I tend to like open kitchens since I often eat out solo and embrace the role of restaurant voyeur. In DC, open kitchens were de rigueur while here, I've noticed fewer. If they're open, it's only partially so.
A colleague suggests the reason I'm not seeing so many open kitchens here is because
they're too loud and alienate snowbirds. I'm thinking it's also
because this area picks and chooses trends. In my coupla jaunts to
design-conscious Miami, I've noticed more spots with open kitchens than
Broward, where restaurant theater I've seen is the equivalent of watching drunks at
Are open kitchens a pretentious trend? In this past week's Arts section in The New York Times, theater critic Charles Isherwood muses on the role of open kitchens in promoting dinner as theater. He asks, "Good food enhances the joy we make take in life, but can it really express a vision of life the way art can?"
His
exploration centers around a dinner at Aldea, a Portuguese restaurant
that features a six- seat bar, a parallel perch to the kitchen. During
dinner he observes, "Entrancing theater can derive from delicate
gestures as well as large ones," such as "the careful lowering of small
orbs of mozzarella into a creamy bowl of gazpacho," or "the delicate
scraping away of shiso marinade from a glistening sardine." He marvels access to "the creative process as it takes place," as opposed to the finished product alone.
This made me wistful for fine dining, which I've yet to explore in this
market, though I've come upon a few open kitchens. Strange enough, the
most most memorable has been Jo-Jo's,
where I described the chef as a tattoo'd ballerina because he's such a
skilled performer that he dwarfs
his theater/kitchen, a modest taco joint.
Perhaps you can point me to some open kitchens for voyeurs. On my list is Il Mulino and Cafe Martorano.
Any other suggestions for front row reservations where diners can watch a maestro
at work? And if no artist comes to mind, perhaps a seat or two with the promise
of entertainment.
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