Dining's dynamic duo to whip up Italian feast at Fort Oak

Fort Oak’s Brad Wise and Travis Swikard, of the upcoming Callie, will create a six-course Fall Harvest wine dinner

San Diego Union-Tribune

Sept. 23, 2019 7 AM PT

They’re the culinary equivalent of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, the masters of smooth precision, with a dash of Thelma and Louise’s devil-may-care abandon thrown in.

Together, chefs Brad Wise and Travis Swikard — San Diego’s newest dynamic dining duo — will kick off a Fall Harvest Wine Dinner series Sept. 26 at Wise’s Mission Hills restaurant Fort Oak.

Wise and Swikard, New York superchef Daniel Boulud’s former culinary director and executive chef at the upcoming Callie Mediterranean eatery in the East Village, will collaborate on a six-course Italian dinner.

G.D. Vajra wines from Italy’s famed Barolo district will be poured.

Coming up in the series will be chef Drew Deckman, of the Valle de Guadalupe’s Deckman’s en el Mogor, with wines from Santa Maria’s Bien Nacido Vineyards (Nov. 14) and Kettner Exchange’s Brian Redzikowski, with wines from Napa’s Frog’s Leap Winery (Dec. 5).

Fall Harvest Wine Dinner at Fort Oak

5:30-9 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 26. 1011 Fort Stockton Drive, Mission Hills. $120, plus tax and tip. Reservations pre-paid for parties of two to four. (619) 722-3398. exploretock.com/fortoak

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Michele Parente

Michele Parente is the Dining, Wine + Lifestyle reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Her areas of expertise include the Valle de Guadalupe wine region, fashion, television, women’s issues and coverage of aging, such as the impact of Alzheimer’s and dementia and family caregiving. Michele is the former Sunday and features editor, where she oversaw profiles, special projects, such as the Legacy of WWII and in-depth reports on a variety of topics. She joined the U-T in 2003, supervising coverage areas that have included features, fashion, TV, Food, Consumer Health and Arts & Entertainment. Previously, Michele was the assistant features editor at The Oregonian, in Portland, as well as the Portland City Hall reporter. She spent 10 years at New York Newsday as a reporter on the crime, education, state legislature and New York City Hall beats. She was part of a team that won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting. A native New Yorker, Michele received her B.A. in political science and Italian Literature at UC Berkeley. In 1980, she studied at L’Università di Urbino, in Italy. One of her life’s goals is to make her way through each of the world’s great wine regions.