I’m pleased to announce that the next Scott Joseph’s Dinner Party will be at the esteemed Rocco’s Italian Grille & Bar in Winter Park. The date is Thursday, March 7, and we’ll gather for a reception at 6:30 p.m. with seated dinner at 7. Tickets are $175, including tax and gratuity, and may be purchased by calling the restaurant at 407-644-7770.

Our host, the chef and owner Rocco Potami, has put together a delectable five course dinner, each selection paired with a perfect wine. Here’s a look at the menu:

The James Beard Foundation announced the semifinalists for its 2024 Restaurant and Chef Awards and Central Florida has three nominees for Best Chef – South (from two restaurants) and a nod for Best New Restaurant.

Kaya, the Filipino restaurant in the Mills 50 District, is on the list of 30 restaurants throughout the country nominated for Best New Restaurant. It is the only semifinalist from Florida in that category. Kaya is co-owned by Jamilyn Bailey and Lordfer Lalicon.

Matt Hinckley is a very busy man. Already the chef, owner and operator of Hinckley’s Fancy Meats at East End Market, he is in the midst of opening Mid Drive Dive in College Park with co-owners Jacob and Brittany Zepf. Edgewater is the Drive the Dive will be Mid, taking the space that was Graffiti Junktion. It isn’t expected to open before the end of February but its website is already selling merch.

And now Hinckley is ready to jump on the not-quite-vacated space of East End Market neighbors Farm & Haus, which is closing at the end of the month to focus on its full service restaurant on Park Avenue. But instead of expanding the snout-to-tail charcuterie and sandwich concept of Fancy Meats, he will open a barbecue concept to be called Boxer & Clover. George Orwell fans will recognize the names as characters in “Animal Farm.” Boxer and Clover are horses that represent the working class. Since we seem to be living in Orwellian times, the name makes sense, but naming a barbecue restaurant after a couple of horses might raise an eyebrow.

Danny “Kin” Ho, one of the founders of the successful local chain Hawkers Asian Street Food, died Jan. 5 of a rare form of leukemia. He was 46. 

Ho, along with friends and partners Kaleb Harrell, Allen Lo and Wayne Yung, were on the front end of the still-popular street food trend when they opened the first Hawkers on Mills Avenue in  2011. The concept was simple: feature a menu with the kinds of foods that could be found on the streets of various Asian cities, sold by vendors who would “hawk” their wares to passersby. The chain now has 15 locations in seven states.

In a post on Facebook, the co-founders credited Ho with laying the groundwork for Hawkers’ first commissary kitchen and for crafting woodwork found in several of the restaurants.

Among Ho’s survivors are his wife, Ying, a daughter, Everhett, and a son, Emmett.

Epcot International Festival of the Arts opened last weekend and runs through Feb. 19. Sort of like the other festivals throughout the year but with paint.

Tapa Toro, the Spanish restaurant at Icon Park, will become Helena Modern Riviera next month. The tapas and paella restaurant was sold last year to Jonathan and Angelica Pluvinet of Atelier Dining Group, which operates Mangoni Italian Market Pizza in Winter Garden and Rosallie Le French Café in Winter Garden and Las Vegas. According to a press release, the menu at Helena Modern Riviera “is inspired by the coastal flavors of the European Riviera with touches of flair from the Mediterranean Isles.” The release also mentions a “Michelin-recommended chef” who apparently will be touching those flairs but does not give his or her name. The restaurant will remain open through the transition. A soft opening is planned for Feb. 14 with a reservation-only prix fixe dinner.

As I told you last month, Field to Feast, the popular annual foodfest held on the grounds of Long & Scott Farms in Mt. Dora, is going on this year even though sponsor Edible Orlando is currently out of production as it transitions to new ownership. EO’s original publication team of Kendra Lott, Katie Farmand and Pam Brandon have reteamed with the event’s co-sponsor, Walt Disney World Resort, and its chefs to continue the Field to Feast tradition.

And now we have the lineup of Disney restaurants whose chefs will be cooking under the farm’s pavilion. They are:

The Hangry Bison is expanding to Lake Mary. Founder Joe Liguori said he’s taking over the former Liam Fitzpatrick’s pub site in the Colonial Town Park complex. “This is another corporate location (I will be opening it),” he said in an email. “You will  not recognize the space once we are finished with it.” The more than six-thousand-square-foot corner location will incorporate design elements found in the other HBs in Winter Park Village and Winter Garden. So this will be the first non-Winter location and accordingly will open in summer. 

Here’s a save-the-date announcement for your 2024 calendar: Taste! Central Florida, the annual fundraiser to fight childhood hunger, will be Saturday, August 24, at Orlando World Center Marriott. Follow ticket announcements and sponsorship opportunities at the organization’s website.

Slate, the Restaurant Row upscale casual concept that opened in 2015, has closed.

The restaurant, which it has to be said had no slate in or on it, was originally opened by Concentrics Hospitality, an Atlanta consulting company that had also brought Luma on Park to the area. When I first reviewed Slate, I thought it was mostly unremarkable – not bad, just not memorable. I revisited in 2017 and found it had better focus. The decor of the restaurant, next door to Trader Joe’s, was lovely and comfortable, mostly due to the lack of slate, I suppose.

Concentrics, which operates Two Urban Licks restaurant in Atlanta, is planning a new Central Florida restaurant to be called Cast & Crew, a much better name that Two Urban Licks. No location information as of yet but look for it to start casting and crewing late spring.

Happy New Year, and whatever your personal outlook for 2024 is, it’s likely to be rosier than Manuel Tato’s.

Tato’s name has appeared in these pages many times over the years. He has opened a number of restaurants in the area, the majority in downtown Orlando. Spice Modern, which went into the former Eola Yacht Club space, was one of the more recent. But he also had Spice Burgr, Rustic Steak in what was originally Rosie O’Grady’s at Church Street Station, Pesca where Lee’s Lakeside used to be, and Pint American Gastropub in Lake Mary. 

As with every year, there were many pleasant experiences among the restaurants that were reviewed here, some of them surprises. There were also more than a few disappointments, but let’s concentrate on the highs, some of which were revisits.

It was a delight to see that the new owner of Enzo’s on the Lake, John Khalil, was dedicated to not trying to fix something that wasn’t broken. The quality of the food and the service remains as first class as ever, due in large part to many of the longtime workers in both the front and back of the house staying on after the sale.