Bread service at Vinaigrette: delicious, but only available on request
More and more restaurants are omitting complimentary bread service, and that’s a problem. The other night I ate at a Southern-inspired place in Saratoga Springs, and there was not a scrap in sight to sop up the savory and creamy gravies. Life would not be the same without the assortment of warm breads (accompanied by cultured butter) at 15 Church or the puffy house-baked loaves of Italian bread at Taverna Novo. And I have willingly (though not gladly) paid $4-5 for a bread basket at a couple of pricey NYC and SF restaurants.
What prompted this post is the lovely loaf pictured here from Vinaigrette, a trendy salad-forward restaurant in South Austin. It’s crusty and halfway toward cornbread, with a good amount of cornmeal and poultry spices thrown in. Olive oil and balsamic vinegar were provided for dipping. Yet it only made its appearance after one of our party needed something to eat with his mushroom stew. (The online menu states “Please let us know if you would like bread with your meal (to minimize waste, bread is served on request only).”)
I can appreciate that bread service increases the food cost, and restauranteurs can be grumpy if uneaten baskets are returned and health regulations prohibit making the bread into croutons or breadcrumbs. From the diner’s perspective, the stale supermarket slices served in mediocre establishments add nothing to the dining experience and might as well be replaced by crumpled pages from yesterday’s menu. But good bread is a treasure, regardless of what the gluten-haters say. (For them, there is always cornbread.)
The solution to the restaurant bread service problem is the same as for drinking water: inform guests at the beginning of the meal that it is served only on request, but then willingly. That’s what servers did years ago when they realized water was not something to be wasted and over time diners have learned and adapted. Now, if we want water, we know to ask. It can be the same with bread.
If you run a restaurant, try this for a while and see how much bread service costs you, then decide whether or not you need to charge for it. If you do, be sure it’s good bread.
Great idea!