In-kitchen Chef's table options?

would love to take my friend to a place where we can sit in the kitchen and watch the Chef do his or her stuff. I know reservations are required, but has anyone done this? Where? Favorites? Thanks!

TRU and Charlie Trotter's instantly come to mind.

However, I would also throw in Schwa (there are plenty of posts about it on this and other forums). I think you can only view the kitchen from the table in the back against the wall and you have to stand up to see (watching them work is like fine ballet).

Your meal will be served by the folks cooking and plating. You can ask them questions about the food until you are blue in the face. You will also be guaranteed that Michael Carlson will be there (as opposed to the previous two, I don't think you can guarantee that Gale Gand will be serving your Root Beer float). I have seen (on kitchen tours) the chef's tables at Tru and Trotter's and I'm not completely sure how much work you actually can view.

I celebrated my birthday a couple years ago at the Chef's Table at Trotters. It was an amazing experience (especially since I didn't have to pay for it). Mr. Trotter was in the house when we went (it was during the holiday season), but they definitely don't guarantee his presence. You could see quite a bit from the table, you'd have to stand to see actual cooking but you could see plating well and expediting (which I think is the most impressive thing about a restaurant like Trotters - the efficiency is amazing, there is not a move made or a word uttered that is unneccesary). You also get a tour of the kitchen, event kitchen and wine cellar at the end of the meal.

Can't speak of the others since I haven't been there. I was taken to Capital Grille and we dined at what they called the "kitchen table," but it was nowhere near the kitchen just in a private nook near the kitchen. Regardless, they took us on a tour of the kitchen after our meal and I'm tremendously glad that we didn't eat in there.

I've also dined at the kitchen table at Charlie Trotters and it was one of the most memorable meals of my life. The service and attention to detail at Trotters is incredibly good, and it's even better at the kitchen table.

I seem to recall that there is a four person minimum to reserve the kitchen table. Maybe this is flexible.

BTW, Figmolly mentioned getting a tour of the kitchen and wine cellar. I believe they will show any dinner the kitchen and wine cellar, not just those at the kitchen table. I once was led on the tour my CT's mother.

Yo wrote:I don't think you can guarantee that Gale Gand will be serving your Root Beer float

I think you can pretty much guarantee that she won't, according to this week's Crain's, where they talked about the fact that Tramonto & Gand are planning to open similar restaurants to the ones they opened in Wheeling in Oakbrook Terrace, Rosemont and Schaumburg, with plans to expand outside of Chicago.

Mr. Tramonto and Ms. Gand say they continue to consult on menu development and look in on the restaurant a few days a week, both their energies are concentrated on their larger establishments in Wheeling: the 180 seat Tramonto's Steak & Seafood, the 250 seat Osteria de Tramonto Italian dining room, Gale's Coffee Bar, as well as a sushi bar called RT Lounge.

"Tru will stay the same, even if we aren't there all the time," Mr. Tramonto says.

Ms. Gand notes that the desserts there are still her recipes, even if she hasn't baked them herself. "An Armani dress hasn't actually been stitched by Armani," she says.

Yo wrote:TRU and Charlie Trotter's instantly come to mind.

However, I would also throw in Schwa (there are plenty of posts about it on this and other forums). I think you can only view the kitchen from the table in the back against the wall and you have to stand up to see (watching them work is like fine ballet).

Your meal will be served by the folks cooking and plating. You can ask them questions about the food until you are blue in the face. You will also be guaranteed that Michael Carlson will be there (as opposed to the previous two, I don't think you can guarantee that Gale Gand will be serving your Root Beer float). I have seen (on kitchen tours) the chef's tables at Tru and Trotter's and I'm not completely sure how much work you actually can view.

The kitchen table at Trotters is in the actual kitchen, but a counter separates the table from the people actually cooking. So, like the corner seat at Schwa, you have to stand up if you want to watch them cook. But while seated, you get the full effect of seeing how the kitchen operates.

Every time I've been at Charlie Trotter's, he's been in the restaurant. That isn't to say he's always there, but he is there most nights. He doesn't physically cook while there; he's playing host and running the restaurant. If meeting him is an important component of the evening, definitely mention that when you make your reservation.

It's true that at Schwa you are served food by the people cooking and plating your meal. It's an incredible restaurant and I don't mean to minimize anything, but there is a trade-off: if Michael Carlson brings out your dish, don't expect him to have a 10 minute conversation with you. Schwa has a minimal staff and they are on a quite tight time schedule (especially if you are there for the early seating).

I've eaten dinner at the chef's table at Chef's Station, in Evanston. I didn't even reserve it; when we arrived for dinner, they asked us if we would like to sit there, and of course we said yes. IIRC there was a low partition so that we had to stand up to see them work, but it was definitely in the kitchen, closer to the preparation and cooking areas than to the dining room. It was fun. And Chef's Station has terrific food (although it can't compare with Tru or Trotter's for creativity - but the prices are only a third to a half of those top tables).

I agree with the other posters that my meal in the kitchen at Charlie Trotter's was one of the best meals of my life - possibly the finest meal that I have had in a decade of eating in Chicago. CT was in the kitchen that night, and visited with us, and it make it that much more fun. Judging from the night that we were there the kitchen seemed quiet and happy. No pots, pans, or knives were thrown and the food was terrific.

Three words: Buca di Beppo.

(most have in-kitchen dining. Very silly but very fun, and if you're already going to come out of a place reeking of red sauce and garlic, you might as well earn it next to the sausage broilers).

Santander wrote:Three words: Buca di Beppo.

(most have in-kitchen dining. Very silly but very fun, and if you're already going to come out of a place reeking of red sauce and garlic, you might as well earn it next to the sausage broilers).

BdB may have a kitchen table, and it may be silly and fun, but the food is on the order of Olive Garden/Macaroni Grill. May as well go all the way and reserve the Family Table at Olive Garden, at least there you're family.

G Wiv - that's that I was thinking, but didn't want to come out and say it. Yes, we're looking for something between CT and BdB, but closer to Trotter's.

My sarcasm appears to have failed. Just as I would never take Uncle Tony from the "Old Country" to Olive Garden to celebrate his visit to the States (as one old commercial suggested), I'm not really recommending Buca as a serious option for a romantic dinner. But if we're going to make this list complete and relevant beyond the original poster's immediate needs, full disclosure demands reporting all kitchen table options.

One memorable anecdote from the BdB table (the location in Lombard, for a bachelor party): the kitchen manager instructed his staff to add one extra Italian sausage to every platter going out into the dining room. As they came past our table, they removed one sausage with tongs and tossed it (literally, with varying degrees of arc and accuracy) onto one of our communal plates. This was amusing the first time and rather hysterical by the 12th.

Santander wrote:My sarcasm appears to have failed.

Santander,

I missed the sarcasm, but am more than a little relieved that you were, in fact, being sarcastic.

Enjoy,
Gary

I think the Chef's Bar at Avenues is a very cool vantage point. You can see everything in the kitchen from there and you get great service, attention and information. The only negative is that a larger group will have to sit in a row, which makes it hard to communicate with anyone other than the folks to your immediate right and left. But still, it's a great dining experience.

=R=

Avenues (Peninsula Hotel)
108 E. Superior
Chicago, IL 60611
312 573-6754

I missed the sarcasm also, but I did google "kitchen table chicago" to see what kind of information is out there.

The third site (and note that Charlie Trotter's is the fourth site) is a blog entry about the kitchen table at Tru and contains this gem:

Honestly, the best implementation I've seen of a kitchen table was at Buca di Beppo. They had a small nook in their kitchen which held a 'U' shaped bench with a square table. The bench was elevated, so you had to step up and slide in. This would never work in a fine dining establishment because of the service issues it would create, but it was a good design for that restaurant.

http://www.gastronomicfightclub.com/blo ... hicago.cfm,

I have eaten at kitchen tables at both Buca di Beppo (the now-closed Clark Street location) and Tru. Both experiences were several years ago.

The first was hot and cramped and with mediocre food (although I'd put it a rank above Olive Garden and much better than Macaroni Grill) but it was right in the kitchen and everyone working there made an effort to come by and talk to us and show us food as they took it out into the dining room. The folks who took me there enjoyed the food and had a great time. IIRC, we paid the same price for the food as on the regular menu and could order anything from the menu we wanted.

The food at Tru was stellar, as it always is, but the kitchen table is a separate, enclosed room within the kitchen. You can't really see any kitchen activity when you're seated at the table. We were required to get a 10-course degustation, which was priced at a premium over eating in the dining room. While Rick Tramonto was definitely on the premises when we were there -- we caught sight of him as we were led into the room -- no one except the waitstaff serving our food came in to talk to us while we were there and a telephone in the room rang constantly throughout our dinner. Eating in the dining room is way more fun.

Flight, in Glenview, has a kitchen counter; I have eaten at the restaurant, which is quite good, but not in that seating.

I understand that Stoney River Steaks also has such a counter, at least in their Deer Park location, where the chef does cooking demos on request as well as feeding you dinner, but I haven't eaten there.

Some of the Weber Grill restaurants have bars where you can watch the grilling, but I've always eaten in the dining rooms, so I can't talk about that experience, either.