Tutto Bene offers sophisticated taste of wine

The new European-inspired wine cafe, Tutto Bene, is original to the city of Bloomington. Located at 213 S. Rogers St., Tutto Bene offers more than 200 wines from around the globe, with gourmet appetizers and desserts, and is the epitome of a night on the town. Owned by Jason Widen, Marci Widen, Craig Widen and Heather McDougall, the restaurant provides all the comforts of family and friends. The restaurant is decorated with purple and green furniture, Persian rugs, hardwood floors and coppertop tables. \nCraig Widen, who was a military pilot and has lived in places like Italy and Britain, said the restaurant reflects his travels.\n"If we were in Europe, we would probably live on top of our cafe," he said. "A lot of what you see would probably be furniture that started out in our home and made it into the business." \nMarci Widen designed the U-shaped bar that greets the eye upon entering the establishment.\n"It's a fun place to come and sit with your friends, and have a nice time together," Marci Widen said. \nGeneral manager Alec Widen said the cafe is also a place where people can learn more about wine and where it is from. They are planning to incorporate a wine compendium, where people can come in and research the wines offered and the wines they want. Currently, the cafe does not have wines before the year of 1995, but Marci Widen said it is for a reason. \n"I think we've been concentrating on trying some new wines from some new wineries that aren't the biggest. So it's fun to try smaller things," Marci Widen said. "Part of it is we want to have some reasonable priced wines, quite of bit of it is price." \nTutto Bene, offers a variety of wines by the bottle that range from $9 to $150. They also offer wine by the glass and tasters for $2. Customers are encouraged to find something they like before they buy an entire bottle. \n"What we would like to do and one of our goals is to encourage people and find customers that don't know a lot about wine and are experimenting," Craig Widen said. "We want them to allow us to help them experiment with reasonably-priced wines. We can teach the rules and all you want to know about the vineyards." \nThe wine list has five ports which include Oliver Maximum Port Bloomington Indiana 2002, Kracher Beerenauslese, Neudsiedlersee, Austria 2002 and 14 different champagnes. Tutto Bene has wines from such diverse places across the world as South Africa, New Zealand, Spain, France, Germany, Lebanon and Chile. \nWine tasting isn't all that attracts customers. Food is also an essential part of the Tutto Bene experience. \n"We are more into the tapa style of eating where you can get a couple of appetizers and enjoy it amongst friends, kind of a sharing type of eating," Alec Widen said. "In a normal restaurant you get the food and you pair it with the wine. Our focus is more on you get wine and you pair it with the food." \nKitchen manager Shelly Critchfield said she creates the food with simplicity in mind. She also uses fresh herbs grown locally and if she can't get local food, she tries to go organic. \n"I think the simplicity of the food is best suited to the wine. This isn't a restaurant about the food. It's about the wine." Critchfield said. \nCritchfield likes colorful palettes and every sandwich is served with fruit. The food is served on all white plates so the color pops out. She said it looks really good at night when the candles are lit.\nMarsha Minton, a regular customer of Tutto Bene, said she likes the environment of the wine bar. There are lots of things that draw her to the cafe. \n"I like good food, casual environment, relaxing and comfortable chairs. They tell me everything is for sale so I think that's an interesting idea," Minton said.\nMarci Widen said people come in requesting to buy the wine glasses and the water glasses, along with many other items in the store. Many of the coppertop tables have been sold as well, \n"We wanted to put that out there, that we're not just a cafe, just something different," Alec Widen said. "Have you ever gone into a place where you can purchase the couch you are sitting on?" \n-- Contact arts editor Patrice Worthy at pworthy@indiana.edu.