I can’t pinpoint the dish that first made me fall for @spoonandstable .
My earliest dinner there, four years ago, was on a hot late summer night, a month after I had moved eastward from the Bay Area. The ceilings were extraordinarily high; the steel bar counter seemed to run forever; all life flowed from a bright open kitchen, where nothing (openly) misses a beat; and my dining companion, a former colleague who shall remain nameless, ordered a margarita while he perused the menu for half an hour.
Because this was a Gavin Kaysen restaurant, I expected — and received — the hedonistic cues of a decorated chef in Daniel Boulud’s orbit: a surfeit of dressy components finishing the entrees; the rebellious, barely opaque fish cookery; the thin but potent sauces, like the Americane, throttled with butter. Spoon had the soul of a French-leaning New American restaurant, but in guise it leaned Midwestern. Which meant service without the (overt) airs — not like at Cafe Boulud, which I had visited as a wide-eyed, culturally-hungry student, when Kaysen was there. That’s when I realized that there was a totem pole of diners; that a maître d’s could sneer at you and still make a positive impression; and that you could pretend to be a critic — scribbling notes on a card — seeding a fantasy that would eventually come true.
Before that fantasy did, I had already found the grace notes of a restaurant where hospitality mattered. In turn, I showed affection by haranguing patient, kind servers with my unsolicited feedback on dishes both terrific and almost so.
Over the years, I’ve re-ordered only a handful of them — mostly for visiting guests — because the thrill was always the rotation: lamb two-ways; gnudi in a potent broth, crowned with purple radishes; crudos under a hail of granita; that sweet corn ravioli with nasturtium-sunflower seed pesto; roasted grouper with smoked scallop XO; and Alexandra Motz’s desserts, including a spumoni and a savory-ish cornmeal-strawberry tart that stands among the best sweets I’ve had all year.
Seventy-six dinners in, I still can’t name the dish that hooked me. But I can name the place. Thank you, Spoon, for the memories.
