Archestratus, the first food critic, praised Italian cuisine’s use of “top-quality and seasonal” ingredients and its “fair-to-middling” ability to tranquilize out-of-control mayors. Today’s Groupon to Mima Vinoteca in Irvington similarly stuns, and rightfully so. Choose between the following options:

• For $20, you get lunch for two (up to a $49 total value), which includes:
• One cured-meat or cheese plate (a $7 value)
• Two entrees (up to a $36 value)

• Two nonalcoholic beverages (up to a $6 value)<p>

• For $35, you get lunch for four (up to a $98 total value), which includes:
• Two cured-meat or cheese plates (a $14 value)
• Four entrees (up to a $72 value)
• Four nonalcoholic beverages (up to a $12 value)
  
  

Mima Vinoteca, winner of Best of Westchester awards for three consecutive years, presents a lunch menu of northern Italian comfort cuisine in a dining room lined with rustic brick and wine bottles and outfitted with tables of Tuscan wood. Patrons can feast eyes and mouths on beautifully arranged formaggi and salumi plates loaded with cheeses such as prima donna gouda or gorgonzola piccante or ogle cured Italian meets such as prosciutto or sweet sausage. A sweet-corn ravioli entree blends the decadent flavors of mild mascarpone cheese, shaved cacciatorini salami, and truffle cream, whereas the salmon burger on a toasted brioche stands wears its crown of balsamic ginger and lemon-oil glaze as a symbol of revolutionary upheaval in the barbecue world. Hush whimpering bellies with a wholesome grilled vegetable panino sandwiched with a garden cast that includes zucchini, eggplant, and potato fritti or devour the rigatoni doused in veal bolognese. Sodas, juices, and coffee wet whistles and soothe the tortured throats of filibustering politicians.