Novels Nibbles
Where good food meets great stories 📚 🍽️
This year, we invite you to slow down and savor more than just a meal. Nibbles & Novels is our celebration of comfort food and classic literature, experiencing meals in unforgettable stories.
Whether you’re turning pages over a bite to eat or discussing a beloved novel between courses, this experience is about connection, creativity, and indulgence. From cozy flavors inspired by timeless tales to an atmosphere made for readers and food lovers alike, every visit is a chapter worth remembering.
Pull up a chair. Take a bite. Turn the page. Share your favorite meal in a novel and you might see it on the menu. Because the best stories are even better when shared over good food.
Current Special
Novels & Nibbles: Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
This week we’re diving fork-first into Chiles en Nogada, a dish as dramatic as the novel itself. Draped in the colors of the Mexican flag, this iconic plate celebrates Mexican independence while carrying a whole lot more than flavor. Chiles en Nogada shows up loaded with meaning. This dish mirrors Tita’s own struggle between inherited rules and personal freedom. Like every meal she creates throughout the story, it becomes a powerful release of emotion. Love, longing, grief, rebellion… Tita pours it all into her cooking, and everyone who eats feels it whether they’re ready or not.
Chiles en Nogada (Chiles in Walnut Sauce, for those of us politely negotiating with Spanish) This iconic dish reads like magical realism on a plate. Roasted poblano peppers take on the role of the vessel, filled with a rich mestizaje of ground beef and pork, sweet plantain, tomatoes, candied pineapple, black raisins, almonds, onion, and garlic. Each ingredient acts as its own narrative voice, savory and sweet in deliberate tension. The story resolves beneath a creamy walnut sauce before being punctuated with pomegranate seeds and fresh parsley. Red, white, and green. A clear motif of Mexican identity, independence, and tradition.
Come for the Chiles en Nogada. Leave a little more in love with food that tells a story.
Previous Special
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
This week’s Novels & Nibbles follows Rose, a young girl who discovers she has a very odd superpower: she can taste people’s emotions in the food they make. She figures this out on her ninth birthday, when one bite of her mom’s lemon cake hits her with a wave of sadness instead of sweetness. From then on, every meal becomes an emotional clue, and navigating family, love, and growing up gets a lot stranger, and a lot more interesting. 🍰
We’re serving up a little edible love letter rich in imagery, metaphor, and mood, where every bite tells a story. Made completely from scratch, this sweet narrative travels straight from our hearts to your plate. Delicate crepes cradle crumbled lemon cake like a well-kept secret, set atop silky lemon curd, and brought to a dramatic conclusion with a decadent drizzle of dark chocolate ganache.
Can you taste it? Made with love. AND a hint of mischief.
$16.95
01/28/2026 - 02/01/2026
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Where the Crawdads Sing serves up food with meaning and a little marsh magic.
For Kya, food isn’t just a meal, it’s how she survives. Digging mussels, gathering grits, and cooking what the marsh provides are bold acts of self-reliance and living proof that she belongs to this wild place. As she matures and begins sharing simple cabin meals with Tate, food shifts into something sweeter. It becomes trust, intimacy, and care passed across the table. By the final pages, food tells Kya’s whole story. What she eats, how she gathers it, and who she shares it with reflect her loneliness, her strength, and the quiet nourishment of finally belonging.
This week’s Literary Meal drifts straight out of the marshlands of Where the Crawdads Sing. We've gathered the flavors that shaped Kya’s world and turned them into a dish that’s as beautiful as it is comforting. Creamy bacon, jalapeño, and cheddar grits form the heart of the plate, rich and grounding. On top, tender mussels steamed in white wine, tomatoes, and vegetable broth bring a briny whisper of the marsh, slow and soulful.
Rooted in survival and finished with grace, this dish is as soulful as the story behind it. Come taste it, linger over it, and don’t forget your camera… it’s one of those plates you admire before the first bite.
$15.95
