Fremont’s award-winning Ampersand & Also revised its small plate menu this week to become the first restaurant offering the latest fine-dining trend for the truly gastronomically inclined: MicroPlates.
The new $250 42-course meal menu features items like grilled raisin, blanched navy bean and cheese shaving, guaranteeing diners’ bank accounts will be drained while leaving them satisfyingly hungry.
Its James Beard-nominated owner and chef, Silas Mulvaney–who also runs trendy South Lake Union brunch spot And & Good Looking Grammatical Mark–said he was eager for the change in Seattle’s bougie culinary landscape.
“I said to myself, how can I make more money from people and serve them less?” Mulvaney recalled. “If I can make a really tasty pork tenderloin, how can I stretch that one piece of meat amongst all of my diners for the night? Ah! And that’s when it came to me: Make my plates smaller than small plates.”
Of extra note are the pork tenderloin sliver served in a finger bowl with pan drippings (2 drips), tasting crumbs hand-gathered from different sections of a sourdough loaf he bakes each morning, and droplet cocktails served in syringes typically used for injections on infants.
Dessert favorites include carrot top shavings, a single cottage cheese curd, and spoon used by kitchen staff to get the last of the Nutella at the bottom of the jar.
Local diners say they are enthusiastic for the change.
“We were celebrating our engagement and what better than Ampersand & Also could fit the bill?” says Linus LaTorneau, “We sat for three hours, savored 42 MicroPlates, then drove over to the Dick’s in Wallingford to fill up on actual food.”
Lydia Rostom, a local food blogger, agrees.
“You think a single grilled cilantro leaf would tide you over until your next meal,” she said. “You’d be wrong.”
Mulvaney is also eager to try a restaurant format that doesn’t serve food at all, just the imaginings of food.
“That’s the next step for us,” Mulvaney said. “How can we not feed people anything but the bill?”
