A Wonderful Time At La Nueva Mesa Beta Pop Up Roosevelt Island Dinner Exploration Of Plant Kingdom Says Resident - More Pop Up Dinner Events Planned For Roosevelt Island's The Sanctuary Space

 As reported October 8:

... On October 14, La Nueva Mesa kicks off a pop-up dinner series with a wine-paired six-course locally sourced plant based meal crafted by Drew Shives, Matthew Taber and Amir Dholakia- the three ex-Jean-George culinary wizards behind Beta, the wait-list only popup in Queens...

 The Pop Up dinner was hosted at The Sanctuary,

Image From The Sanctuary

Roosevelt Island's new event space and restaurant that will open in the Spring.

Roosevelt Island resident Christine Delfico tweeted at the dinner

Happening now on Roosevelt Island - pop up celebration - Exploration of the Plant Kingdom @EdibleQueens #supportlocal #farmers pic.twitter.com/hCOq7QNjmo

— iDig2Learn (@iDig2Learn) October 15, 2019

and told me afterwards:

Event was great

Another Roosevelt Island resident who attended the dinner tweeted:

Thanks for alerting me to this lovely evening right here on Roosevelt Island at The Sanctuary - lovely food, drinks and people right here on #rooseveltisland thanks to #ediblequeens https://t.co/ZFfKeMfxUX pic.twitter.com/079SRBgFW6

— Minnehanonck (@minnehanonck) October 15, 2019

and reported a few days later:

It was a lovely, very diverse group of New Yorkers gathered together on the Island for what proved to be a great vegetarian dinner by some dedicated young chefs, paired with really good Spanish wines. Most of the food was grown by a young first generation Chinese American farmer who runs a small vegetable farm in Astoria.

The venue has the potential to be a fabulous and popular with islanders once it’s up and running - it seems special enough that if they do it well, people might also regularly come from off Island to visit.

For this event, most people didn’t know where they were going in advance and were only told the location the day of. The people I spoke to were pleasantly surprised, and had either not been to Roosevelt Island ever before or not for a decade. (One woman, who lives in Manhattan, recalled that the last time she visited, about 13 years ago, she thought the island had a somewhat “spooky” feeling but that she didn’t have that impression at all this time.)

Only one other person looked familiar to me - Christina from IDig2Learn - I’m not sure if other islanders but most seemed to be from off island. The people I spoke to came on subway and planned to take the tram back. One asked me about getting a cab.

A La Nueva Mesa spokesperson adds:

We were thrilled with how the event turned out. The Beta team did an exceptional job, and it's such a special space. We had the very talented William Elliott from Maison Premiere and PM Spirits behind the bar, as well.

There were 32 guests at the table, and while we don't have exact numbers on who was from the neighborhood, I got the sense that it was an even split. It was encouraging to see that support from both residents, who are eager to welcome something like this to the community, and non-residents, who treated the dinner like a destination in itself. With that in mind, we do plan on doing more events at Roosevelt Island and The Sanctuary!

More photos from the event here and some contrasting comments from prior post about the event.