Sunday News: Remedy House and Flint go dark, Funkapalooza 2024, and where to find pita

Five Points coffeeshop will get new owners, natural wine shop coming, a samoon primer, and more

Remedy House, in Five Points, West Side, Buffalo, NY

Remedy House and Flint closed this week, disappointing coffee and baked goods seekers in Five Points and Fountain Plaza while owners decide what happens next.

“Remedy House is being sold to a new owner. It will be reopening soon, but I don’t have details to share,” said Andrew Trautman, an owner of Flint and Remedy House with Justin Smith.

“Justin and I felt like it was time to pass the torch to a new owner, with a new perspective and passion to be able to keep that wonderful area of the city alive,” Trautman said.

Addressing complaints that Remedy House workers were left unpaid, Trautman said on Saturday that “employees have received all money owed. There was never going to be a time where we weren’t going to pay them.”

Remedy House opened at 429 Rhode Island St. in 2017. With Five Points Bakery, Butter Block, and Extra Extra Pizza, it’s one of the businesses in the Five Points area of Buffalo’s West Side whose coffee and baked goods lure people to the neighborhood that was a drug corner a decade ago.

“We are grateful to have had the opportunity to operate Remedy House for six and a half years, and we appreciate all the employees that have worked so hard to keep it running,” Trautman said. “Thank you to the community for all the support they have given.”

“Chorus of the Deep” is a Cornelia dish inspired by the mosaic on the the dining room wall. (Seen here post-degustation.)

REVIEW

Cornelia at the AKG: People don’t go to museums to eat. Cornelia, the restaurant at the newly expanded Albright Knox Gundlach Art Museum, can crown your day of art absorption with an evening of degustation. Going miles beyond the “fast casual” standard, Chef Jessica Arends has crafted a menu capable of smiting your hunger while elevating your appreciation of the finer things in life. (For paid subscribers Sunday evening.)

Funkapalooza 2024: The fertile-minded fermentation folks at Barrel + Brine offer a unique one-night tour of all the ways noble rot makes life better.

On Feb. 29, in the Barrel + Brine tasting room, 155 Chandler St., RJ Marvin offers five courses paired with natural wines from Funk & Fermentation, a soon-to-open shop from Justine Powers specializing in wild wines. Here’s the menu:

AMUSE BOUCHE: fermented radish / whipped cultured butter / fermented garlic honey

COURSE 1: Cured Scallop Crudo: Sake Preserved Kumquat / Aleppo Chile / Mint

COURSE 2: Stone Fruit Salad / Mixed Greens / Last Year’s Peaches, Plums, Cherries / Goat Cheese / Walnut / Quince Vinaigrette

COURSE 3: Kombucha Marinated Pork Belly / Fermented Fennel, Apple & Mint / Amba Sauce

COURSE 4: Korean meatball / kimchi rice stew

COURSE 5: Long-fermented chocolate cake / caramelized yogurt / compressed berries

Get your tickets here. It’s $135.38 ($125 plus tax), not including tip.

ASK THE CRITIC

Q: Where does one buy good pita bread these days? Seems Wegmans has eliminated the couple of good brands it had.

Henry, Amherst

A: Since Pete’s Lebanese Bakery closed, the pita question comes up frequently. Folks miss the thin, pliable pitas that tear open into a pouch.

At the moment, to my knowledge, the closest you can get in Buffalo is by visiting the Broadway Market, 999 Broadway. There, Michael Giokas, as That Greek Guy, rolls out and bakes his pitas every week. He and his son Alex also offer spinach-phyllo pies in hand-rolled dough, and bougatsa, custard folded into crispy phyllo and dusted with powdered sugar.

Michael Giokas, left and son Alex run That Greek Guy in Broadway Market, 999 Broadway

That said, have you considered the joys of samoon? The pointy-tipped Iraqi loaf can substitute for pocket pita if you cut them in half. They’re baked daily at Buffalo Fresh, the international grocery’s second location, at 284 Ontario St. in Riverside. The original, 999 Broadway, carries bread from its sister store.

Samoon, the pointy-tipped Iraqi loaf, made every morning at Buffalo Fresh, 284 Ontario St.

Go to the back of the store, and you can see the oven, in late morning selling still-warm loaves packed in paper bags because they’d steam in plastic. Fresh loaves are also usually for sale at the front of the store by the cash registers. They’re 4/$5, or close.

Chelus Reading Roundup:

Every Sunday, I’ll post some of my favorite local stories from the worlds of food, wine, beer, cocktails and spirits.

This week on the Nittany Epicurean, I wrote about the 2020 Grieve Family Estate Sauvignon Blanc, the 2021 Pedroncelli Winery Sonoma Classico and the 2022 Castello di Titignano Salviano Sauvignon Blanc IGT.