Essential Impact

Tabletop components help define a concept's image

By Margaret Sheridan, Senior Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 9/1/2003

Before investing in table- top pieces, operators should know the concept’s price range, menu and especially its personality. Where vintage wines will be served, for example, several sizes of crystal stemware are appropriate. And while imported delicacies are better suited to bone china, silverware rolled in striped dishtowels may do justice to fried chicken or New England clambakes.

When Janet Cam was hired to design the décor for Dish, a 50-seat casual restaurant in The River Inn in Washington, D.C., she studied its menu and wine list. The concept—classic American dishes plated with artistic flair and a sense of fun—deserved a natural, uncluttered look, she determined. White plates with geometric shapes were chosen to highlight the colors of food.

She specified dishtowels for napkins and single-size wineglasses and bar tumblers. Multicolor striped towels in 100% cotton are cut to a generous size that allows tucking into a shirt. The natural fiber holds up well in laundering, maintains color and shape, and absorbs like a sponge, she says.

Although the wine list has many different styles, Cam uses just one size wineglass to minimize confusion and make inventory control and replenishment easier and more affordable. “The universal wineglass works for this concept. We’re not serving collector wines,’’ she adds.

FUSION FUN
Tabletop choices can reinforce the mixed messages of fusion cuisine. The Japanese and Latin American roots of SushiSamba, a four-unit New York City-based concept, result in a blending of tabletop textures, colors and shapes. Executive Sushi Chef Nitzan Raz, of SushiSamba Rio in Chicago, selected mustard-color oblong plates to serve an arrangement of scallop tempura with five flavored dipping salts. He adds traditional Japanese soupspoons to hold the salts and to reflect the concept’s cultural roots. The arrangement of dipping spoons on the plate creates an elegant form. The overall presentation “appeals to more than one of the senses, like Japanese cuisine,’’ says Raz.

PENNY-WISE, POUND FOOLISH
The Peerless Restaurant, in Ashland, Ore., is known for its straightforward American-style cooking with natural flavors and minimal saucing as well as for a 400-bottle wine list that complements the menu. “People come for great wine and expect glasses to match,” Co-owner and Executive Chef Stu Stein explains. He obliges with five sizes and shapes of imported stemmed wineglasses. Though costly, he considers the investment sensible and worthwhile, especially when contrasted with his purchase several years ago of a less costly, alternative glass slated for outdoor dining and special events.

Tall, with sleek lines and an elegantly narrow base, the glasses—tumblers rather than stemmed wineglasses—so appealed to Stein for their looks and low cost that he purchased six dozen. The glasses’ design complemented the restaurant’s minimalist décor and offered a cost-conscious solution for private functions.

Not all is quite perfect with the elegant tumblers, though. They suffer an obvious design flaw, the base too delicate to adequately support its gorgeous flared bowl. Stein has witnessed many of them teeter and fall through the smallest of bumps.

A prudent buyer, Stein does not value form over function nor does he typically buy such items in large quantities to take advantage of better pricing. Although a few of the troublesome glasses are still in use, Stein looks to them as object lessons in good design versus bad. “The few remaining tumblers remind me of what to avoid,” he says.

HOLDING PATTERN
When Kris Schroeder got the funds to update dishware and trays for room service at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, the director of nutrition services wanted distinctive dishes and glassware to match the operation’s restaurant-quality food and presentation. They also had to complement the hospital’s cobalt-blue logo on napkin rings. Schroeder and the medical center’s purchasing director shopped for a china pattern priced competitively with traditional white institutional china. They selected cream- colored dishes with a narrow band of autumn fruits on the rim. The tones make all food look good, she says, even that which is served to those on soft diets.

The center’s tumblers are distinctive yet practical. The glass base has a textured swirl effect that gradually widens at the lip.

Room-service trays, with their mix of white, cream and cobalt-blue tones, have a sophisticated look. “Patients like it. They say it doesn’t look like a hospital,’’ says Schroeder.

Clients of Mary Kate Spainhour, a partner in an Alexandria, Va.-based culinary consulting service, include law firms with private dining rooms and chefs as well as trade associations in the Washington, D.C., area. Appearance and prestige are important to law firms, she says. They require china and stemware that are durable yet elegant.

The sheer volume of events and caliber of clients that some firms entertain influence their decisions to buy the best dishware and crystal, usually in classic styles and colors, mostly white or bone. With care in cleaning and storage, these investments pay off, Spainhour says.

For clients on strict budgets, she usually recommends heavy-duty plasticware, “always in black. It conveys sophistication and lets the colors of food add visual excitement.’’

Spainhour also advises clients with limited resources to shop retail for one knockout design element, such as a serving dish. “Check out shops that cater to young people,” she says. “They have fun designs at affordable prices. All it takes to make an impact is one unusual element against a monochromatic background.’’