Setting The Communal Table

Custom tableware or striking accent pieces selected by the chef can make a communal table experience that much more memorable for hotel guests. In this feature, read about restaurants that are on trend on the tabletop.

By Derek Gale, Senior Associate Editor -- Hotels, 3/1/2008

When it comes to tableware, chefs tend to have a vision of exactly how they want to present their kitchen creations, and nowhere is this more true than at the handful of tables that truly stand out from the crowd.

Whether a communal table or a chef’s table, custom dishware, key accent pieces, or simply well-chosen serviceware can help differentiate the meal for a guest.

“Diners [today] have a greater understanding of what they enjoy and what was memorable,” says Ed Wonder, director of design for Kenilworth Trading Co. “The tabletop should be [thought of as] a marketing tool.”

Front and center at Angle Restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton, Palm Beach, is an underlit onyx communal table. Chef David Mullen selected custom-made, clear green water glass tableware to allow the lighting to shine through.

Angle Restaurant, The Ritz-Carlton, Palm Beach

Chef David Mullen may take as much pride in the underlit onyx communal table and the new accompanying tableware as he does in the food served at Angle Restaurant. The experience would not be complete, however, without a new tapas menu created by Mullen to encourage mingling and socializing among guests over small plates at the communal table.

The new menu is presented on custom dishes of all shapes and sizes created from a clear green water glass by Greece-based Glass Studio. “For the underlit onyx table, we were looking for plates [that would allow] light through,” explains Mullen. “There is stuff with little rivets and holds for dipping sauces and tastings of different types of flavors.”

These dishes, which literally glow from the underlighting of the table, both showcase and complement the food, with specifi c designs and features matched to certain menu items for dramatic effect. For example, “some [plates have] lips on the rims, so the plate is off the table, while some have nice ridges, and some are basic squares or ovals. This brings out the different dimensions in the table,” Mullen says.

Central 214 at the Hotel Palomar in Dallas uses artistic accent plates to set off the place settings at its two communal tables.

Central 214, Hotel Palomar, Dallas

Executive Chef Tom Fleming of Central 214 in the Hotel Palomar in Dallas sources ingredients for his menu items from regional purveyors across the country to ensure the highest quality, most authentic flavors. Conversely, he sources his tableware primarily from one rep, who shows him various products.

“When doing a concept, we talk about our vision, what color palette we’re using, and tie all that in,” Fleming says. “We rely [on the rep] to bring us different choices to look at because you really don’t get a good enough feel for how it will be unless you can see and touch it.”

In the case of Central 214, Fleming chose primarily white china from Villeroy & Boch. But at the restaurant’s two communal tables, the bread plates feature an artistic, geometric design in various neutral tones.

“It goes really well with the whole décor of the room—the exposed cement and beams,” Fleming says, “and it really shows off the marble top of the communal tables, which is the same marble on the cookline in front of our open kitchen.”

The plates certainly are attention-getters, so Fleming didn’t want to overdo it. “We wanted to keep it more of an accent piece,” he says, “otherwise it would have overtaken the room.”

As for the communal tables, “being situated inside a hotel, we get a lot of single diners, so we wanted to make sure they didn’t feel left out,” Fleming says. “We really wanted to focus on having a place that the single hotel guest felt comfortable,” because “no matter how good the food is, [dining alone] is never the same experience.”

At the Clift Hotel in San Francisco, Asia de Cuba is designed around a crossshaped, illuminated communal table with a surface of hand-etched Venetian mirror.

Asia de Cuba, various Morgans Hotel Group properties

The Asia de Cuba concept is present at five Morgans Hotel Group properties (in New York; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Scottsdale, Arizona; and London), and each outlet is designed around a central communal table to promote a social atmosphere. Meals at the restaurant are served family-style with items meant to be passed around and shared.

Tableware also is shared across the fi ve units, with all using a variety of styles and shapes of all-white plates, coupes, platters, bowls, dipping dishes, cups, saucers and creamers from Fortessa’s lines. Each location’s executive chef selects the china that he/she feels best sets off the food, with some commonalities, like scalloped plates being used for appetizers, oval platters used for sirloin steak and a certain coupe used for serving salmon at all locations.

Most full-service hotels have multiple kitchens and reserves of dishes, but very few have a dedicated kosher kitchen and the dishware to accompany it. The Tampa Airport Marriott does, however.

After successfully doing kosher events in past years, last year the hotel set up the small facility to cater to the local Jewish community. “We have built a strong relationship with the Tampa Jewish community and the kosher kitchen allows us to participate in celebrations like Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, weddings, anniversaries and multigenerational family reunions,” says General Manager Cheri Rutledge.

One key to the facility’s success is the presence of a separate storage space for kosher dishes, including separate sets for dairy meals and meat meals. The space stays locked and is accessed only by the rabbi supervising the facility or his assistant, according to Executive Chef Mark Hall. The kitchen also has separate dishwashers for the separate sets of dishes.

“The rabbi or the rabbi’s assistant stays in the kitchen throughout the meal and even when it is over” to ensure that the dishes are properly washed and put away, Hall says.

The dishware itself (plates, cups, saucers, soup bowls, etc.) is the same product as is used throughout the hotel, but was purchased new when the kosher kitchen opened, and is used only for kosher events.

Such events are expected to occur roughly once a month, Hall says, as this is the first full year the kosher kitchen will be open, but Hall expects that to increase each year with positive word of mouth from event attendees and the supervising rabbi.