The Table as Institution

Restaurants are businesses. They require turnover, efficiency, and scale. These pressures are not failures of character—they are structural realities that shape every decision a restaurant makes.

We wanted to build something without those constraints. A program where the chef could cook for twenty instead of two hundred. Where the venue could be a private home instead of a commercial space. Where guests could be selected for what they might contribute to the evening, not just their ability to pay.

The result is Chef's Residency: a private dining program that exists outside the restaurant economy, accountable only to the standards we set and the people who share our tables.

Every dinner party is an act of curation. The host chooses the guests, the setting, the menu, the pace. These decisions create the conditions for conversation—or prevent it.

We treat each residency as a dinner party with institutional resources. The chef has professional support. The space is selected with intention. The guests are considered in advance. But the spirit is domestic: hospitality offered, not sold.

This approach requires restraint. We will never expand beyond what we can personally oversee. Growth, in this model, is not the point. The point is the evening itself.

Chef's Residency operates as a private membership program. There are no public events, no ticket sales, no reservations.

Prospective guests apply for consideration. Approved applicants join our roster and receive invitations to residencies that match their interests and location. Attendance is by invitation; invitations are by selection.

This structure exists not to create exclusivity for its own sake, but to ensure that every seat is occupied by someone who understands what they have entered and will elevate the evening for everyone else.