A chef just for you
If you can stand the heat, you can eat in the kitchen. That is basically the premise of the Chef’s Table concept, whereby you eat in or adjacent to the kitchen, and the chef cooks a special meal just for you. Air-conditioning, of course, makes the atmosphere a lot cooler than it is behind the stoves, and since such tables are usually set for half a dozen people or so, the interplay of chef and guests shows just how amazing the craft of cooking really is. If there's a good display of grace under pressure, it’s cooking for 150 hungry people who all want to eat between 7 and 10 P.M.
The appeal of the Chef’s Table is both in the intimacy of that bond, and in the kinds of dishes the chef will be cooking for you that are not on the regular menu. In some cases, the set-up might be a kind of high-class communal table where you dine with other people whose dedication to good food and wine is as fervid as yours. In others, you may have the whole table to yourself and your own friends, which adds measurably to your fondest memories of a destination.
At Café Gray in Manhattan, Gray Kunz shows off special seasonal items from his innovative Euro-American cuisine at lavish kitchen table dinners seating up to 12 people, with a spectacular panorama over Columbus Circle and Central Park. The $225 eight-course menu is devised only after consultation with the host, along with suggestions on appropriate wines, and might include oxtail consommé with foie gras, lobster chowder with mussels and crabmeat, sea trout pavé with champagne-tarragon sauce, and apple croustade with huckleberries and Calvados-laced crème anglaise.
See our slideshow of the best chef's tables.
Because of the extra effort that goes into a Chef’s Table concept, it is often not widely promoted. “It’s really word of mouth at our kitchen,” explains Hans Willimann, general manager for The Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago, where Chef Kevin Hickey does a kitchen table at Seasons Restaurant. “We don’t want to accept a party if we’re really busy in the restaurant and banquet rooms because Kevin really likes to get involved with his guests. And people feel free to ask for specialties. If they want more frogs’ legs, they’ll get more frogs’ legs.”
Hickey serves six guests an 8-course menu prepared à la minuit at marble-topped tables and bar chairs in the kitchen, which has become especially popular Friday and Saturday nights. The 8-course menu is like a very cheery tutorial. Many people bring their own wine, including gourmet clubs like the Commandérie de Bordeaux, the Chaine de Rôtisseurs, and the Taste du Vin. Hickey might be serving a “Surf and Turf Tartar” with Kobe beef and ahi tuna, or Carnaroli risotto with sea urchins and caramelized Nantucket Bay scallops. Prices begin at $145 per person, with wines at $210.
Many chefs get as much out of the experience as the guests. “It gives our kitchen crew the recognition they’re due,” says Chef Scott Hunnel, who has been doing Chef’s Tables for eleven years at Victoria & Albert Restaurant in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. “And it shows that we are professionals, not like those terrible shows they see about dysfunctional restaurant kitchens on TV.”
See our slideshow of the best chef's tables.
Indeed, the kitchen is a very different atmosphere from those dreadful TV shows like “Hell’s Kitchen,” where chefs harangue amateur cooks as if in a labor camp. In the main dining room, everything is very formal (yes, the service staff dresses in Victorian attire), but in the kitchen, it is quiet and professional. You sit with up to ten people in a pretty alcove, and after a Champagne toast, Hunnel will consult with you on what you’d like to eat and what he’d like to cook, then bring you a dozen courses, maybe more, like lobster sausage and bisque, herb-crusted Lamb with heirloom tomatoes and potato gnocchi, and Grand Marnier soufflé with vanilla gelato. This is really a bargain at $165 per person, $70 more with five chosen wines. The evenings have become so popular that they take reservations six months in advance. Returning locals, who make up 45 percent of the clientele, will dine then immediately make their next reservation.
Nonetheless, the whole idea of a Chef’s Table has come under scrutiny by city officials. “In Boston Chef’s Tables were a great way to get people excited and to hold special private parties,” according to Naomi Kooker, a Boston Business Journal writer who covers the hospitality industry. “This mayor used to hold charity fundraisers at Via Matta here. But in the past year the Board of Health has not looked favorably upon such venues and closed some down for health and safety issues, like the remote possibility of fire and guests getting too close to the prep area”—none of which sounds like the kind of concern people spending $150 and up for dinner worry much about when faced with a ten-course meal from the kitchen of a highly regarded American chef.
Chef’s Tables offer a grand gorge, but they are really about the sharing of a meal with friends or perhaps even an opportunity to make new ones. And if you can get more of those frogs’ legs, what’s not to like?