The new dining reality: Smaller groups and shorter weeks
Restaurant trend reports typically focus on what we put in our mouths. (Example: Salsa macha has pushed chili crunch off its mountain.) Now feels different, though. The most significant changes in the dining world are less about what’s on the plate than when, and even how many of us, go out for a meal. I can’t be the only diner who’s dropped by a hot spot to find it dark midweek or who’s tried to book a table for a large group only to be turned down.
What’s happening?
Chefs and restaurant owners who used to put diners on a pedestal are “reevaluating our place in our relationship with customers,” says Aaron Adams, the talent behind the plant-based Astera and Il Paffuto in Portland, Ore. Part of the change is due to age and experience. Adams, 49, has been cooking for three decades, long enough to learn the pitfalls of seating more than six people at a table. Another explanation involves “emboldened” young chefs who feel less constrained by rules, says the chef. “We are in service. We are not servants.” Hospitality remains a priority, but “we are done trying to be everything to everyone.”
Trevor Fleming, one of three veteran chefs behind the year-old Warlord in Chicago, says his team pulled “pieces of different operations we liked in our model,” including a four-day workweek, closing on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. While Warlord does three turns a night in its 45-seat dining room, “we care about the quality of life outside work,” he says.
The thinking even applies to the bones of the restaurant. “The equipment gets a rest,” too, Fleming jokes.
If you eat out with any regularity, you may have tasted the following trends:
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Unusual hours
Monday is the new Saturday. Or so it seems at a lot of new restaurants, some of which are open on days attractive to people in the business of feeding people.
When Warlord opened its doors last spring, the chef-owners knew they wanted to be industry-focused, “so Monday was important to do and stay open late,” says Fleming. “The night owl culture” meant opening at 6 p.m. “to eliminate the stress of 5 o’clock” and serving until 2 a.m. The team originally thought about being open on Thursday, Fleming says, “but we’re better off fiscally doing Friday through Monday.”
They may work longer when they’re open, but as a result, “the staff still gets 40 to 45 hours of week pay,” and “we all get three days off.”
Like Warlord, the youthful Pascual in D.C. is dark Tuesday and Wednesday. Co-owner Isabel Coss, who says she never dreamed of taking time off as a young cook in New York, sees being open Monday as a personal plus: “I get to see my friends” from other restaurants, who in turn get to catch Pascual’s distinctive Mexican fare.
Oliver Pastan, the co-owner of Bar Del Monte, also in the District, closes his Italian trattoria Tuesdays and Wednesdays for several reasons. One is for neighbors who stream in on Sundays and Mondays - a lot of families who don’t want to cook, he says - and another is due to the sometimes “dead” dining rooms the industry insider has seen midweek. Bar Del Monte’s schedule also reflects the restaurateur’s priorities.
“I just enjoy being off in the middle of the week when everyone is working,” says Pastan, who also uses the time to catch up - at work, of course.
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Fish with some age on it
One of the most expensive pieces of equipment at Causa, an upscale Peruvian restaurant in D.C., is a $15,000 metal locker kept around 34 degrees and used for nothing but aging fish. “There’s the perception fresh is always the best,” says chef-owner Carlos Delgado. “But a little rest, a little aging, develops taste and texture” in other than just meat and fowl. The preservation technique draws water from flesh and breaks down enzymes in proteins for enhanced flavor.
Delgado has tried a spectrum of fish in the locker, which includes a dehumidifier. So far, the longest stay for any is two months for bluefin tuna. Aging gives the tuna umami and a melt-in-the-mouth quality. “Like dry-aged steak or cheese, it’s not everyone’s thing,” says the chef. But it gives fish “a touch of funk” and a “wow factor.” The restaurant benefits, too, because there’s less waste and the product lasts longer, reasoning important to restaurants including Ota, the novel omakase counter in Omaha.
At fine-dining Kiln in San Francisco, chef John Wesley goes the low-tech route: Fish is simply hung in a cooler over salt blocks where fans blow against Japanese jackfish and Norwegian mackerel. Diners who might be skeptical of the idea are reassured by chefs who double as food runners and can explain the process.
Known for its live-fire cooking, Warlord in the Windy City also ages fish. Fatty fish including swordfish and tuna are candidates for being wrapped in kombu or dipped in beeswax.
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Steakhouses offer gardens of good eating
“I could eat beef every day of the week,” says Daniel del Prado of the year-old, 275-seat Argentine grill Porzana in Minneapolis. His affection is displayed on the menu, which lists about two dozen cuts. So is his desire to “not alienate people who don’t want to eat steak.” Indeed, the top sellers after two cuts of Argentine beef are truffle pasta, grilled broccoli with puffed buckwheat and jalapeño, and a panzanella that changes with the season.
Del Prado, a native of Buenos Aires whose restaurant takes its name from a bird that migrates from south to north, says he loathes big portions and created Porzana “for the refined palate.”
The chef behind Guard and Grace in Denver calls his restaurant a modern steakhouse, defined in part by “lots of windows, a tall ceiling, a light palette,” and an emphasis on simple grilled dishes versus sauce-y items, says Troy Guard, whose best-selling appetizers are oak-kissed carrots and octopus. Yes, diners can order a 48-ounce tomahawk, but the beast is typically shared, which is also true of the flight of beef offering tastes of prime, wagyu and grass-fed meat.
Like del Prado, the Denver chef thinks “small cuts” of beef encourage more frequent visits. A separate “secret” vegetarian menu is presented to customers who ask for it. Why not incorporate the selections in one document? “It’s fun and special and shows thought,” says Guard, who says the meatless route is not necessarily a less expensive one. Vegetables are “fresh, heirloom, take time to prepare.” The current attractions highlight mapo tofu with mushroom marmalade and five-spice tempura, and grilled eggplant with edamame sauce and lotus crisps.
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So long, group reservations
At many places, good luck if you’re more than four people and trying to book a table. “Diners don’t understand tables are real estate,” says Saied Azali, owner of the recently opened Turkish restaurant Namak in D.C., which doesn’t accept large parties. “We have to turn tables. That’s how we make money - some money.”
You might assume groups are good for business. Not necessarily. When a group of six goes out, “nobody shows up at the same time,” says Azali. Large parties not only take longer to eat, he says, “they don’t want to leave, even though we tell people online [about a time limit], and then they get mad when asked. You always lose.”
To recruit servers, the restaurateur says, he guaranteed workers a certain amount of money per shift, another factor in Azali’s decision to go low when diners want high.
Experience has also taught Adams, the Oregon chef, that large parties “reduce the ability to earn per chair.” He’s found that “80 percent are into it,” meaning the meal, and “20 percent are only there because of their friends and won’t buy anything.”
If pressed, Adams says he would agree to a group only if they abided by “a set menu, a minimum spend and one bill.” But, he adds, “we’re reasonable people.” If the walk-in-only Il Paffuto is half-empty and a big group shows up, “we’ll fill the space.”
Azali says he tries to dissuade large parties by showing them how cramped the tables are at Namak, in person or even by text. (He’s sent would-be customers photos.)
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Retro drinks with some twists
Today’s frozen margaritas have little but ice in common with the brain freezes typical of a booze cruise or Bourbon Street.
“Retro but better” cocktails - cosmopolitans, appletinis, blender drinks - are “delicious and legit” when they’re created with fresh juices and prime spirits, says Mark Murphy, director of bar operations for the galaxy of Stephen Starr restaurants.
Come warm weather, “frosé is A-okay,” he says of frozen rosé, especially when the wine isn’t plonk but Provençal. Murphy varies the adult slushes from market to market. In Philadelphia, frosé gets its punch from St-Germain and absinthe. In D.C., ginger liqueur and vodka kick in.
Even bad margaritas are better than no margaritas, says Suzy Critchlow, the bar manager of Pascual. She makes a frosty but tropical-tasting winner with guava puree and a garnish of hibiscus powder that only gets better as what looks like a swirl of snow melts in its glass. Hankering for an espresso martini? Pascual invites you to try the Mexican classic carajillo - strong coffee splashed with the Spanish Licor 43.
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