great restaurant & group venue. my wife and i used isa's "the cellar" as our spot for the rehearsal dinner and welcome party for our wedding weekend. we had first come to isa's for dinner about a year ago. dinner was great, and with the "in the middle of everything" location, we inquired if they did group events. sure enough we were taken downstairs to "the cellar". with both my wife and me from atlanta and all of our guests from out of town, we felt like this was the perfect place.
it is cozy and intimate, but not without a lack of space. we had 60 people for dinner, and it felt very intimate. toward the end of dinner the last 2 hours were opened up to all our wedding guests who were in town, and the party expanded by about 50 people. there was plenty of room and even more room to mingle comfortably if we had more.
the food was amazing. the strip, the chicken, the trout, everyone raved about it all. considering there was 60 people for a plated dinner, i figured the quality of the food might get compromised a little due to the size of the group, but i was wrong. quality was top notch, and it was a hit with family from san francisco to new york city that were there.
finally, we were planning an out of town wedding. no one lived in asheville. so you could imagine being a little nervous about everything. the special events coordinator, jenny whitmire, did anamazingjob, and she was a huge reason the event went off well. our event was on 12/5. she was following up and staying in contact the whole time as soon as she took the position. she even answered a question over thanksgiving while she was out of town that i didn't expect to get answer after the holiday.
in short, if you considering doing an event in asheville, i would 100% jenny and her team at isa's.
if you are looking for a nice dinner, my wife and i always eat at isa's whenever we are in town. always had a great meal. can't go wrong with the pei mussels and some bread for thatamazingbroth.