The tables are changing spaces. Both in the dining room of a restaurant and in the dining room of our house, gastronomic trends, cultural influences and tastes of all kinds are reflected, as well as the law itself. For example, ashtrays, since 2006, have disappeared from the interiors of restaurants and could also disappear from their terraces. But there are many other objects that are also part of the past and others that we have incorporated more recently.
“There is a general trend towards minimalism,” explains chef Romain Fornell, from the Caelis restaurant, one of the most classic squares in the city. “We, on the contrary, have not simplified our tables but, when there has been an opportunity, we have made them more complicated.”
When the client enters Caelis, which has occupied stately rooms such as the Palace hotel and today the Ohla hotel, the table is already dressed: high-end tablecloths, cutlery, a glass of water, a small Baccarat crystal lamp and presentation plates, a detail that is less and less seen and in which the quality that reigns in the rest of the tableware is not lost, sometimes made of silver, from Limoges, Bernardaud or other expert craftsmen.
The same thing happens with the glasses: although they prefer to only have the water glass at the beginning, each wine will be served in its type of glass – Burgundy in Burgundy, Bordeaux in Bordeaux, and so on respectively – for greater enjoyment, and therefore Blown specimens by Christofle or Riedel, among others, will parade around the table one by one.
Romain highlights that today the disappearance of the tablecloth is common “even in Michelin star restaurants.” Julián Climent, commercial director of the Spanish company that manufactures high-end tablecloths Athos, uses the motto ‘high gastronomy, high tablecloths’ because he does not understand one without the other. “The tablecloth provides a comfort that the table without a tablecloth does not have, while at the same time it prevents stains, just like appropriate cloth napkins.” Climent remembers the words that the gastronomic critic Benjamín Lana pointed out about this in Animal Cook (Abalon Books, 2021): “The quality of the napkin is like the sail of a brig. It guarantees that everything will go better on the trip.”
However, sometimes less is more. “It all depends on the concept that the restaurant wants to express,” says Fornell. In his case, classicism requires a large number of utensils that will pass before the eyes and, in some cases, through the hands of the clients. In other restaurants such as Alkimia and Alkostat, by chef Jordi Vilà, they have chosen the path towards their idea of purity, which involves getting rid of what they consider to be least necessary at any given moment. Its maître and head of the private room for almost a decade, Aleix Dotú Domènech, explains that initially, when the restaurant was located on Indústria Street, the customer found the table fully set up when they sat down and, on the other hand, “today they only find a statuette of a fish on a short tablecloth, which we prefer over the double and long one so that it is less annoying.”
Presenting an empty table, which will be filled as the meal progresses, is one of the ways to express that sophisticated simplicity that is also transferred to the plate. In this sense, Dotú remembers how before, in other restaurants, it was common to use candles or the practice of folding napkins to achieve some vegetal or animal shape, and that today this is no longer popular as much for an aesthetic as for hygienic reasons: “ Behind that swan is the manipulation of a napkin that we will later put to our lips. In this sense and in others, we are currently committed to minimal interference between the use of the thing and the diner.”
And the famous fish paddle or knife that generates so many doubts about its use? In both Alkimia and Caelis it is still used but not in Alkostat, Vilà’s most direct Catalan cuisine proposal. There they have also omitted the bread and olives that previously came to the table by protocol, something that continues to happen in other restaurants where the bread basket and a small bowl of olives on a small plate continue to be a frequent sight.
Salt shakers, pepper shakers, cruet shakers and oil shakers have followed a different path and today they have left the tables. The pandemic erased shared use objects at a stroke to avoid the transmission of the virus in favor of single doses and, in the case of oil, to comply with current legislation that requires communicating what exactly is inside each bottle.
The evolution of the table at Alkimia has brought with it novelties, such as the use of the same Perceval 947 knife for the entire service, which was abandoned to be carried only to enjoy the game dish, or the tongs and skewer to steal its meat to a crayfish. In any case, they are clear about the following: “if you will only need a fork and knife in the service, we will not present a spoon.”
However, on his table it is possible to see the hashioki or cutlery rests made by Kazue Tusumi, in a nod to the Japanese culture that has impacted Vilà’s career. This is one of the new objects increasingly seen in restaurants whose presence is possibly due to the great influence that Japanese gastronomy has had on haute cuisine around the world, as well as for reasons of comfort and practicality for the user. diner (and to avoid unsightly stains on the tablecloths during the meal).