In many restaurants dining has become more than just eating an enjoyable meal. It’s now akin to a live stage show. As they famously did in the mid-20th century, chefs are leaving the kitchen to carve prime rib and light fluffy meringue on fire tableside, engaging all your senses in the preparation and plating of your food.
This holiday season, invite your private chef or caterer to do the same, finishing off showstopping dishes in full view of guests and bringing the excitement and extravagance of a white-tablecloth experience to your dining room. “People don’t want to just be served,” says Angus McIntosh, a private chef in New York City who works with DM Estate Staffing. “They want to be involved in the entirety of the meal—they want to know what’s going on.”
That said, don’t go overboard. The key is choosing one or two courses to receive the theatrical treatment, which keeps things less complicated for your kitchen and more special for your guests, according to New York City–based private chef Maddy DeVita.
“You don’t want your guests to say, ‘Oh, here we go again…’ ” she says. “When people are at a dinner party, they’re there to enjoy good food, but they’re also there to talk with company, and you don’t want to take up their attention for too long.”
And for holiday dinners especially, the table can be cramped with the centerpieces, napkins, plates, glasses, and an often-staggering array of silverware. If you have plans for a few big presentations, you’ll want to invest in a Garrison cart, which can be wheeled to the table with all the ingredients and paraphernalia necessary for your show.
If you’re an experienced home cook and want to have a go at it but aren’t sure where to start, try incorporating small tableside acts into the meal, such as shaving white truffles over warm bowls of tagliolini or ladling Bordelaise sauce over plates of filet mignon à la minute. Just make sure you prep your ingredients ahead of time, stay organized, and practice a few times before the big event so you don’t leave your guests bored or hungry. And starting or ending with a bang is always a good idea. An impressive appetizer sets the tone for the rest of the meal, and a dessert with fireworks will leave them with a story to tell. “Everyone’s excited,” DeVita says. “It’s a nice way to wrap it all up.”
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Ceviche
Image Credit: Lauren Tamaki Tableside ceviche is a fresh, colorful, and creative way to start a meal, according to Andy Suarez, a private chef and culinary instructor in Chicago. Suarez often prepares this dish on yachts, where space is extremely limited. “This has the wow factor,” he says. He brings out most of the ingredients already chopped and then, at the table, slices sushi-grade salmon as thin as sashimi, which guarantees the marinade penetrates it quickly. The technique requires a lot of practice and an extremely sharp Japanese knife, so the fish doesn’t fall apart. (If you want to DIY but lack the knife skills, diced cooked shrimp is a good substitute.) He then combines the salmon with diced pineapple, thinly sliced red onions and jalapeños, chopped cilantro, sea salt, and lots of freshly squeezed lime juice before serving with tostadas or lettuce cups.
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Caesar Salad
Image Credit: Lauren Tamaki A classic Caesar salad is practically synonymous with tableside fare, as countless chefs have been put through the paces concocting the well-loved dressing. And if you’re a home cook looking to step out of the kitchen and up to the table, it’s one of the easier performances to master. Make sure your romaine lettuce and salad plates remain ice-cold until the main event. In a large mixing bowl, using the back of a spoon, mash together an egg yolk, anchovies, roasted garlic, and salt into a paste. Whisk in mustard and Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, and Parmesan. Slowly whisk in olive oil and lemon juice. Add the lettuce to the bowl, toss until coated, and then portion out servings using tongs. Top with crusty croutons and shaved Parmesan.
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Pasta Alla Ruota
Image Credit: Lauren Tamaki Commonly known as cheese-wheel pasta, pasta alla ruota is a mouthwatering, eyes-widening way to present a heap of carbs to a crowd. “I haven’t stopped dreaming about this since my latest trip to Italy,” says Southern California–based recipe developer Erin O’Brien. “I mean, what’s better than tagliatelle being tossed tableside in a gigantic wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano?” The recipe itself is quite simple: Pour hot pasta, butter, and a splash of pasta water into a hollowed-out wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano, and then scrape down the sides to coat every inch with fresh cheese. If you don’t have an 80-pound cheese wheel lying around, online food retailers can ship one straight from Italy for a few grand or so. Before the event, gently dig out a “bowl” in the middle of the wheel, light the insides with a torch to get it melty and ready to go, and then recruit some muscle to load it onto the Garrison cart and push it into the dining room. “You’ll have a perfectly glossy sauce and decadent dish that’s done in minutes,” O’Brien says.
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Chimichurri
Image Credit: Lauren Tamaki Los Angeles–based private chef Brooke Baevsky (a.k.a. Chef Bae) likes to use a mortar and pestle tableside to make herby chimichurri, which can be used as a room-temperature dip for crudités, an accompaniment for grilled meats, a salad dressing, or a pasta sauce. “Balancing temperatures—hot and cold—makes it a more seamless experience,” she says. “Don’t make an entire menu of things that need to be heated up.” In the mortar, grind together coarse sea salt and pepper, then garlic, parsley leaves, and oregano leaves. Stir in red-wine vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil until smooth. For a fun interactive element, Baevsky suggests letting guests participate in the grinding, rather than just watching the chef do it.
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Martinis
Image Credit: Lauren Tamaki A fun way to start the festivities is to roll out a bar cart. Stock it with everything your bartender needs to make martinis to order. In addition to the basic barware—an ice bucket, an ice scoop, cocktail coupes, a jigger, a bar spoon, and a strainer—be sure to set out both a mixing glass (for stirred) and a cocktail shaker (for shaken). Add a few bottles of good gin, vodka, and dry vermouth, a nonalcoholic gin alternative, and plenty of garnish options such as lemon twists, olives, olive juice, and cocktail onions. For an after-dinner pick-me-up option, include espresso, coffee liqueur, and simple syrup to make crowd-pleasing espresso martinis.
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Salt-baked Cod
Image Credit: Lauren Tamaki To present extravagant dishes like salt-baked cod, McIntosh, the New York private chef, always employs a Garrison cart. Do the prep work either in the kitchen or, to build the anticipation, tableside before the first course: On a rimmed baking sheet, stuff a whole fish with aromatics and brush with olive oil. Pack damp kosher salt underneath, all around, and on top of the fish and roast until done. The salt hardens into a thick shell, locking in the flavors and creating a dramatic presentation. “You can walk out, parade it, and then pull the salt off in one big block,” he says. Fillet the meat and serve on a platter with accoutrements such as smashed and roasted potatoes, aioli, chimichurri, or salsa verde.
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Cherries Jubilee
Image Credit: Lauren Tamaki To end the meal, bring the heat. Cherries jubilee, a delicate flambéed dessert, can be mostly assembled in the kitchen and then carried to the table for a live-fire demonstration, or the sauce can be cooked with a portable burner in front of your guests, which is how restaurants such as Brennan’s, in New Orleans, made it famous decades ago. Chef McIntosh uses a thick-bottomed sauté pan to heat pitted cherries, sugar, and lemon juice, then adds a heavy splash of rum or Kirschwasser cherry brandy. He ignites the alcohol using a long lighter or match. “Be cautious!” he warns. “The flames will erupt, creating a spectacular display.” You don’t want to light the tablecloth or napkins on fire, so stand back (and have a fire extinguisher on hand, just in case). Once the alcohol has burned off and the flames die down, spoon the cherry sauce over slices of lemon-poppy-seed pound cake and vanilla ice cream. “A meal can be long and drawn out, but this will revitalize you,” he says.
