I heard about La Cave from a colleague at work, and then realized that it's actually a very short walk from my home. It took me a while to finally get myself there, as the business hours mostly overlap my work hours. However, I had an afternoon "off" one day (I was home with a sick baby) and decided to take him for a walk and we found ourselves in La Cave, which is mostly French imported goods (and some other gourmet items from Europe) - including wines, pasteries, chocolates, and many other items. All of the stars must have been aligned, because that evening they were having a food and wine pairing event with items from Lauguedoc and Provence regions. My parent-teacher conference had been cancelled that night but I still had the babysitter booked. The hostess (Valeri) was on the phone, and I overheard that she was receiving a cancellation. I told her that I'd be happy to attend with my husband. She checked one person that was on the waiting list (but got no reply) and so, by chance, my husband and I snuck in for this fantastic evening. The price was $35 each, which included 5 courses of food/wine pairing. To be fair, I thought it was a dinner initially, but my much smarter husband realized it was more like "tapas" amounts of food with wine. However, Valeri and Raphael (her husband) were generous hosts, poured the wine fairly freely and made all the food themselves. It was all delicious and though the cooked with items from their stock and poured wines from "cellar" they were not at all pushy about getting you to buy things. They seemed very much that firstly, we enjoy ourselves and secondly, that they could impart a little French education/culture onto their guests. By the end of the night, I was very pleasantly warm-faced and glad that I only had to walk up the street to get home. I learned by joining the mailing list that they have other wine and food pairing evenings, some cooking classes and other one-off events. They also seve coffees in the mornings and have a lovely selection of frozen and par-baked French pastries that look amazing (though, I have not yet had a chance to try them). This little place is situated a short distance off SH 1, as you head south out of Hamilton toward Cambridge, in the Riverlea neighborhood. You could bike there from the CBD (which would be a fairly good ride) and by car it's about 5-8 minutes out of the CBD. It's well worth a little visit if you are looking for some wine, some fabulous chocolate (also stored in the temperature-controlled wine 'cave'), coffee, pastries, etc. read more

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