Table-Side Drama

By Lisa McLaughlin

Cooking at table side has always been part of traditional haute cuisine, but somewhere along the way flaming steaks and crepes suzette fell out of favor. Now classic-style restaurant service is coming back strong, along with the rekindling of slicing, saucing, dicing, deboning and flambeing at the table. In Chicago and Los Angeles, retro restaurants are making Caesar salads, filleting Dover sole, carving roast beef and sauteing steaks right in the dining room. Patrons at New York City's Patroon are treated to a dramatic flambeed steak Diana and flaming bananas Foster. And at Terrance Brennan's Seafood & Chop House, also in New York City, breakfast is enlivened by the table-side preparation of steel-cut oatmeal or creamy scrambled eggs with lobster, black truffles, smoked salmon and osetra caviar. --By Lisa McLaughlin