This story first appeared in Globe Rhode Island’s Food & Dining newsletter, a free weekly email about Rhode Island’s restaurant industry that also contains information about local events, Q&As with chefs, dining guides, and more. If you’d like to receive it via e-mail each Thursday, you can sign up here.
In July 1874, the Newport Daily News reported that “picnic season is at hand,” which indicates that attending or hosting one was once a seasonal norm.
Ward McAllister, who I’m told by historians was a charming southern lawyer and who made his money during the Gold Rush out West, purchased Bayside Farm in Newport in the 1850s as a summer retreat. (It surely wasn’t the type of cottage that I’m used to.)
His summer cottage became famous for his picnics, which were lavish little parties for his wealthy guests. He was educated in fashion, was quite the party planner, and understood fine foods and wines.
To be invited to one of McAllister’s picnics, with sweeping views of the Atlantic and a backdrop of great mansions made of marble and stone, meant you were part Newport’s elite circle.
The Gilded Age ended more than 100 years ago, but a restaurant group in Newport is looking to bring these plush outdoor parties back to the lawns of seaside mansions.
Stoneacre Picnics is the same company that owns Stoneacre Brasserie (on Washington Square) and Garden (on Swinburne Row) among other hospitality ventures. And they are hosting full-service, curated, and catered picnics at the Marble House (a national historic landmark that is also home to the Chinese Tea House), The Elms (which is modeled after a 1700s-French chateau), and The Breakers (which is considered by many to be the grandest of the city’s cottages).
Packages, which start at $375, include a serious spread of artisanal cheese and charcuterie boards, local farmstand crudite, salads, seasonal fruit, pretty desserts, and other finger foods.
Some packages include sparkling wine, a proper croquet set up (including instructions if you don’t know how to play), and a caviar tasting. You can add a spread rose petals, candles, and blooming flower bouquets.
Everything is set up when you arrive: The table is decorated and set out on a picnic blanket with low-pillow seating, lanterns surround your picnic area, there are charger plates, linen napkins, and you’re drinking from copper tumblers, and wine glasses.
If you need something? A picnic concierge is just around the corner.McAllister wrote about the lavish Newport picnics in his 1890 memoir, “Society as I Have Found It:”
“These little parties were then, and are now, the stepping-stones to our best New York society... To acquire such intimacy in a great city like New York would have taken you a lifetime.”
Visitors comes to Newport from around the globe each year. Yet to me, it still has an intimacy that can’t be replicated. Perhaps that was born from the picnics so long ago.
If you have recommendations or suggestions, shoot me an email at Alexa.Gagosz@globe.com.
Visit Food & Dining in Rhode Island for more. Because everyone’s gotta eat!
Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.