Meridox Table Co. writes its menu weekly and rewrites the board the day a supplier changes. When a dish arrives with a different ingredient than the menu promised, your server tells you before you order rather than after.
A spring menu is written in February, printed in March, and describes what the kitchen hoped to be serving. By May the halibut is monkfish, the heirloom tomatoes are hothouse, and the menu still says what it said in February because reprinting costs money.
Nobody is being malicious. Supply moves faster than print runs, and the substitution is usually reasonable. But the guest ordered the thing on the page, and being handed something adjacent without being told is a small dishonesty repeated hundreds of times a night.
So our board is chalk, rewritten the morning a supplier changes, and every substitution is spoken at the table before you order. Last year that meant 41 written changes and a great many conversations that would have been easier to skip.
Rewritten when supply changes. Substitutions spoken at the table, always.
Twenty-six staff, all on payroll. Nine farms inside 120 miles.
Five nights, a menu written weekly and a board changed the day supply moves.
Eight seats facing the kitchen, walk-in only, no reservations held back for anyone.
Fourteen seats with a set menu agreed a week out and confirmed the day before.
Around 90 bottles, half of them under $60, with markups printed on the list.
One seating, one menu, family style. Announced the Wednesday before.
Six guests in the kitchen, four times a year. Cooks explain what went wrong that day.
The board is chalk so changing it costs nothing but honesty. Forty-one written changes last year. A printed menu would have absorbed most of those silently, which is exactly the problem.
Servers raise substitutions before you order. Not when the plate lands. It slows service and occasionally loses a cover.
Wine markups are printed on the list. Guests can see what they are paying for the bottle versus the room.
Deliveries checked. If something changed, the board changes before service.
Every server hears the day's substitutions and the distance each ingredient travelled.
Substitutions raised before ordering, not apologised for afterwards.
What ran out and what disappointed goes on Monday's list.
Locals, out-of-town diners, and the private room for small gatherings a short walk from Lafayette Park.
Mains from $24 to $41, with the Sunday supper at a fixed price per person and no service charge added.
We do not take bookings more than five weeks out. We cannot honestly describe a menu that far ahead, so we do not pretend to.
Opened the room in 2015. Writes the board and briefs the floor.
Fourteen years. Decides what comes off the board when supply fails.
Eleven years. Trains servers to raise substitutions first.
Nine years. Publishes the markups.
The server told us the halibut was monkfish before we ordered. Small thing. I have not stopped mentioning it.
They print their wine markups. I have never seen a restaurant do that anywhere.
Booked the kitchen table. The cooks told us what had gone wrong that afternoon. Best meal of the year.
Tuesday to Saturday for dinner, one Sunday seating. Counter is walk-in.