If you're dining at the fancy Maritana Grille at the Don CeSar Resort & Spa, you might notice that on certain occasions, the manager escorts a small party through the main dining room all the way to the back, past a drink station, and they disappear into a service area adjacent to the kitchen.
These are not well-dressed range repairmen. They're not undercover testers for the Food and Drug Administration or the Health Department. They're not FBI operatives surreptitiously taping dinner conversations in order to prosecute illegal activity.
They are lucky gourmands dining at the resort's Chef's Table, a perch set just off the kitchen, where the culinary staff regales them with a custom, six-course meal, complete in our case with complimentary Champagne, photos with the chefs, and a ringside seat to all the action.
The only downside?
It's expensive. We thought $125 per person was an awful lot. We thought it surely would cover everything. It didn't. When we got the bill, we were surprised at how much the extras added to the final tally: wine (a modest Australian Shiraz, $12 per glass), sparkling water ($6.50 per bottle), cappuccino ($4.50 per cup), plus a hefty tip rewarding excellent service. The final tab for three? $547.44.
If you've got a few hundred bucks you don't mind blowing extravagantly, the Chef's Table certainly does provide a form of personal attention the average schmo sitting at Table 18 doesn't get.
"We get a lot of foodies, people interested in food. We get a lot of people from New York and Chicago; maybe they've been to (celebrity Chef) Charlie Trotters' Chef's Table in Chicago, and they come here, and want to try ours," explained Maritana's General Manager Andrew Nielsen. "Or, they're local, they're interested in food and wine, and we have found that it's a good way to promote the restaurant.
"We want it to be special; we want it to be fun, both for the diners and the chefs, who get to be really creative. We let the chef go wild. … It's foodies that love to be wowed, maybe pairing wines with food. It's a diverse mix."
The Don's version of the Chef's Table can accommodate as few as one or two, or a maximum of eight diners, Wednesday through Sunday. Since you reserve the table for the whole evening, the restaurant allows you to choose when you want to start. Most parties start between 6 and 8 p.m., Nielsen said.
Ours began with introductions and the resort's respected executive chef, Eric Neri, outlining the evening's menu. We asked questions. We posed with staff members for pictures, tucked fraternally together at the one end of the triangular Chef's Table, which has banquettes on two sides and chairs on the other.
A couple of chefs proudly presented new dishes they had developed. We oohed and ahhed at their triumphs. As occupants of the official Chef's Table, we were happy to be guinea pigs. And when Chef Neri does a quarterly review of the resort's restaurant menus, standouts at the Chef's Table win the pole position in the selection process for new menus.
Our heavy plates sat ringed with enough cutlery to stock an army, and a small forest of wine goblets, snifters, and drink glasses bristled around them. It turns out we needed all of them because at the Chef's Table, you eat and drink to excess.
First, Chef Neri warmly welcomed us, then ordered the hors d'oeuvres. In came toasted bread rounds topped with creme fraîche, chopped boiled egg and caviar, half the beluga variety, and the other half, osetra. The chef pointed out that the beluga was darker and saltier than osetra. He invited us to sample both and see if we could tell the difference.
Another round of champagne followed. The food was front and center, but the companionship and an easy, vibrant conversation gave the evening real panache. My companions, both world travelers and serious diners, were curious to see what the kitchen had whipped up for us. We weren't disappointed: The Chef's Table allows talented cooks to blow it out, secure in the knowledge that their audience will appreciate technical mastery, unusual combinations and exquisite presentation.
The next course entailed Asian-seared prawns with scallop dumpling, cucumber salad and peanut glaze. It was a beautiful dish, with glistening pink prawns and lush green shredded cucumbers. It disappeared in minutes, followed by wine, which we ordered separately from the wine list, which offers 250 different bottles and 20 choices available by the glass.
We thought we were a jolly crew at the beginning, but as the meal wore on, we got much jollier. Pretty soon, we were cracking jokes and teasing the suffering waiter, Marc, who bore our raucous laughter and noisy chatter with grace. The service was pretty nearly perfect: careful, polite and attentive.
A lovely crusted seabass with portobello mushroom, a fricasée of yellow and green squash, chunks of lobster and lobster beurre blanc made up the next course. This spectacular dish certainly attracted our attention. I don't think a crumb of it went back to the kitchen.
Our favorite dish turned out to be pan-seared scallops with yellowtail snapper, sweet corn and English peas, accented by caviar broth, and created by the very personable Chef Louis Tillman, who even sat with us for pictures. We mugged, we sipped, we tasted, we surrendered.
By the final meat course, we were groaning but found a new resolve to continue when we saw an arty filet of lamb paired with filet mignon, accompanied by vanilla bean mashed potatoes.
Endurance is an important attribute for the Chef's Table, along with a tolerance for serious quantities of wine and champagne, increasingly silly gags, and steep calorie counts that one would never want to confess at a Weight Watchers meeting.
Out came a dessert that might play in a chocoholic's dream. It was a tube of high-quality chocolate bearing gold-leaf emblems on its surface and stuffed with mousse made with mascarpone, topped with cinnamon whipped cream and semi-sweet chocolate curls. Since one of our party didn't care for chocolate, the chef pleased her another way: with a lavish plate of fresh blueberries, honeydew and strawberries.
After a finish like that, I had to pull myself together to face the bill, figure the tip and find my lost shoe under the table. We hauled our loaded bodies out of the restaurant as if carrying 50-pound backpacks up Camelback Mountain. We had some lame idea that we would dance downstairs in the bar afterward, but we chose a nightcap instead and called it a night.
If I were to do it again, I would book dinner to begin at an earlier hour, along with a room at the hotel. Then, after my culinary marathon, I would ride the elevator upstairs, open the windows to admit the sea breeze, and collapse into sated oblivion.
Food Editor Sara Kennedy dines anonymously, and Weekly Planet pays for her meals. She can be reached at sara.kennedy@weekly planet.com or 813-248-8888 ext. 116.
This article appears in Aug 14-20, 2003.