By Elena Kadvany
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I am a perpetually hungry twenty-something journalist, born and raised in Menlo Park and currently working at the Palo Alto Weekly as education and youth staff writer. I graduated from USC with a major in Spanish and a minor in journalism. Though my first love is journalism, food is a close second. I am constantly on the lookout for new restaurants to try, building an ever-expanding "to eat" list. As a journalist, I'm always trolling news sources and social media websites with an eye for local food news, from restaurant openings and closings to emerging food trends. When I was a teenager growing up in Menlo Park, I always drove up to the city on weekends with the singular purpose of finding a better meal than I could at home. But in the past year or so, the Peninsula's food culture has been totally transformed, with many new restaurants opening and a continuous stream of San Francisco restaurants coming south to open Peninsula outposts. Don't navigate this food boom hungry and alone! Feed me your tips on new chefs and eats and together we'll share them with the broader community.
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After almost four years of selling Italian wine at Town & Country Village in Palo Alto,
Biondivino Wine Boutique has closed.
Owner Ceri Smith, who started Biondivino in San Francisco in 2006, said her lease expired for the space in the back of the El Camino Real shopping center. She considered renewing the lease but decided against it given the space lacks the license to offer wine tastings.
"We really would like to have the opportunity for people to be able to explore the wines also through winemaker tastings, since many people are unfamiliar to the different Italian regions, grape varieties, natural wine, etc. -- even for the die-hard Italophile -- and without having a tasting license there, we had to pull a catering permit each time to have a tasting," Smith wrote in an email. "With the recent vacancies in the center it was a hard choice but made more sense to concentrate on our SF shop for now."
Biondivino owner Ceri Smith in her now-closed Palo Alto wine shop. Photo by Veronica Weber.
Biondivino specialized in small producers from all 20 wine-growing regions of Italy.
Local customers can still visit the San Francisco shop at 1415 Green St. or purchase wine through Biondivino's website and/or wine club.
