Event Recap: Slow Food Community Dinner at Ama

In December 2025, Slow Food DC was thrilled to partner with Chef Johanna Hellrigl of Ama for a celebratory holiday feast that left everyone feeling full — literally and figuratively. Ama created a special menu for 25 members and guests that showcased local farmers, artisanal Italian producers, and the Slow Food values of good, clean, and fair food for all. 

Since Ama opened last year, Chef Hellrigl and her husband and co-owner Micah Wilder have put the Slow Food philosophy at the core of their operations, aiming to create a new era of restaurants where “indulgence coexists seamlessly with nourishment, community, and connection.” The attendees at the holiday dinner certainly felt this in the warm conversation shared over family-style plates of sustainable, organic, and delicious northern Italian fare. 

Chef Hellrigl welcomed the group to a private dining room and shared some of the practices and principles that make Ama’s food special, from personal relationships with traditional artisans making olive oil and coffee in Ligura and regenerative farmers growing crops specially for Ama in the mid-Atlantic, to ingredients and recipes that are inclusive of all diets and ensure that diners feel good now while enjoying craveable food at her restaurant — and still feel good later thanks to truly nourishing dishes.

After a house-made herbal aperitivo to whet guests appetites, the four-course meal began with thin Ligurian focaccia bursting with soft crescenza cheese, crispy chickpea pancakes baked with olive oil, and a bitter greens salad with radishes and a creamy dressing. Chef Hellrigl also offered what she deemed “adventure bites” showcasing two northern Italian staples: vitello tonnato (thinly sliced veal in a tuna-caper sauce) and lingua con salsa verde (beef tongue) This was followed by the pasta course — beautiful handmade borage-infused pasta ribbons in ramp butter and South Tyrolean rye half-moon ravioli filled with spinach and cheese. Crispy marjoram-seasoned roast chicken was the main event, paired with oven-roasted potatoes and zucchini sautéed in white wine. The evening was capped off with a rich and fluffy tiramisu that featured the last of the buckwheat from Next Step produce, one of Hellrigl’s farm partners that tragically suffered a fire earlier this year. Slow Food members left with a sweet taste of Ama to remember the evening – cantucci (almond biscotti) that made the perfect accompaniment for a cup of coffee the next morning. 

Thank you to Ama for the hospitality and partnership, and to all of the guests who dined together in community and in celebration of the local food system and Slow Food values.