Auburn Magazine

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He makes his own kimchee, the
fermented and spicy Korean cabbage
dish. “But instead of using cabbage,
I’ll use green garlic because it’s
seasonal.”
The menu changes based on
availability, but one can usually
choose an entree from among an
impeccable piece of fish, a tender cut
of beef, a house-made pasta creation
and sometimes a selection from
another part of the world.
Seasons are also important to Gary
and Drew Moffat. Baseball season, to
be precise. The Chicago transplants
are big Cubs fans. To mark the last
World Series, in which the Cubs beat
the Cleveland Indians, Gary and
Drew one night rented a portable
jumbo TV-on-a-trailer, closed the
street in front of the restaurant,
and created an open-air, feel-good
community event.
A couple of times a year, they also
offer “Chicago dogs” as a special
menu item. The Vienna all-beef brats
come in the style of the Windy City,
snuggled inside a steamed poppyseed
bun and bedecked with sport peppers,
neon green relish, yellow mustard and
celery salt. If a working-class hotdog’s
not “approachable,” nothing is.
Except the burgers. Yep, Carpe Vino
also offers cheeseburgers periodically
– again, first-come, first-served until
they run out. A CV Angus burger is a
half-pound two-hander with toasted
brioche bun, house fondue cheese,
caramelized onions and steak fries.
(Now this is a happy meal.) For those
who prefer their burger with a brew
rather than a Beaujolais, CV offers
a selection of craft beers, including
several from Placer County. There’s
that sense of place again.
Chef Eric’s finely honed and educated
palette takes no offense to a good
burger (“I go to In N Out, for sure,”
he readily admits). He has a favorite
place for tacos, and 6-year-old
daughter Josephine’s favorite eatery
is Chevy’s. But like her culinary
parents, Josie also has gourmet game.
“She makes a salad – it’s so good, I
told her I’d put it on the menu,”
Eric says. She trims the lettuce, cuts
the stems off any other greens, then
whips up her own simple vinaigrette:
“Olive oil, Meyer lemon and salt. …
She collects the eggs at the farm, and
she’s a constant in the kitchen.”
But hotdogs and cheeseburgers
aren’t Carpe Vino’s bread and butter.
Approachability is fine to a point, but
this is undeniably fine dining.
“We have people who have been
all around the world and who have
eaten everything,” Eric says. “I still
want them to come and have things
they haven’t tried.”
Eleven years is a long time for an
executive chef to stay in one kitchen.
What’s kept Chef Eric at Carpe
Vino for so long? “I have almost 100
percent say in the food, the dishes,”
he says.
But with that longevity, does he run
the risk of repeating himself? “If I
think, ‘What did people used to like?’
– I’m trying not to do that,” he says.
“I still want them to be excited about
new things.”
Freshness, innovation and new
ideas are also a focus of Gary and
Drew Moffat. “We’re not the new
game in town,” Drew says. “We
compete against ourselves from the
last experience the customer had
until the next. We want to be very
good and affordable, but at the same
time, we can’t let that (affordability)
diminish what the chef’s trying to
do.”
About 60 or 70 percent of Carpe
Vino’s patrons are repeat customers
– some come weekly, some prefer to
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