Nonna Mercato's wildly popular summer dinner series, Summer Nights, rightfully sold out shortly after being announced. And now, Chef Cameron Slaugh wants to provide the same treatment for the upcoming winter weeks with an ode to the alpine heart of Italy.

For December, Northern Nights will be a seasonal tasting at Nonna Mercato that pulls from the kitchens and valleys of Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, Friuli, and Trentino-Alto Adige. It is Chef Cameron's continued, various love letters to the differing regions of Italy. The result of Northern Nights is a menu that feels both rustic and rarefied, reflecting Slaugh's hallmark balance between comfort and precision.

The progression starts with spuntini meant for sharing. The wonderfully earthy and creamy creation that is tomino cheese, glazed with caramelized honey and Sicilian sea salt. Speck draped in olio verde. Rye focaccia perfumed with roasted garlic. It's the kind of shareable, opening act that lets texture and salt do the talking.

From there, diners choose among greens like fennel and cabbage with roccolo valtaleggio -- the "holy trinity" of cheeses as it is simultaneously soft, firm, and crumbly -- hazelnut and Amalfi coast fish sauce. Or radicchio with aged goat cheese and pistachio. Or marinated artichokes dusted with tarragon, dijon, chive, and white wine.

Then come the pastas and hearty mains that remind you why this corner of Italy shaped the language of comfort food.

Tagliatelle tangled in Chef Cameron's nonna's bolognese. Tortellini en brodo in a delicate broth straight from Bologna -- a different take on the very dish he served during Summer Nights. The finessed flex that is weaved lasagna, lined with the heirloom broccoli that is spigarello, cultured cream, and charred bay laurel. There's a gnocchi di ricotta in a ragú using the smoky, buttery black trumpet mushroom as its highlight. And, as a last choice, tajarin al tartufo, a dish covered with black truffles from Piedmont. For secondi, short rib en croute with porcini and northern-spiced jus, and roasted duck with whipped honey and black garlic anchor the meal in true winter luxury.

It's a meal that looks like a passage through fog and forest and feels like one beside a fire and family.

The cost? $60 per person. Therefore: Go.

There is no question that Long Beach's pasta game is unparalleled when compared to any other time. From relative newbies like Due Fiori and Marlena to long-time staples like La Parolaccia and Ellie's, Long Beach has become a haven for pasta lovers. But no one quite does it at the execution and level of Chef Cameron.

Just look at the way he talks about the flour he uses: "The farmer of this flour has been here and the moment he just let me touch it, I knew I had to work with it," Chef Cameron told me back in 2023. "It's beyond flour; it's a fine powder."

He is right: The flour comes off like a corn starch-gone-fine culinary cocaine to the touch and feel, light and incredibly smooth, with absolutely zero graininess to it. It's hard not to play with, gripping it in fistfuls and watching it snow atop the wooden slab he rolls his mattarello -- a roughly meter-long wooden pin, purchased while he was in Italy -- across to create his hand-rolled pastas.

Surely, Nonna Mercato has some extruded pastas. Those are pastas pushed through bronze, cut to the shape of the desired pasta: spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine.... But the hand-rolled bits? That's where the heart of Nonna's pastas lies. With it, Long Beach's finest versions of sopressini, tortelloni, and orecchiette are churned out by hand and mattarello alone.

And it's a wonder to behind.