A restaurant in a neighborhood like Ohio City is more than a kitchen. It is a room people walk past every day, one they bring their parents to, and one they drop into alone for a glass and a plate at the bar. We think about that room as carefully as we think about the food.
Tables for every kind of evening
The dining room mixes long tables for groups with small ones by the window, and a bar where a single guest can eat the whole menu. Tapas suit that range. A couple can share four small plates and leave within the hour; a table of eight can order a paella for the middle and stay until the pan is scraped clean.
- Bar seats kept for guests who walk in.
- Window tables for two, with the light at sunset.
- A long table at the back for birthdays and team dinners.
Sound and light
We keep the music low enough to talk over and the lights warm and dim, but never so dim that a guest needs a phone to read the menu. The walls are wood and the ceiling has panels that soak up sound, which is why a full room still sounds like conversation rather than noise.
The best compliment we get is a table that forgets to look at the time.
Much of what we learned came from our neighbors. They told us when the room was too loud, when the bar needed more seats and when a dish should never leave the menu. We keep listening, and the room keeps changing a little because of it.