Orange and Olive Caterers and Chefs Table

This review pertains the chef’s table dining experience. (Torn bet 3&4 stars) We had ordered our tickets online for this unique culinary event six weeks in advance only to be called a week before asking, without explanation, if we could dine on Friday evening instead of the Saturday. I said no because we really didn’t have the flexibility to move our plans with other friends. Had we known what was to come on our actual evening, we might have tried harder to reschedule.
Our group of four arrived at 6pm sharp and walked into a commercial kitchen space. Cool… but it was clear that the host/​restaurant team didn’t really know how to greet us. We joined one other couple who seemed to be celebrating their engagement with a romantic night out at this communal table. (The fiancé was a trained chef and they were real foodies and a total delight to hang out with)
But imagine our shock when we were told that our group of six was the entire reservation for both the 6 o’clock and 8:30 seating (note: typically the table seats 12 for each seating). I thought they had called to switch the reservation because they were overbooked… well boy were they overbooked!
It turned out that the catering company had two events off site that evening and the main culinary teams were understandably out at those private events. Had we been told that they didn’t have adequate manpower or staff to cook and serve and make our meal worth the $ 150 pp charge, we would have rescheduled. Upon further reflection, the owners really should have been up front and offered us another date.
But in an effort to make the most of the evening and having traveled over 35 minutes, we asked for our wine to be opened and made friends with the younger couple already there. The young guys in the kitchen were super cool and quite ambitious and even accomplished-​just inexperienced. Both CIA trained, they served well prepared dishes with beautiful presentation and nice explanations about the techniques they employed. And truth be told, we had a ball chatting and learning about their training and techniques. The sous chef, James, was really an intern from the CIA who arrived that week to start at this place. And he was really quite charming and skilled.
Here is a stab at reviewing each of our courses:
1. A trio of fish tastings-​caviar, fluke with melon and some sort of pressed crispy fish skin-​the flavors worked but the morsels were so small it was hard to fully appreciate the preparations.
2. Cold cucumber soup-​disappointing. I get the intention here since cucumber is refreshing and a great palate cleanser, but this concoction was so watery, it would have been better to blend it with a thickening agent or additional ingredient and spice could have been kicked up a few notches. Neither complex nor tasty.
4. The perfect poached egg with a beet purée– sensational from start to finish.
(Our friends started to get really hungry at this point so they asked for bread. They said they had some sort of leftover focaccia)
5. Sautéed shrimp with pistachio powder– 2 very small shrimp in a bowl. Nicely prepared but again, portion just incredibly tiny.
6. Another small piece of fish sautéed-​not memorable. Mine was good but my friend’s piece was the size of one piece of sashimi at a sushi joint!
7. Seared pork loin-​very yummy, cooked perfectly.
8. Strip steak with a duo of purées-​the burdock root purée was a real standout and the steak was cooked medium rare to perfection.
9. Dessert 1– dark chocolate covered ice cream bar with carrot spiced ice cream and a cashew brittle underneath. This was the creation of the intern sous chef and my husband and I appreciated the creativity and sweet and savory elements. Kudos to James! It was less successful for our friends but they like milk chocolate so this sophisticated flavor profile just wasn’t for them. Our new foodie friends seemed to agree with us… very good. And probably one of the larger courses of the evening. Ha!
10. Dessert 2– a trip of sorbet, granita/​ice, frozen elements-​the granita riff on a margarita was fabulous but melted on the plate quite quickly. The blueberry sorbet was exceptional but the candied ginger chip accompanying it didn’t work for me. Cannot remember the third but I will say that plating three distinct frozen elements which were already melting in a shallow bowl was less than ideal. Would have worked better if the plate was flat and the elements were colder and separate.
We weren’t offered coffee or tea which was surprising, but our new friends offered us some ice wine which we thoroughly enjoyed.
All in all. Food-​good, not great, plating– nice. Service tried hard, but clearly this was the B team. And we left feeling like it was a unique experience worth trying again. But we did leave quite hungry and for $ 150 pp and a BYO, we should have left satiated. I hope they’ll take these comments to heart because they have clearly hit on a really cool culinary idea in need of some tweaks.