Wine & Words

We recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal about what they call “cutback cuisine”. It’s how the big, fancy restaurants in New York City are making changes in ingredients, portions and menu items to deal with the spiraling cost of foodstuffs.

At our Back Bay Café, we’re doing a number of things to keep a high quality dining experience, while not driving our customers away with high prices: Less expensive menu options - We’ve started including pasta and vegetarian items along with our pricier protein-centered entrees Portion control – We don’t mound up the plate with a lot of “filler” that gets thrown away. We aim for portions that leave diners feeling satisfied without being “stuffed” or needing to take part of the meal home. A la carte menu – Instead of a $30 full meal that “includes” a lot of stuff you might not want, you can build as large or small a meal as you want. A Starter of Garlic Shrimp with a Main of Pasta costs only $16. Prepared from seasonal ingredients – I’m always amazed when I see people loading up their food carts with prepared, processed food that seems cheap. But look at the price of a 5# bag of potatoes, as compared with 2 pounds of “tater tots.” At Back Bay Café we fix everything from scratch (and you can’t get “scratch” for chicken feed these days) changing our menu monthly to take advantage of the economies of seasonal abundance. Efficient food use - Most world food traditions have great dishes made with “leftovers.” Think of fondue or bread pudding, where “stale” (in Europe that mean’s from yesterday) bread is turned into tasty treats. Trimmings from the finer cuts of meat are made into savory stews (and made more hearty with the addition of inexpensive beans). Locally sourced foods don’t cost so much to ship, and we use them when we can get them. We believe dining out should be a relaxing, entertaining, satisfying experience. The music we play, the service and hospitality we offer, the way our food is presented…none of these are affected by the market price of grain commodities or the high price of oil. And we will continue to offer these to our customers. Along with a bit of “cutback” that doesn’t diminish the dining experience.