Gatherings

Piena
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vita piena • full life
piena fioritura • full bloom
luna piena • full moon

Piena, the feminine of Pieno, meaning full — fullness in life, in thought and in spirit. The fullness we seek can be found in the warmth of familial conversations, the gratitude felt after being with the ones we love or an evening spent with like minds creating something entirely new. And its remembrance is just as full as the very first occurrence.

Piena retells the story of nights spent around our kitchen table with our family and friends. A truly one-of-a-kind private in-house dining series at Lune that allows guests to feast, converse and spend time with local and international chefs as they create recipes (in our very own kitchen) only to be revealed the day they arrive. Guests are invited to a seasonal private tour of Lune’s gardens and Sticky beehives and are encouraged to converse with the chef in Lune’s intimate dining room and kitchen.

Piena is a celebration of all the gatherings we have known, and all those yet to be shared. Come over soon.
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Photography: Matt Henry

The Piena Experience

Capacity
Up to 18 Guests

Availability
Monday - Saturday

Rate
Flat Rate 4500 + 475/person*

Includes
Welcome cocktail and canapés
5 Course menu
5 Wine pairings
Transportation by car (from Toronto)**

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For all private Piena events please inquire at piena@lune1860.ca for available dates and see more booking details here.

* Minimum of 8 guests (or a minimum spend of 3500)

** We have often found the most carefree evenings to be the ones where we receive an invitation from a friend, and the rest is taken care of. As your hosts, your Piena experience begins with a phone call or email to us, and we will look after the rest. Allow us to pick you up in a private car, whether it's a birthday, engagement dinner, or retreat, so you can fully celebrate being together again.

December 22, 2022

Host: Chef Chris Locke

If you’re ever looking for something to chat with Chris Locke about, simply say the word, “fermentation.”

“If people are genuinely interested and want to know more, I will talk forever,” he says with a laugh. “I usually have to cut myself short.”

It’s no surprise then, that Locke, who is currently executive chef at Toronto’s Marben & The Cloak and has been featured by national media outlets like Global News and The Globe and Mail, describes his food as “fermentation led.”

“I like to use fermented ingredients to bring about flavor, but also to reduce waste,” he explains. “You often bring about something that’s better than the original.”

Fun fact: According to Locke, the reason our brains register fermented things as delicious is because the microbes involved in the fermentation process have already done much of the digesting work for us, which is a great thing for our gut health.

“It’s a trickery of our mind that tells us to eat more of them,” he says. “Our saliva glands start pumping, and we have cravings for these foods.” This passion for fermentation ties closely to another hallmark of Locke’s cuisine: Locally sourced, in season ingredients.

“If you’re eating something with pineapple on it, it’s probably not something I made,” says Britain-born, Toronto-based chef who moved to Canada over a decade ago. “There’ll be no avocado toast, either.” Instead, he focuses on food that “belongs here, grows here.”

Locke is deeply interested in food systems, specifically the ways that we can create sustainable ones.

“It’s increasingly evident that our food systems are very fragile,” he explains. “There’s a lot of food insecurity, desertification, drought, and natural disasters. There are a lot of issues with how food is grown, sold, transported and consumed.” Growing food locally, he says, can have a real, positive impact on the environment. Locke is also an enthusiastic forager, and his finds often show up on his menus. In fact, staghorn sumac - that bush with red cone-shaped blossoms on it you probably see everywhere - will be featuring in a dish at his upcoming Piena at Lune. Full disclosure: Because he’s been busy, and it was a wet fall, he wasn’t able to gather his own this year. Instead, he’ll be using some picked last year.

Another unique feature of a meal cooked by Locke is his “explorations,” which are interludes between courses where you’re treated to a mini-flight of fermented foods, like a tasting of miso in its raw form.

“Chefs often cook in a way where there’s no need for guests to taste ingredients in their raw form because they’re familiar,” he says. “A risotto, you don’t need to give somebody the rice.”

With something potentially unfamiliar like miso, or garam made from fermented meat, or a vinegar made from fruit or vegetables, it can be eye-opening for diners to experience those ingredients in their essential form, and learn about how they’re made.

“There’s a big backstory to these ingredients,” says Locke, who loves nothing more than educating people about them. On the menu for Lune, for example, he’s got a squid garam (essentially a fish sauce) that’s been fermenting for a year.

“It’s had a year of enzymatic activity to make this sauce, which is one aspect of a dish that has 12 components,” he says. “There’s a lot of history in those ingredients. It’s not as simple as something that was grown and then heated.” Think of everything that’s happened in the year that it was there, all those enzymes quietly working away…

“Especially for lacto-ferments, there are millions of microbes in there. It’s like having a huge brigade of cooks doing work while you sleep, changing one ingredient into something different,” he says.

“You end up with these really beautiful, unique ingredients that you really didn’t have to work for.”

Photography: Melissa Sung
Editing: Sarah Laing
Art Direction / Styling / Design: Lune

July 31st, 2022

Host: Chef Aakash Dhall

Rooted in his classic French training and forever inspired by the lessons he learned in his mother’s kitchen growing up in India, chef Aakash Dhall has brought his zeal for food to a truly international list of cuisine styles in buzzy kitchens around Toronto, including Nota Bene, Gusto, Reverie At The Park, Tutti Matti and private members club Clio. A recent winner of Food Network Canada’s Fire Masters, Dhall currently works as a research and development chef at 1Hotels. His alma mater, George Brown College, recently announced a scholarship in his honour, which will assist international students pursuing culinary studies at the prestigious school.

“I always tell people that I love cooking Italian food, because it is so similar to the way we eat in India,” he says as an example of how all these cultural throughlines meet in his work. “It’s everyone gathered around a table, and we feast together, “he says. “There’s also that same focus on seasoning and adding layers of flavour.” When he began learning to cook professionally, he found that it was all familiar to him, because he’d watched his mother do it. “How do you maximize every ingredient? How do you use spices? All of those I already knew.”

“If I were to define it in one word, my food style is eclectic,” says Dhall, who has spent the last nine months immersing himself in the cuisine of Japan in his role as a chef at the 1Hotel’s rooftop spot Harriet’s. That’s not to say it’s not intentional - far from it. “Everything has to make sense on the plate,” he says. “The textures, the colours, the flavours should all have meaning, everything in contrast.”

Photography: Marissa Joan Ho
Editing: Sarah Laing
Art Direction / Styling / Design: Lune

December 31, 2021

Host: Chef Mathew McIntyre

How do you bid farewell? In honour of what was, and all that we can look forward to, we decided that New Year's Eve 2021 would be a celebration of intimacy and love, while also evoking feelings of groundedness and hope. Of course, these being the times we are living in, our small group had to become smaller, and in turn, this gathering became one of our most intimate Piena’s to date. Fortunately, with our very, very small group fully vaccinated and tested prior, we were able to ring in the new year with our closest loved ones. 

At Lune, it feels like we can always mark the passing of time by the changing water fountain that intersects the long avenue that leads to our house. So for New Year’s Eve we brought the ethos of the fountain indoors, with a cascading sculpture of amaranths that softly changed in colour from dark green (symbolising the shedding of the past year) to ivory (welcoming the new year). As water flows upwards towards new possibilities, a dark green velvet tablecloth grounded us into the earth—inspired by Huron County’s very own, Chef Mathew McIntyre, who believes to be truly nourished, you must return to the land that feeds you. Mathew took us on a culinary journey of the seasons, celebrating the past year with a symphony of ingredients that paid homage to the tastes and colours of the changing year. Grapefruit and the first greens of spring, the summer freshness of basil and mozzarella, the mushrooms and duck of autumn and the decadence of winter and the holiday season encapsulated in a perfect tartufo. 

Mathew McIntyre is the Founder and Head Chef of Truly Local Catering. Growing up in Perth County, Mathew spent his childhood amongst farmers and growers before embarking on his own journey as a chef. He didn’t have to travel far to learn formal European cooking in Stratford and London, Ontario, but from there he travelled extensively throughout North America, eventually becoming the Executive Sous Chef on one of the largest cruise ships in the world. But then he returned to his roots and the earth: “I didn’t see the connection to food anymore, so I came home. Now, I’m always looking at the elements of the ingredients, how the fruits and vegetables are grown, what season they are in and how I can use them minimally, so that they are truly nourishing.” Mathew even grows his own vegetables now to create dishes wholly inspired by the land and region he’s always called home. 

May we always know where home is, and travel far so we can return. Looking forward to a new year with everyone, new adventures and welcoming you all to Lune again! 

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Photography: Marissa Joan Ho
Editing: Aliyah Craig
Florals: Jordana Masi
Art Direction / Styling / Design: Lune

July 17, 2021

Host: Chef Miriam Echeverria

July 17th  -- An evening of lemons. In Italy, lemons signify love, friendship and longevity. Initially though, the yellow was meant to evoke the sunset, the forecast had called for rain so we illuminated our room from within with yellow and ivory, but as with any gathering, love and friendship were the big themes of the night. Our wonderful Chef Miriam Echeverria gathered three of her closest friends, two great cooks and one sommelier, to help in the kitchen. It was the first time in over a year they were able to see and work together. And because these are the times we are living in, the family that gathered hadn’t seen each other in almost two years and had flown in from California and western Canada to visit friends and family from the local area. It was joyous, beautiful and heartfelt both around the table and in the kitchen. We can’t tell you how grateful Ezra and I have been this year to host all these small but incredible reunions.  

Miriam Echeverria was formerly head chef of Greta Solomon’s (a small French-themed restaurant in Toronto’s east end), and her dishes are a melting pot of inspiration that can trace her roots from Mexico (where she trained as an artist) to working in kitchens across the city. Miriam also runs a female-led chef initiative calledCheffing4Goodin which five chefs (including Miriam) host charitable dinners throughout the city. Inspired by Judy Chicago’s now infamous 1970s feminist art installation, The Dinner Party, each event raises money for organizations that support the city’s most vulnerable women. Thank you Miriam and the team for showering us with love, food and hope.
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Photography: Marissa Joan Ho
Editing: Aliyah Craig
Event Planning: Mega Projects
Art Direction / Styling / Design: Lune

July 10, 2021

Host: Chef Matthew Ravenscroft

Matthew has spent his career working at such acclaimed Toronto restaurants as Parts & Labour and The Drake Hotel. Most recently he has embraced plant-based eating both professionally and personally, helping launch the celebrated vegan Mexican restaurant Rosalinda. He currently runs Tuesdays Kinda Suck, a free, live cookalong, and Friday Night Delights, a weekly vegan pickup dinner, where he donates $5 from each sale to a food justice charity.
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“To me, cooking is a thread that connects us all. There’s a true level of intimacy, trust and curiosity to be able to cook for others, and to be able to convey my enthusiasm through food. We live in a world with so much biodiversity and the plant world has so much to offer. There’s a beauty in it. There is also a type of care and passion that is required to make these magical plants come to life. For me, it’s a bit of a love language. I want to show that eating great food is one of the simplest and most rewarding pleasures. That’s really what brought together things like Tuesdays Kinda Suck and Friday Night Delights, the recognition that we’re all home, but we still feel the need to connect, discover and make new things. It continually reminds me that the opportunity to sit at a table and serve people a little piece of my heart is nourishing for both of us.”
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Photography: Marissa Joan Ho
Editing: Aliyah Craig
Event Planning: Mega Projects
Art Direction / Styling / Design: Lune

July 04, 2021

Host: Chef Kevin Castonguay

There is nothing more momentous this year than a family gathering. To gather at all is cause for celebration, but to be able to do it with the ones you love most—the ones you haven’t been able to see or hug or pass food around a table with—feels both new and joyous and festive, but also deeply comforting. This was the atmosphere of our first private Piena of 2021 (one that Ezra and I were so blessed to be part of), and to mark the occasion we chose a chef who embodies all of these things. 

Kevin Castonguay founded his catering company Provisions eight years ago in order to bring fine dining to everyone. Previously Sous Chef and Executive Chef at both beloved Toronto restaurants Woodlot and Grace, Kevin never hides his humble beginnings. As he once proudly remarked to Notable: “I didn’t start at The French Laundry—it was an Applebee’s.” Today, he continues to marry the nostalgia of family-style food and gatherings with his contemporary and artistic approach to well-known classics. “It’s honest food, but prepared with a lot of thought and consideration. I’m always thinking about the seasons, different textures and the play of colours with every dish. I love cooking for people. I still get that same euphoric feeling that I had when I first started cooking, and if I can make everyone walk away feeling that blissful—well, what more could you ask for?”
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Photography: Marissa Joan Ho
Editing: Aliyah Craig
Art Direction / Styling / Design: Lune

September 26, 2020

Host: Ralph Duchesne

On September 26th, we hosted our first private Piena event for @makers.to - a Toronto production agency. The intimate experience was hosted by our dear dear friend Ralph Duchesne @eventcube. A special friendship that has endured over 20 years. Whether it's cooking for friends or discovering new flavours with his partner, Ralph's passion for unique culinary experiences have never left any of us hungry. This past Saturday, he prepared a menu of autumn delights that consisted of a vegetable carpaccio and a heavenly black truffle mushroom salsa grilled cheese (and much much more). It was definitely a feast for all senses. Everyone left feeling nothing less than full… full of food, laughter and meaningful conversations.
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Photography: Marissa Joan Ho
Art Direction / Styling / Design: Lune

Host: Chef Guy Rawlings

Chef Guy Rawlings and his wife Kim have spent their careers creating seasonal dishes, presenting them in their most simplest almost purist form. Eschewing imported ingredients for mostly Ontario-grown produce they are continually redefining the terms ‘local’ and ‘Canadian’ for all us, and always with an element of surprise. In 2019, Montgomery’s ranked no. 7 in Post City’s 50 Best Toronto Restaurants as well as receiving a 4 out of 4 star review in the Toronto Star. Becoming a respected space of forward-thinking food, The New York Times and Food & Wine both listed the restaurant as a destination hot spot. We are so honoured that they were our host for the first intimate culinary experience this summer.
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Photography: Arash Moallemi
Art Direction / Design: Lune
Event Planning: Mega Projects
Editing: Aliyah Craig