No Passport Required

A typical night at Dram Tree Tavern, located in the Sunset Park neighborhood, is laid-back, lively, and sprinkled with live music for guests to enjoy. But twice a month on Monday evenings, local chef MANNY FRENCH gives guests a chance to travel around the world without ever leaving Wilmington.

During her pop-up dinners, French serves a different international menu at Dram Tree Tavern, 1806 Washington Street, introducing diners to different flavors, textures, and cultures that they otherwise wouldn’t find on menus across the city.

Since the dinners began, French’s dinners have become a local hotspot, often packing the Sunset Park bar with curious diners, adventurous eaters, and regulars eager to see where her latest menu will take them next.

“It’s so rewarding when it comes to serving the public and the communities and the stories that I hear and the familiarity that breeds from unfamiliar menus,” French says. “It’s hit every single one of my goals that I didn’t even really know I had for myself.”

By day, French is a full-time sous chef at Brightmore of Wilmington, where she helps feed roughly 250 residents of the retirement community each day.

“My heart is definitely here,” French says. “I like to say that I don’t need to be important, but I like what I do to make a difference.”

With French’s heart at Brightmore, the idea for the international pop-up dinners at Dram Tree Tavern came from the tavern’s owner, who is a friend of French’s. The tavern’s kitchen isn’t open on Mondays, so its owners were looking for creative ways to provide food to patrons. Combined with her full-time role, twice a month was the perfect capacity for French, and the ideal solution for the tavern.

“She threw me into this idea of a different international menu, and it’s actually insanely ambitious,” French says. “Every week, I do a new menu that requires more research and development.”
No two pop-up dinners are the same. On the horizon, French anticipates serving traditional dishes from Ireland, Hungary, a Mayan-inspired menu, and a dish from the Netherlands. In honor of Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, she’ll serve a veteran-inspired menu on December 7.

“None of these recipes are old-school grandma recipes that are written down for sixty-plus people, which is how many I’m usually serving,” French says. “I’ve had to learn how to scale up recipes, and a lot of that is on the fly.”

As for ingredients, French has had to get creative and make a few road trips to source some of the ingredients she uses.

“I’ve had to drive all the way to Raleigh for some injera bread, which is Ethiopian flatbread that’s made very specifically with a certain grain and with a certain pan,” she says.

Locally, she often stops at international stores, such as the African Caribbean Market on Oleander Drive.

“I do Saigon Market constantly,” she says about the New Saigon International Market off South Kerr Avenue. “I’m there all the time; I have the place basically memorized at this point. I have been to World Market a few times. Publix, surprisingly, has some ingredients that I’ve needed, and I’ve been able to find there. They have a chutney from South Africa, and I’ve done South Africa a couple of times out of request.”

French’s earliest memories of cooking began at her family gatherings.

“I remember having family gatherings, and that was always the best time for me, and it was always around meals,” she says. “It was always around cooking and food, and the people who raised me were always such good cooks, and it brought people together. I learned from a very young age that food wasn’t just nutrition; it wasn’t just to keep going. It was a community. It was a celebration. It was education and all of these things.”
For French, those early experiences helped shape the way she sees food today – not simply as something to eat, but as a way to learn about other cultures, bring people together and tell a story.

Twice a month at Dram Tree, she gets to do all three.

French’s international menu schedule is available ahead of time at facebook.com/ILMBIZ.

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