Earlier this week, I sat on the patio of a pasta restaurant beloved to South Philly. It was 6:00 on a Wednesday, and already long lines of people were mingling about, awaiting the possibility of a table. The music was loud. I was sweating for the first time this year.
The menu felt right, in the moment but not defined by it. It sliced right through the trendy dining noise and captured the essence of the zeitgeist, from the dirty pasta water martini (we really must be at the end of the line with the martinis) to the pockets of egg dough filled with duck and topped with foie gras (foie gras is so back!! on every menu, and far cheaper than it used to be.) There was a spritz with a liqueur necessarily more daring than Aperol (Amaro Alpino). There was even an orange creamsicle ice cream (dare I predict the flavor of the summer).
The vibes were high. I was vibratingly anxious over a big life decision, but I had a beloved longtime friend from London seated across from me and the prospect of a great meal just ahead. (The restaurant is Fiorella, the pasta joint from Marc Vetri, a well-loved Philly Italian restaurateur. But the particularities of Fiorella are actually beside the point for today.)
Friend of the newsletter Caroline and I split almost everything: crudo, huge balls of ricotta gnocchi, cacio e pepe. Fiorella isn’t an everyday place unless you’ve got clout or don’t mind waiting ages for a meal on the regular, so we ordered as much of the menu as we could share, try, and talk over.
The table in front of us made a choice so alien to our own that we couldn’t resist a bit of gossipy judgement. All three people ordered the same dish, the first item on the menu and one of the few that remains year round: the rigatoni with sausage ragu. A bit of necessary eavesdropping provided the intel that this group comes to Fiorella often, and on every visit they always order just the rigatoni.
I’m certain that rigatoni must be good, given the drool-worthy quality of our own pastas. But all three ordering the same dish, a dish that happens to be the pasti-fied version of a pepperoni slice? Over and over? When the rest of the completely fascinating menu changes with the seasons? We were judging.
At restaurants, I get frustrated (intensely so, as my boyfriend likes to remind me) when two people order the same dish, or even worse when half or (god forbid) all of the table orders the same food. I like to know what others are getting so that I can choose something else, not because I want to be “different” but because I want to maximize the food I might get to taste and the chances that what I’m eating — and what others are eating — will satisfy. I could never be in a relationship with someone unwilling to share their meal, and I think I’ve forced more of that on my boyfriend than he’d naturally choose.
I want my restaurant experience to be a messy one: Plates passed across the table, forks reaching over to spear a veg, moans of delight and gestures of revelation, dribbles of oil on the tablecloth from an overenthusiastic scrape from one dish to another. People talking about their food, thinking about what they’re eating, reveling in the meal. (That doesn’t mean I necessarily like a spot billed as “shared plate”; while the experience at these places can manifest exactly the way I’m describing, too often you shell out loads on many small dishes that are too small to share in a genuine way.) Even in the smallest, cheapest places, even when I’m just stealing your fries and giving you a bite of my fried chicken sandwich, that’s how I envision “eating out.”
At a restaurant, you’re eating food you couldn’t or wouldn’t make for yourself. You’re giving yourself over to the hands of experts, allowing a group of people to execute a choreography so that you can focus just on the food and the company. You’re given the opportunity to eat something new, different, or better, despite the fact that you need to eat all of the time to survive. Meals are everyday; a restaurant brings food out of the ordinary.
The rigatoni trio reminded me that’s a conception that others don’t share, or at least don’t think about. Yes, a restaurant can also be a place where you’re just getting sustenance, where you’re seeing the world, or where the food is secondary to the company and the fact that no one’s cooking. In today’s Resy culture, it’s a place to be seen or a place to feel like you’re having an exclusive experience. It can mark a special occasion or become a distraction from a grievous one.
That caveat given (as any good essay editor would demand), I’m still convinced that the point of a restaurant is literally the food. The food gives you an excuse for all of those other reasons to be there. You’re still going to eat. And so aside from a dietary restriction, there’s really no reason not to be open-minded, flexible, and eager to try. I get that there are other reasons to go out to eat, but I’m still going to judge you if you’re showing your hand.
If you’re wishing for a recipe this week, you can always explore the archives, where I’ve got all editions of Bite into this that actually include a recipe tagged on the home page. Until next time, here’s me chomping into my fourth cucumber on the Amtrak on Wednesday…
Thanks for this. Restaurants are interesting social theatre. Part of my PhD dissertation research involved just talking to people who came to restaurants, it was a good excuse to pick a PhD topic that included food!
Great article! Great writing!