What’s hot and what’s happening now in the restaurant scene.

It’s the whole hog. There will be a new deli/butcher shop/restaurant coming to Worcester’s Water Street shortly. Kummerspeck will open the first week of May if everything goes well, says Matt Mahoney, the chef/owner. Mahoney, a Spencer native, has worked for Barbara Lynch in Boston and at BT’s Smokehouse in Sturbridge. Mahoney plans to butcher meats and make a variety of sausages and smoked meats, such as pastrami. He will also have a small restaurant on site serving lunch and dinner. This is not the “wurst” thing to happen to Worcester. It shows that we are growing as a food destination.

Stop whining and go. The annual Boston Wine Expo will be held the weekend of Feb. 18-19 at the World Trade Centers in Boston’s Seaport District. This is one of the premier wine and tasting events in the country, attracting about 250 distributors from around the world. Tickets are $110 and can be purchased online at WineExpoBoston.com

Goin’ to the Mountain. Todd Tobias has recently joined Wachusett Mountain as executive chef. Tobias will oversee daily operations of the Food Court, the Black Diamond Restaurant and the mountain’s catering services. Tobias is originally from Watertown and most recently served as executive chef at Oak Hill Country Club in Fitchburg. Previously, he had stints at the International Golf Course in Bolton, Fishbones in Chelmsford and the former Scupper Jack’s Restaurant.

You can never get enough Girl Scout cookies. Fork It Over, the annual Girl Scouts fundraiser is fast approaching. Chefs are asked to create food using a variety of Girl Scout cookies in the recipe. The finished creations will be presented to a panel of judges at the Fork It Over event March 9 at The Beechwood Hotel in Worcester. The evening will feature a silent auction, raffle and live musical entertainment. Chefs are asked to create approximately 250 bite-size portions of their creation(s) for guests to taste.

If you have a black American Express, this is for you. Twenty memberships are available for purchase from Niche Hospitality for its Test Kitchen events in 2017. For $999, you get to attend Niche’s Test Kitchen dinners and events. You also receive 10 percent off all of your dining at Niche restaurants. BTW, it is called the Cauldron Club. A cauldron is a large metal pot used over an open flame.

No soup for you. Soup lovers should keep an eye out for the opening of Zoup! in downtown Worcester next month. That’s because, in addition to soup staples like chicken noodle, clam chowder and lobster bisque, Zoup! will also serve a dill pickle chowder and rattlesnake sausage soup, made with real rattlesnake meat.”It has a real bite to it,” Mark Fox, the Zoup! franchisee, claimed. The Zoup! franchise was started in Southfield, Mich., in 1998. Today, there are nearly 100 stores nationwide. Fox opened the first Massachusetts Zoup! in Natick in 2015 and plans to open the second location at 375 Main St., Worcester, at the end of the month.

By Paul Giorgio