Here’s Your First Look at the Table, Chef Carl Dooley’s New Venture
The Table. / Photo by Ren Yagolnitzer
Carl Dooley may be a regular guest in your home on Thursday nights: He is among the contestants on Bravo’s Top Chef this season. The chef is about to return the invitation. His new restaurant, the Table, a 20-seat sliver on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge, opens Tuesday, January 12.
The Table will offer a four-course menu, tweaked nightly and overhauled weekly, with optional wine pairings, as well as a few snacks for guests standing at the wine bar. The small plates menu will change weekly; to start, dishes range from $7-$11 and include venison terrine with prunes, purple mustard, and multigrain toast; warm Castelvetrano olives with fennel, almonds, and extra virgin olive oil; a tiny pot stew of mussels with garbanzo beans, piquillo pepper and cilantro; crispy potato dauphine with aioli and charred scallion; and warm sheep’s milk feta with pita, Urfa chili, and mint. The initial prix-fixe menu is printed in full below.
Venison Terrine with Purple Mustard, Prunes, and Celery Root at The Table. / Photo provided.
Overall, the fare reflects Dooley’s decade of experience, and genuine love for delicious cooking. The Cambridge native is classically trained in French cuisine, and worked under James Beard Award-winning chefs Frank Ruta and Eric Ripert, as well as the innovative Tony Maws at Craigie on Main and its predecessor, Craigie Street Bistrot. “With the accessibility of products and different flavors I’ve seen over the past 10 years, I cook differently than I cooked 10 years ago,” Dooley said previously.
The Table is under the umbrella of Season to Taste, a catering company owned by chef Robert Harris. But the Table has its own storefront and its own, open kitchen. A handful of guests seated at the chef’s counter will see all the action, but the 16 banquette seats aren’t too far removed. Dooley is especially thrilled about the energy that will fill the Table’s small space: “No excuses,” he says.
Chef Carl Dooley. / Photo by Ren Yagolnitzer
Another Top Chef star will help inaugurate the Table this week: One of season 13’s frontrunners, Kwame Onwuachi, is coming to town and will showcase some of the dishes from his forthcoming Shaw Bijou, opening this year in Washington, D.C. Reservations are available on OpenTable.
The Table is open for dinner Tuesday-Saturday from 5:30-10 p.m.
2447 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge; 617-871-9468 or cambridgetable.com.
