Lucy & The Wolf is next door to my favorite cobbler and artisan in Northville, Michigan. Lucy & The Wolf is one of the tapas style or small plate type of restaurants that are popping up here in the area and I am sure that elsewhere as well. We first encountered the restaurant at the last Culinary Extravaganza at Schoolcraft College. The odd thing about it, is that we made several attempts to get to this restaurant and never had success, as either something came up or we got there and they were closed, but we persevered and finally got there. One night the stars aligned and we finally got there, but as we made our reservations, we were informed that we only had an hour and a half window for dining, but that sounded like enough time, and it was.
The concept of tapas-style restaurants is that one shares the different plates, and that is fine, as my Bride and I have been doing that for years, even before it became in vogue. We started out with a couple of “chilled” dishes. The first was the Charcuterie Plate, which was listed as Capicolla, Iberico Ham, artisan cheeses, olive salad, pickled vegetables and raw honey. Of course the night that we were there they only had one “artisan cheese” and not plural, as the menu read, but it was Mancheco made from sheep’s milk, but it was described to us as cow’s milk cheese. We also tried a plate of Deviled Eggs, which seems to have had a surge in popularity around here, and these came with Iberico Ham and topped with pickled mustard seeds and they were delightful. Then we had the Charred Shrimp, which was described as Spanish style roasted shrimp, Arbol chili spiced, Sherry Vinaigrette and Micro Greens, and this had excellent taste, and we stopped there, as we were concerned about our time allotment for the table.
They had a very limited wine carte and I was surprised to only find one Spanish wine on the list, one would think that the restaurant would offer several different Spanish wines considering the theme of the restaurant. We ordered the Spanish wine and I was looking forward to it, as it was listed as a “Gran Reserva” with no vintage year listed. We watched as the help scurried about trying to find the wine and then they produced the wine, but it read “Reserva,” and I agreed to it, but I asked if there was a difference in price, and the manager came over and told me, that the price was proper for the wine that they were serving, and I suggested that they edit their wine carte. We had a bottle of Marques de Murrieta Reserva Finca Yguay Rioja 2010. The wine is a blend of Tempranillo, Mazuelo, Graciano and Garnacha Tinta and the grapes are fermented separately in Stainless Steel vats and then blended and aged in American Oak for twenty-one months. This was a production of one million bottles, all done as one lot and required four months just for the bottling.
