a sense that the room has already lived a few lives.
The location on Highway 59 puts the restaurant on the main north-south artery through Foley, the road that carries a steady stream of beach traffic toward Gulf Shores. Foley itself has grown from a small railroad and farming town, named for Chicago businessman John B. Foley and incorporated in 1915, into one of the fastest-growing cities in Baldwin County. Its downtown blocks near the intersection of Highway 59 and U.S. 98 still carry much of that early 20th-century character, and restaurants like Local have helped give residents and visitors a reason to linger rather than drive straight through.
Local and Company is owned by Sylvia Smith and Ephraim Kadish. For the wine dinner, Smith served as both host and storyteller.
A Host Who Had Walked the Vineyards
Several years before the dinner, Smith had spent time visiting and working in the Barolo area of Piedmont, and she shared that personal story with the room over the course of the evening. Her anecdotes about the region and its winemaking gave the pairings a context that a printed menu alone cannot provide. Guests heard not just what they were drinking, but where it came from and why it tasted the way it did.
She was joined by two representatives of Alabama Crown Distributing, the wine and spirits distributor that supplied the evening’s bottles. Throughout the night, the three of them circulated through the dining room, checking in with tables and answering questions between courses. The wines were also listed for guests, a small touch that made a big difference for diners who were less familiar with Italian labels and appellations.
That combination, a knowledgeable host, distributor representatives who know the producers, and a written list of what is being poured, is what separates a true pairing dinner from a meal that simply happens to include wine. It turns the evening into a tasting lesson without making it feel like a class.
Course by Course: What Was Served and Poured
The menu moved through five courses, each matched with its own wine:
- First course: clams served over a potato purée, finished with seasoning and a relish, paired with a crisp white wine.
- Second course: halibut with an eggplant tapenade and a Parmesan crisp, paired with a 2017 Barbera d’Alba Ruvei.
- Third course: quail with a house sauce whose recipe was kept secret, paired with a 2013 Barbaresco.
- Fourth course: veal over arugula with pine nuts, asparagus and sauce, paired with a 2016 Barolo.
- Dessert: a lemon egg custard with blueberries, paired with “Zagara” Moscato d’Asti, a sweet wine with orange blossom character.
The quail drew particular praise from diners, with the tender bird and its sauce standing out as a highlight of the night. The veal course, served with the Barolo, was the most substantial plate of the evening, and the lemon custard proved light enough that guests finished it even after four courses.
Understanding the Wines of Piedmont
For readers who are curious about the wines on that list, the progression followed a logic that Italian winemakers and sommeliers have long favored.
Barbera d’Alba comes from the Barbera grape grown around the town of Alba. Barbera is known for bright acidity and relatively soft tannins, which makes it one of the most food-friendly red wines in Italy. That acidity is why it can stand up to a fish course like halibut, particularly one dressed with a savory eggplant tapenade and salty Parmesan, without overwhelming it the way a heavier, more tannic red might.
Barbaresco and Barolo are both made from the Nebbiolo grape and are among Italy’s most celebrated wines. Both carry Italy’s highest classification, DOCG. Nebbiolo produces wines that are often pale in color but high in both acidity and tannin, with aromas frequently described as roses, tar, cherry and dried herbs. Barbaresco, from a smaller zone northeast of Alba, is often considered the slightly more approachable of the two. Barolo, from the hills southwest of Alba, is often called “the king of wines and the wine of kings,” and Italian rules require it to be aged longer before release than Barbaresco. Serving the older Barbaresco with quail and the Barolo with veal follows a classic idea: as the food becomes richer and more savory, the wine grows in power to match.
Moscato d’Asti is a gently sparkling, or frizzante, sweet white wine made from the Moscato Bianco grape in the area around Asti. It is typically low in alcohol and bursting with aromas of peach, citrus and flowers. The Zagara bottling’s orange blossom notes made it a natural match for a lemon custard, since pairing a dessert wine with a dessert of similar flavor and equal or lesser sweetness is one of the most reliable rules of pairing.
Why Pairing Dinners Work
Wine pairing dinners have become a regular feature of the dining scene across Baldwin and Mobile counties, and the Local and Company event showed why. A pairing dinner gives a kitchen room to cook beyond its everyday menu, gives a distributor a chance to introduce bottles diners might not otherwise order, and gives guests a guided way to learn about wine in a relaxed setting.
The format also rewards small crowds. With roughly 45 guests, the hosts could speak to the room as a whole between courses and still talk with individual tables. Larger events can feel more like banquets; smaller ones like this retain the feel of a dinner party.
A few practical notes for anyone considering a pairing dinner at a local restaurant:
- Pours at multi-course dinners are usually smaller than a standard glass, but five wines still add up. Plan for a ride home.
- Seats at limited-capacity dinners often sell out, so it pays to follow restaurants you like on social media or join their email lists for announcements.
- Do not be shy about asking questions. Hosts and distributor representatives attend these events precisely to talk about what is in the glass.
- Menus at pairing dinners are fixed. If you have allergies or dietary restrictions, contact the restaurant when you book.
A Foley Favorite for Lunch or a Special Night
Special events like the June 2022 pairing dinner are only part of what Local and Company offers. On an ordinary day, the restaurant serves as a casual lunch spot as well as a destination for a nicer evening out, which is a balance many Baldwin County restaurants aim for and fewer achieve. The pairing dinner showed what the kitchen could do when given a theme and a wine list to cook toward, and it showed the owners’ willingness to share their own experiences with guests.
Readers interested in future wine dinners or current hours should check directly with the restaurant, since menus, schedules and featured wines change from event to event. For those who attended the evening in 2022, it was a night of clams and halibut, quail and veal, three vintages of Piedmont red wine, and a sweet, floral finish, all served inside a building that has been part of Foley’s landscape for more than eight decades.