Newport Food Scene: Dinner and a movie during Restaurant Week? Here's what's playing.

Newport Restaurant Week comes to town this Friday!

The annual 10-day celebration of great eats in Newport county sponsored by Discover Newport will feature more than 70 area restaurants and eateries this year. All will offer various pre-fixe menus, special discounts and tasty deals to entice people to come out and experience so much of the great food in our community. If you have been waiting for the opportunity to try a certain restaurant town, now is the time!

Take a few minutes to peruse the menus and offers at discovernewport.org/newport-restaurant-week and plan your week. But be warned, you’ll find yourself salivating in anticipation.

You’ll be counting the days until you can enjoy the fresh-made Pumpkin Ravioli on the three-course pre-fixe menu at Sardella’s Italian Restaurant. You won’t be able to stop thinking about the three-course Taco Tasting Menu from Diego’s Cantina in Middletown until your hands are wrapped around a taco.

You’ll be dreaming of the Coconut Curry Mussels at Malt on Broadway until you get there to dive in. There are so many great tastes to choose from, highlighting each restaurant’s incredible everyday offerings. That’s the joy of Restaurant Week.

This year, there’s a little something extra thanks to a partnership with the Jane Pickens Theater: The Foodie Film Festival! This will run in tandem with Newport Restaurant Week and will feature films that focus on food. To add to the festival’s fun, community partners will be on hand at the theater to make each movie night more magical with special tastings, treats and surprises.

And, because it’s also Restaurant Week, you can enjoy one of the special deals before or after the film at all those great Newport restaurants. Dinner and a movie? Yes, please.

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An eclectic selection of films will be shown daily. Friday kicks off with “The Art of Eating: The Life of M.F.K. Fisher” — a documentary about the exciting life and lasting impact of the noted food writer. Two movies will be offered on Saturday: Pixar’s “Ratatouille” and “The Big Night,” a film featuring Stanley Tucci and Tony Shaloub that is considered to be one of the best foodie movies of all time. You’ll walk away with a deep desire for something you never knew you wanted called Timpano.

While Restaurant Week deals are featured all week, the Film Festival will take a break Sunday and Monday but picks back up Tuesday with “Jiro Dreams of Sushi.” The film follows an 85-year-old sushi master Jiro Ono, owner of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a 10-seat, sushi restaurant that is located in a Tokyo subway station and earned a rare and elite three-star Michelin rating.

On Wednesday, there will be another showing of “The Art of Eating: The Life of M.F.K. Fisher documentary” at 4:30 followed by “Babette’s Feast” at 7:30 p.m. “Babette’s Feast” tells the fictional story of Babette, a French refugee who is taken in by a strict religious family to serve as their cook. Babette’s tempting pleasures of food and drink prove to be too much for her conflicted hosts.

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Thursday will be a night of Julias featuring “Julie & Julia” at 4:30 and Julia Roberts in “Mystic Pizza” at 7:30. (I hope you can celebrate somewhere with julienne vegetables and Julian pears). “Julie & Julia” tells the tale of the legendary Julia Childs through the eyes of blogger Julie who cooks her way through her cookbook. The film will take on special resonance after the recent passing of the real Julie Powell, whose writings, usually told through the vehicle of food, had a resounding impact on her loyal readers.

The early show on Nov. 11 will be “Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?” — a 1978 murder mystery where chefs are being killed off one by one in the same manner in which their signature dishes are prepared. The later show will be the sensual film “Chocolat,” where a French woman, played by Juliette Binoche, and her young daughter open a chocolate shop in a small village that shakes the rigid morals of the community.

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The Film Festival concludes Saturday with two classics. At 4:30, they’ll show the original “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” The 7:30 show will be the documentary “Love, Charlie: The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter,” the story of a chef who revolutionized the culinary world and died way too young at the age of 54.

While there will surely be great entertainment, the best part of the Festival is how it entwines with Restaurant Week and with so many community friends. There will be a wine tasting in the theater lobby on Tuesday presented by Newport Wine Cellar & Gourmet and a beer tasting Thursday by Taproot Brewing Company.

The A Mano Pizza Truck will be parked outside for the “Mystic Pizza” screening and the folks from The French Confection will be offering complimentary treats in the lobby for “Who’s Killing the Great Chefs of Europe” and “Chocolat.”

As fun as it is to watch “Babette’s Feast,” it will be even more fun to see the folks at Bellevue Boards in the lobby offering grab-and-go charcuterie platters. In addition to all this, the folks from Charter Books will be selling a curated selection of books for all ages to pair with each film being screened, and pianist Lois Vaughan will be performing on Saturday.

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Newport Restaurant Week and the  JPT Film + Event Center Foodie Film Festival are celebrations of two of or area’s finest elements: food and community. Bon appetite!

Dan Lederer is a Middletown resident with 30 years experience in the food service industry throughout New England. He continues to work locally behind the scenes within the industry and remains a devoted fan of all things restaurant and hospitality related. His column appears on newportri.com and Thursdays in The Daily News. Cheers!

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Newport Restaurant Week: Foodie Film Festival set for Jane Pickens