Tonight: Olivea spills over with good food at a benefit for the Gulf

By Patricia Calhoun Thu., Jun. 24 2010 at 1:06 PM

Categories: Good Food, Good Cause

Olivea is one of the seventeen 17th Avenue businesses joining together for the Seventeen on 17th benefit tonight, when they'll all donate 10 percent of their sales to the National Wildlife Federation Gulf Oil Spill Restoration Fund.

That alone is a good reason to visit Olivea. But here's another one: Tonight, the restaurant that Keith Arnold and Stephanie Bonin (the husband-wife partners who brought us Duo), chef John Broening and pastry chef Yasmin Lozada-Hissom (another couple) opened in May 2009 to immediate acclaim will debut its new summer menu.

That new menu includes such items as pesto flatbread with goat cheese and potatoes, and roasted Colorado striped bass served with corn, young carrots and a shellfish essence. But many of Olivea's most popular dishes are being held over, too, including the duck meatballs -- "They've been on from the very beginning," says Brooke Bishop, director of operations -- and all the charcuterie.

Other restaurants involved in tonight's benefit include WaterCourse Foods, Parallel Seventeen, Strings, Hamburger Mary's, Avenue Grill and Caveau Wine Bar; participating retail businesses include Grind Haus, Babylon Floral, Masten Fine Framing and Talulah Jones, whose owner, Robin Lohre, came up with the idea for the fundraiser.