Isaac Parham: My Six Month Journey Towards Tabletop Evangelism

Having written for TabletopJournal for six months, Isaac Parham discusses what he has learnt so far.

A year or two back I was asked in a job interview to predict the next big hospitality trend. Tableware was my answer; specifically, that more and more chefs and restaurateurs would team up with local potters and producers to create bespoke items for their dishes.

How wrong I had been.

Well, not exactly wrong, but late to the party. You see, I now know that the tabletop boom had taken hold long before, arriving in the baggage hold of the locavore movement of the early 2000s. What I had picked up on were mere aftershocks. I didn’t get the job.

This annoys me now to think about it. As an experienced food writer, I had eaten out in many of Britain’s top restaurants and interviewed many of its top chefs, and yet the early stages of this phenomenon had passed me by. How? How had I missed the fact that Simon Rogan had been working with local potters for years? Or that mass-produced white plates had already been substituted for bespoke earthenware versions in many of the leading restaurants?

The answer, I think, is that I was too fixated on “the product” – how a dish smelt, looked, tasted; the details our senses implore our memories to keep ahold of at the expense of analysing the dining experience as a whole.

What I now understand, having written for TabletopJournal for six months, is that successful hospitality operations rely on multiple elements working together in harmony – and that tabletop is one of the most important of these elements.

So, whereas before I imagined tabletop would be an afterthought to the planning of a new dish, I now understand that tabletop can play a key part in the very success of a dish. Whether that’s using a simple white bowl to show off the vivid colouring of carrot soup or serving a tuna tartare theatrically on pebbles and dry ice to emphasise the cleanness of the flavours.

This change in emphasis has made me reevaluate some of my favourite dining experiences from the past. Did I really love that restaurant because of the way the chef combined sweet prawns with a warming red pepper foam? Or was it because the dishes crowned an all-round wonderful dining experience: the welcoming waiters, the wild deer roaming outside, and, yes, the perfectly-chosen plateware and ergonomic cutlery. I think the latter.

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Favourite Experience

Sampling the tasting menu at Vineet Bhatia London for the first time: a magical mystery tour through one of the brightest culinary minds I have encountered. Yes, the food was startlingly good, sophisticatedly spiced and never cloyingly rich, but it was the sheer creativity of the presentation and the way the tabletop coalesced helped to tell the story of each dish that made it so special. As I wrote at the time: “Far from detracting from the food, the tabletop items add theatre and intrigue. At no time am I inclined to ask the waiter how a dish should be eaten, always a good sign.”

Top Quote

“Tableware often enters our thinking early on, often when the concept is first being thought of, which can be years before we actually launch” – Karam Sethi, JKS.

Most Engaging Interviewee

Ther

e have been a few but just for sheer bombast and insight it has to be Paul Goodfellow. Here is a man that has done it all as a tabletop supplier with over thirty years’ experience, and yet he retains a real enthusiasm for his craft. And what he does certainly is a craft; Paul doesn’t just flog tabletop items, he provides insight and solutions to many of the country’s leading chefs. And he is old-school in the sense that he prides himself on his people skills as much as his product knowledge:

“Yes, I have amazing relationships, amazing contacts – I probably know more chefs in the UK than any other person – but you know what, you have to have the service to go with it. You don’t retain the relationships for thirty years unless you keep the customer happy.”

Favourite Product Range

I love Maham Anjum’s work for Hoppers in Soho. The items are not in-your-face in terms of design but marry perfectly to the Sri Lankan cuisine and vibe of the restaurant while being functional, too. And it was inspiring to hear from Maham and Karam Sethi about the research and planning involved.

Isaac Parham