It’s hard to believe that Zely & Ritz has passed the one year mark. And what an incredible year it has been. Thousands of new friends and customers have joined us in the last year to help make Zely & Ritz one of the most popular new restaurants in the Triangle and one of the highest rated organic restaurants in the country. This time last year, we were a little scared about starting up a new concept like tapas with a focus on organic and local produce, but one year later we couldn’t be happier or more excited about the year to come.

New hours

We’re making two big schedule changes in 06. To start with, the half-price wine special we began in December was such a huge success that we have decided to keep as a permanent feature. So every Monday night is now “Half Price Bottle” night at Zely & Ritz. The other change is that we’ve decided to no longer be open for lunch. This was a more difficult decision because we have some great regular lunch customers, but we finally decided that our efforts were better spent concentrating on our great dinners, especially since we are now open 6 nights a week. We’d like to thank everyone who joined us last year for lunch and encourage you to try us at dinner with our full menu. We are still available at lunch for large parties or special occasions. If you’d like to arrange a group party or meeting for lunch and/or the afternoon with us, just give us a call at 828-0018 to set it up.

Every Monday is now half-price wine night

To be honest, we’ve been amazed at how great the reception has been to this promotion. In fact, Mondays during December were almost as busy as the weekends. We love to see happy customers and our customers are happy to get such great prices on the incredible wines on our Wine Spectator Award winning list. Now every Monday is Half-Price Wine Monday. Come in and order any bottle of wine on the list for half the normal price.

Every Thursday is $5.00 martini night

Thursday night is now Martini Night. Half Price Wine on Mondays has been so popular we’ve decided to add a martini night for our cocktail customers. Check out the new cocktail list and come try out exotic creations like the Pink PussyCat, Wobbly Golfer or Oatmeal Cookie. Click here for the complete cocktail list and come join us for a great evening of delicious martinis http://www.zelyandritz.com/menu_cocktail.html.

Upcoming wine dinners and special events

This coming Valentine’s day on February 14th Chef Sarig is preparing a delicious three-course prix fixe dinner, with several choices at each course. Dinner will be $45 per person including a complimentary glass of champagne (but not including tax or gratuity). Reservations are required. The menu will be available on the web site soon, but you can make reservations now by calling 828-0018.

Our first wine dinner of the year will be on Wednesday, February 8th. This dinner will feature award winning wines from Longview Vineyard of Adelaide Hills, Australia. Our host for the evening will be the gregarious, passionate and immensely entertaining Duncan MacGillivray who has successfully turned an old dairy farm into one of the Connawarra’s most successful wineries. Dinner will be $75 not including tax and gratuities.

On February 15th, Zely & Ritz is proud to participate in the Triangle Wine Experience to benefit the Frankie Lemon Foundation. Chef Sarig is preparing a special 5 course champagne dinner featuring champagnes from Duval-Leroy Champagne Dinner. Mardi Gras Maitre’d Jack Jalenko, importer and Knight of Champagne will be our host to present an incredible selection of 90 plus point Wine Spectator rated wines. Reservations for this special event must be made on the Triangle Wine Experience web site. Click here and scroll to the bottom of the page to join us for a great evening of food and champagne and do your part to help the Frankie Lemon Foundation at the same time. http://www.trianglewineexperience.org/eventcatalog.asp?EventTypeID=19&Page=6

On Wednesday, March 15th we will be sponsoring a very special African wine dinner featuring wines and cuisine from Africa and hosted by nationally acclaimed African wire artist, Jonathan Daniel. Richard just returned from a trip with Jonathan to Zimbabwe where he got to visit with many of the farm families that are being educated and supported by Jonathan’s Dare To Share charity and he was also able to taste many of the local wines and try several unique and delicious local dishes. This very special dinner will showcase some of the excellent wines coming from this region of the world as well as feature several African inspired dishes using ingredients grown at Coon Rock Farm. This 5 course dinner will cost $90 per person with the profit donated to Dare to Share to support educating and feeding orphaned children in Zimbabwe.

On Wednesday, April 19th we will be presenting a very special wine dinner featuring wines from Elyse. Elyse is one of our favorite wines in the restaurant and our host for the evening will be Elyse owner and wine maker and good friend, Ray Coursen. Ray has hosted dinners with us before and they have always been wonderful and special evenings. This dinner will undoubtedly be as special featuring several of Ray’s new releases along with a Chef Sarig’s new menu creations filled with all the fresh Spring ingredients that should be coming in from the farm by then.

Farm update

Another very unique aspect of Zely & Ritz is that we get almost 50% of our produce from our very own Coon Rock Farm along the Eno River in Hillsborough. This insures that we are getting the best local, organic produce possible and are able to grow the special varieties that Chef Sarig prefers to cook. We’ve had a great crop of winter vegetables and greens so far. Many of chef Sarig’s creations have featured greens, lettuces, turnips, beets, broccoli that we’ve been growing. You’ll see them on the menu marked with a red star. Another bumper crop at Coon Rock Farm is firewood. When we bought the farm it had suffered a great deal of damage from past storms and many trees had to be cleared from the fence lines and out of the pastures. This has left us with a bumper crop of excellent seasoned and dried hardwood firewood that we are selling for $80 per half cord or $150 per cord. You can pick it up at the farm in Hillsborough or we’ll deliver it anywhere in the Triangle for just $25.00. If you need firewood you can email Richard (richard@zelyandritz.com) or call the farm at 919-732-4168.

Thanks for making our first year such a success. We look forward to dining with all of you many times in 2006.

Sarig, Nancy, Richard