Sparrows chased each other under the eaves of the Vizcarra Vineyards tasting building as two dozen diners relaxed in the summery evening light of the Niagara County countryside.

Wearing her chef’s hat, 27-year-old Amanda Vizcarra introduced herself and offered an appetizer of information: Almost everything on the five courses to follow was brought from the earth by farmers, cheesemakers and pie bakers within 100 miles of their tables.

“Enjoy,” Vizcarra offered, and servers moved in with champagne cheese in puff pastry with honey and fresh strawberries. A glass of Vizcarra Falls Fusion wine was poured as accompaniment.

Her “100 Mile Radius Dinner,” held last month, was the first in a series designed to celebrate the work of local farmers, to connect the food on diners’ plates to the places they were created. Strawberries, asparagus, lettuce and more came from her family’s Becker Farms, roast beef from down the road in Lockport, cheese from Corfu, a list that extended down to the cream in the imported coffee.

The Gasport event was only one demonstration of the growing interest in eating locally raised vegetables and fruit, meat and dairy products. It’s a trend that’s been years in the making, but the celebration of Western New York’s homegrown food has finally flowered, and farmers and restaurateurs alike are reaping the rewards. Crowds have flocked to area farmers’ markets, despite sometimes rainy conditions, vendors say. Even supermarkets have gotten into the act, drawing attention to local berries, lettuce, cauliflower and more next to the Canadian cucumbers and watermelons from Texas.

It’s catching on

At Vizcarra Vineyards, the dinner received so much encouragement from participants that even before the second one — set for Thursday — she’s added two more in August.

Many area restaurants are detailing the sources of ingredients on their menus, signaling a premium product. Local produce tends to be fresher, more flavorful, and less expensive than other fruits and vegetables, and “this season, it’s really starting to catch on,” said chef Adam Goetz of Sample. “A lot more restaurants are starting to realize that there’s a huge bounty of local food that they can use.”

Goetz, whose restaurant focuses on small plates ranging from comfort food to adventurous bites, said “the quality I get is unbelievable. This is Grade A produce.”

Since enough people have been sensitized to the fact that local can make a difference in taste, it’s a marketing tool, Goetz said. To be sure, there can be mediocre local produce as well, he said, but in his experience it’s been the exception.

Plus, the local bounty provides a kick, a source of personal motivation for him, he said. “When you’re cooking all the time and you’re sitting there looking at product lists, and you’re trying hard to be creative, it’s inspiring,” Goetz said.

Take the kohlrabi chowder, for instance.

“A couple weeks ago I got in some fantastic kohlrabi, from Daniel Oles’ farm,” said Goetz, referring to Promised Land Farm in Corfu. “Kohlrabi’s not a mainstream vegetable, but I love it — it’s kind of a cross between an apple and a potato.”

So the New England clam chowder he was planning got Oles’ kohlrabi instead of potatoes, adding a “little bit of freshness,” said Goetz. Along with the cream and clams of that style of chowder, he added some of the sweet greens that grow out of the knobby sphere.

“You’re eating something that looks like clam chowder, and it looks like a potato, but tastes 10 times better,” said Goetz.

Mutually beneficial

Besides the delights on the plate, the changing way local food is viewed is having effects outside restaurant walls.

“As a restaurateur I get to talk to people and talk to customers about where my product comes from, how fresh my product is, how good my product is,” said Goetz. “I can keep money in the community rather than outsourcing things far away.”

This way, restaurants and farmers can support each other, he said.

“Then the farmer gets to say, my product gets used at restaurant XYZ, and they can say, ‘Hey, I’m already placing my product in these restaurants, you should try something.’ ”

Goetz has gotten multiple subscriptions to local community supported agriculture farms, and uses the weekly produce bags as a tip sheet for what he might be able to score for the restaurant. Next year the farmer could grow the specific potatoes that Goetz wanted, for instance, if he knows Goetz will buy 1,000 pounds of them.

Some of those potatoes might end up in Goetz’s “bangers and mash” on the summer menu, in sausages along with pork from Blossom Hill Farm, in Dayton.

“The long-term benefit for everybody is that once these relationships are formed, hopefully the farmers will be able to produce enough to really sustain the full produce needs of a restaurant, at least during the growing season” said Goetz. “That’s going to mean more money in the farmers’ pockets, and that’s a good thing.”

For Vizcarra, the growing respect for local food could be a life-changing force.

Back to the farm

After growing up on the farm, Vizcarra thought about whether she should carry on the family business and become a fifth-generation farmer.

No. That was her answer. “I always said, ‘I’m never going to commit to the farm, it’s so difficult,’ ” she said, citing seasonal money flow problems and long, hard days. “As I got older, I went to college and I thought, ‘I’m going to get a degree and I’m not going to come back, because it just gives me heartburn.’ ”

Then her father, Oscar Vizcarra, offered her a job managing the winery. (Her mother Melinda, the chief winemaker, is a Becker, a fourth-generation farmer.)

That was five years ago. After Amanda got married at the vineyard, she got inquiries about other weddings, which led her to develop a wedding and catering business at the farm.

Last summer, the farm hosted more than 20 weddings and fed busload after busload of people touring the Niagara Wine Trail. So when Vizcarra read about other locales putting together “100 mile” dinners, she thought of how she already fed her parties, with largely local ingredients drawn from the local farming community she had grown up in.

“We can do that,” she thought. As it turned out, the list of ingredients she couldn’t get locally — salt, pepper, olive oil, flour, coffee — was shorter than she expected.

“I was surprised to find artichokes growing in this area,” at a farm in Cambria, Vizcarra said. “But some spices and such don’t grow here,” leaving her turning to the usual sources for things like paprika.

Diners at the June event offered praise for the affair, tempered by hopes that the vineyard can polish its performance in a few areas.

“The salad I thought was absolutely delicious,” said Debbie Hann of West Seneca. “It was a disappointment to only have a little taste of it.”

Hann, a fan of local and natural foods, said that she and her boyfriend liked the experience enough to come back to the farm another day, to buy wine and pick strawberries. She made jam, and was inspired by Vizcarra’s strawberry salad dressing, which she has tried to duplicate.

It’s harder to work from fresh, Vizcarra said. “Instead of getting it packed in boxes from the distributor, I have to pick it, wash it and trim it,” she said.

But judging from the reactions, it’s worth the trouble, she said.

“I want to showcase the freshness of the ingredients and the work of farmers, which so many people don’t understand,” she said. “If it tastes good and you can learn something from it, then everyone’s happy.”