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By Cindy Reck
My husband and I had a great time at this restaurant. The food was wonderful and the service was unbeatable. The atmosphere was upscale and romantic. It is the perfect place to go if you want to really live it up and treat yourself to a fantastic ...
By Anthony
Damenti's is by far one of the best places to dine. Excellent food, great setting, and good service!!!
By Erica Leo
Most beer drinkers acknowledge that the best way to serve it is cold, with possibly a little frost on the glass. In Forty Fort this month, icy beer takes on a whole new meaning. The beer is served, literally, in steins carved from ice. This winter, ice sculptors from all around the world have joined together to produce ICE4U2C, an elaborate and highly creative ice show sponsored by Damenti's restaurant. The event, which was created by Damenti's owner Kevin McDonald, depicts scenes culturally indigenous to the Wyoming Valley's anthracite industry in the early 20th century. This place is awesome!
By Paul R.
Done to perfection I've eaten there for years, and never had a bad meal.A personal favorite is the Veal T-bone calabrese a large veal chop served on a bed of peppers, onions, and potatoes. "Damenti's" got some top reviews, many saying it's the best place in the Wilkes-Barre Scranton area ... romantic, with gardens and possibly ice sculptures in the winter. A couple of yahoo reviewers gave it top marks ... others did as well ... it's south of MountainTop, well north of Hazleton and the telephone number shown in my search is (570) 788 2004
If you go, please let us know ...
By Elizabeth Skrapits
The Sunday Voice
Ice carving is probably the only art form that can incorporate chain saws, computers and the fourth dimension.
Angela Polglaze describes herself as a "chain saw chick" who had been doing wood carving for eight years before she made the progression to ice.
Her work for the at the ICE4U2C exhibit in Forty Fort includes the kangaroo on the revolving merry-go-round, which is appropriate because she hails from Melbourne, Australia. "Nothing's happening there. It's too warm," she said. "Kevin McDonald invited me, so I thought, 'well, all right.'"
Polglaze met McDonald, the exhibit's creator, through a wood carver from Wapwallopen.
There's something warm about timber, she said, but ice is different - "it's heavy, and cold, and fragile."
Ice is hard to chisel, and cutting a straight line is nearly impossible. The finishing is different. The tools are expensive.
But the crystal beauty of ice captivates Polglaze, as does the fact that it is a four-dimensional medium: time causes the sculptures to melt and change.
In addition to Polglaze, McDonald brought in 31 professional ice carvers from around the world to create the frozen works of art at the exhibit.
Over the weekend, ice carvers from places within driving distance - New York, Connecticut, and Philadelphia - are coming in to make more sculptures and touch up the details of the existing ones, McDonald said.
Most of the carvers played a role in helping put together the huge train that is the centerpiece of the exhibit. It was planned and created by McDonald and his partner in the enterprise, Richard Schreibmaier.
"For someone like myself in the ice-carving industry, he really opened my eyes with his innovations," Kevin Gregory said of McDonald. "My hat's off to him."
Gregory's Conshohocken-based ice sculpting business, Ice Concepts, was called in to make numerous components for the train, since the business has computerized equipment that can do precision carving.
Ice Concepts worked on the technical and ornamental parts of the train, "the stuff that shows." Gregory and his staff put in two weeks of work making details like wheels, smokestacks, and connecting rods.
Ice carvers usually use a chain saw to shape the block of ice, and chisels and other tools for the finishing and details.
Lettering can be done with a kind of stencil. McDonald said a paper template is made to the required size and adhered to a piece of ice and the carver cuts according to the pattern.
That was how many of the logos at ICE4U2C was done - but a few were hand-carved by Vladimir Zhikhartsev, a painter and internationally-known award-winning ice sculptor.
His wife Nadia Fedotova said Zhikhartsev started carving in 1991, and asked her to be his partner in 1994. So far he has won 11 gold medals, and she had earned five, in the World Ice Art Championships in Alaska.
Zhikhartsev and Fedotova, originally from Russia, now live in Alaska and, when not traveling around the world for competitions, give ice carving lessons. Dominique Colell of California, one of the ICE4U2C sculptors, took one of Zhikhartsev's classes in carving facial features.
"All those gold medals you'd think would go to his head, but they haven't," Colell said of Zhikhartsev.
Gregory began his career in the culinary arts, but 15 years ago he decided to specialize in ice carving, and has been doing it professionally for 11 years.
Like Gregory, many ice carvers began as chefs or have had some restaurant industry experience, according to McDonald, who is himself an ice carver and owner of Damenti's Restaurant in Mountain Top.
Others, like Zhikhartsev, Polglaze, Colell and Junichi Nakamura of Hokkaido, Japan, who is a farmer during the summer and a world-champion ice carver during the winter, are artists who were drawn to ice as a medium to work in.
Ice sculpture and carving is not a new art form. Ice palaces originated in Russia in the 1800s during festivals, and the concept spread to other parts of the globe.
Indoors, ice sculptures were first used in the 19th century to keep food, especially desserts such as sherbets, chilled while on the table.
Over the decades form surpassed function in ice carving as refrigeration became the norm: sculptures grew bigger and more elaborate, meant for display.
Today, ice sculptures are in demand for everything from corporate events to private parties to public displays. A good commercial ice carver can earn over $100,000 a year, McDonald said.
"The market for ice carvings as centerpieces has grown tremendously over the past few years," he said. "Weddings, birthdays, bar mitzvahs - it's not a party without ice."
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