Restaurants

Nantucket is filled with outrageously priced restaurants, in which star chefs create dazzling meals served in high style. Obviously, you don't need this kind of treatment every night, but you'll probably want to try at least one deluxe place. Many of the best restaurants serve terrific lunches at half the price of their dinners. Thankfully, there are also a number of cafes scattered around town that serve reasonably priced lunches and dinners. Nantucket also has two old-fashioned drugstore soda fountains, Congdon's Pharmacy and Island Pharmacy, serving breakfast and lunch right next to each other on upper Main Street. Congdon's has the best sandwiches. If you dine in town, you may enjoy an evening stroll afterward, since many stores stay open late.

Grapes & Gourmands at the Nantucket Wine Festival

Nantucket's fine-food-and-wine scene doesn't get much finer than at the Nantucket Wine Festival, a 5-day extravaganza held each May. Urban oenophiles, rural winemakers, and curious amateurs alike come to mingle, sip international wines, discuss "tannins" and "terroirs" -- and get a bit tipsy in the process.

If you go to only one event, make it the legendary Grand Tasting and sample wines from more than 150 vineyards. This weekend-long tasting is held under a wind-buffered tent near Jetties Beach, and you pay $80 for a 2-hour pass to all the wine you can handle. Discover some amazing wines and some quirky products (like Francis Coppola's "Sophia" line of minicans of champagne), and chat with the affable winemakers. Other events range from small, intimate Wine & Food Seminars ($50-$100 each) to lavish moneybags galas like the Celebrity Chef & Winemaker Auction Dinner ($250), which brings out some real Thurston Howell III types. The seminars and cooking demonstrations can be hit or miss, but sign up for anything with Sergio Esposito (compelling speaker with fantastic Italian wines).

For dining events, foodies shouldn't miss the Charity Gala ($175) and its megabuffet of outrageously gourmet food samples: foie gras and duck confit are everywhere you turn, with some frogs'-legs-and-escargot sausage thrown in for good measure. For a more intimate meal, the Winemaker Lunches & Dinners ($100 and up) are held in various Nantucket restaurants. We enjoyed a fantastic meal at American Seasons -- five courses paired with five Stags Leap wines, each introduced by the vineyard representative.

Combine a few of these events for a satisfying festival experience, or go for the Grand Cru Package, for $525 (a $720 value).

Log on to www.nantucketwinefestival.com for a full list of festival programs, dates, and prices; or call tel. 508/638-3454.