On-Grounds dining has its perks -- proximity to classes, to-go boxes for students in a hurry, a broad choice selection of foods for the vegetarian or the vegan and, one of the more innovative aspects of U.Va. dining, themed dinner nights at the Newcomb, Observatory Hill and Runk dining halls.
A "themed dinner" is exactly what its name implies -- a dinner whose menu includes elements that feature a single concept. During the fall semester, themes have included Margaritaville, diversity night and Thanksgiving dinner among others.
"I don't usually eat at dining halls," third-year College student LaQuisha Banks said. "But hearing about themed night made me excited because my friend said that themed nights are always really good and they mix it up since it's usually the same stuff repeated."
According to Executive Chef Tom Fiammetta, these theme concepts were developed before the school year began, though the actual menus are not devised until about a month before the themed dinner takes place. At that time, executive chefs create the menu for each theme and then submit their plans to Fiammetta himself and to nutritionist Paula Caravati, both of whom look over the menus, make notes and return them to their respective chefs. Such a process takes about a week, after which the marketing department begins to "work their magic on the marketing of themed dinners," Fiammetta said.
"This year, we've actually done it a little bit differently than we normally have in the past, where it's been that all the residential units did them at the same time," Fiammetta said. "This year, we wanted to try to get a little more bang for our buck for the students, and let them choose if they want to go to Newcomb one night for a themed meal, and then if they want to go to O-Hill the next week for a themed meal, they can do that."
During the month of November, for example, O-Hill hosted a diversity night-themed meal Nov. 8, Newcomb offered Thanksgiving dinner Nov. 15 and Runk featured a holiday-themed meal Nov. 29.
"Themed dinners are amazing," first-year College student Vanessa Applebaum said. "The regular stuff gets repeated after awhile, so it's really exciting when they happen. I really liked the graveyard cake they had on Halloween and the steak on Western Night."
Fiammetta said he thinks dining halls have offered such themed meals for at least the past 11 or 12 years, adding that the meals represent University Dining's commitment to add variety to on-Grounds dining.
"We really, really appreciate having students in our dining halls [because] we know that it is an option for them to eat here," Fiammetta said. "Doing themed meals is a way of saying, 'Thanks for buying a meal plan, thanks for eating with us. Here's a little something special for you for this month.'"
This reasoning has contributed to the change in themed-meal scheduling, allowing students the chance to enjoy more themed meals per month.
"It's fun, it's festive, it's different -- it's cool to have something different from the regular rotation, to change it up once in a while," first-year College student Rachel Neurohr said, adding that on diversity night, she sat among trays holding remnants of quesadillas, pot-stickers, apple pie à la mode and sushi.
The scheduling of themed nights, however, has not been the only recent change in the domain of the themed dinners. According to Fiammetta, themed dinners have changed because of both technological and equipment advancements, as well as an improvement in the staff's culinary talent.
"Our themed dinners have grown and changed over the years, and I'd like to think for the better," Fiammetta said. "We're able to do more things -- the days of the old-cafeteria-style of kind of scooping-and-dumping-on-a-tray thing are definitely long gone ... We have a lot of exhibition right in front of the students, where it's more like 'What do you want to eat -- let's make it for you fresh' rather than 'We're going to make what we want for you to eat and you're just going to eat it.'"
The culinary talent behind the scenes also plays a large role, as all of the chefs on Grounds are culinary school graduates, each of whom brings a different background to the table, Fiammetta added.
Fiammetta himself is a graduate of the New York Institute of Culinary Education and Culinary Arts and has worked in hotels and private dining in Long Island and New York City.
Chefs' different skills are complemented by special decorations for themed dinners. For Margaritaville, for instance, O-Hill was decorated with an array of palm trees, tiki torches and even colorful miniature umbrellas in mocktails.
Each residential unit, according to Fiammetta, undertakes the task of decorating dining halls differently. Whereas O-Hill hires a Virginia Beach-based decorating company that specializes in theme decorating, the facilitators of Runk go to the store themselves to pick up the decorations they need.
Though decorations complete the themed-dinner package, University Dining decided this year that the dining halls should reduce the amount of ornamentation.
"One of the reasons why we decided to do less decorating [was so] that we could concentrate more on the food," Fiammetta said. "We don't want the theme to be about seeing giant floats and stuff like that ... we decided to do less 'in-your-face' decorations and concentrate on the food."
University Dining employees hope the final result of a themed meal is a diverse selection of quality food students truly want to eat.
"I think [what] is the most important to us is to watch the students really enjoy our food," Fiammetta said. "So many times we forget that we're here because of the students. It's nice to be able to sit back and see the students really enjoy the work that we're doing"
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