The Chef Show

Every once in a while, I have a really great dinner. I mean the kind of dinner that reminds me why I love to eat out, to think about food, look at food. Every once in a while I have a meal that leaves me with a grin on my face.

Food alone is not enough to achieve this level of culinary euphoria. It requires a combination of factors, sensations, and experiences. It depends on the staff of the restaurant, its ambiance, lighting, smell, decor… When all those things click into place, I am left sated and re-energized in my devotion to this hobby of mine that is beginning to take over my life.

Obviously, I wouldn’t be rambling on about this if I didn’t recently have just such an experience. I did, at Ten Tables in Jamaica Plain.

Ten Tables is a misnomer. They have delusions of grandeur – it’s seven tables, max. There is just one server (because frankly, there is no room for another one) and two chefs in the tiny kitchen. The food philosophy at Ten Tables is simple – use the highest quality ingredients, organic and sourced locally, whenever possible, prepare them simply, without fuss and pretense in order to showcase the ingredients, not the chef. In other words, they don’t mess with your food.


Kanchan and I got to sit at the chef’s table. Again, this is a misnomer. It’s not a table so much as a narrow bar with two very tall bar stools quite literally in the kitchen. It was awesome and voyeuristic. There was no rushing, no yelling, no frenetic movement or apparent stress in the kitchen. There was calm quiet, logic, and calculated movement. When the chef set out to do something so simple as slice an heirloom tomato, he looked at it from all angles, found the spot to cut that would showcase the tomato to its best advantage, and cut slowly, deliberately and precisely. It was amazing to watch.

The whole meal - a four course chef’s tasting menu, in our case - was prepared in much the same fashion. Calmly, respectfully, and dare I say it? Lovingly. The chef did something I have never experienced before – Kanchan and I were not served the same dishes during the tasting menu. Confused, we asked why. The answer was so simple and obvious that it made me wonder why every tasting menu isn’t done this way – the chef said that it allows us to taste more, to experience more. Obvious and genius.


So that was it, my glimpse of a professional kitchen, of a person who loves what he does, who gets to have his hobby be his work. Curious concept, that.




P.S. Some of what we were served:

Heirloom tomatoes with white anchovies and arugula

Poached hake with farro risotto and sweet pepper relish

Perfectly salted, crusty coulotte steak with a truffled white bean puree, shaved fennel, and paper thin radish slices (my favorite course, by far)