After laying relatively low over the past year, five-time James Beard Award semifinalist Mike Randolph announced today that he will be hosting a limited series of eight-course, Italian-themed dinners at Half & Half (8135 Maryland). The dinners will be held on two consecutive weekends, May 5–6 and 12–13, and include only 12 diners each. (Reservations may be made here.) The cost is $150 per person, inclusive of food and gratuity. Guests are welcome to bring their own alcoholic beverages. Reserve bottles of wine will be available for purchase as well.
The Menu
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The menu for the four nights will be “a combination of the Italian flavors of Randolfi’s Italian Kitchen with the technique and principles of Privado,” according to a release.
“At Privado, about 50 percent of the menu was adventurous,” Randolph adds. “Here, maybe 25 percent of the menu will be adventurous.”
Asked for details, Randolph says the items may include “a savory sabayon with asparagus, prosciutto, and parmesan; a barely opaque sous vide shrimp with a charred tomato bisque spooned over the top with some grilled Loafers bread; three components of duck on the same plate; beef presented several different ways; a chicken liver cannelloni; a morel risotto; chocolate souffle with porcini caramel…”
Guests are also welcome to bring their own alcoholic beverages. Reserve bottles of wine will be available for purchase as well.
Randolph says subsequent dinners will likely feature different cuisines. “As we progress with this and see where it goes, guests will see different themes,” he says. “I could see showcasing Central or South America cuisine. I’ve cooked a lot of Indian food at home but never professionally. I’ve never seen Vietnamese-influenced French food, so maybe I’ll to do a classic Escoffier meal with Vietnamese flavors and French technique. Providing different content won’t be an issue.”
The Atmosphere
Guests will walk into what they remember as a light, bright breakfast place, Randolph explains, but instead of turning right, they will turn left to find tables with tablecloths set up in front of the espresso bar. The lights will be turned down, and candles and flowers will be on the tables.
Then, he adds, “we plan to kick their butts with some memorable dishes while providing a categorically different experience in that space. It will blow people’s minds to walk into a place they think they know and see it transformed into something completely different.”
Randolph plans to tailor the music playlist to the tempo of the evening: “At Privado, I remember welcoming guests to Bob Marley, then work into a slow tangent of say, Natalie Merchant, and then toward the end, Purple Rain and Whitney Houston’s The Greatest Love of All, and finish with My Way and Roy Orbison’s It’s Over. Things like that.
“And it’s come as you are,” Randolph adds. “If you want to show up in a Def Leppard shirt and jeans, be my guest.”
The Backstory
“I’m a captain without a ship,” says Randolph, who over time has run some of the metro area’s most beloved restaurants, including The Good Pie, Half & Half, Little Country Gentleman, Medianoche, Randolfi’s Italian Kitchen, Público, Privado, and Original J’s Tex-Mex & Barbecue.
During the past year, Randolph has done restaurant consulting (helping open a pizzeria in Bozeman, Montana, among other projects), as well as cooking private dinners in private homes. He also chased “a million leads…came close on a pizzeria, dabbled with a supper club, but nothing materialized,” he says.
“I thought, Why not do a version of something that we did before in a space we already own?” he says, referring to Little Country Gentleman, a restaurant within a restaurant that he created inside Half & Half over a decade ago. “I’ve been out of the game and thought doing a little dinner series for a small number would be the easiest way to get back into it.”
For those not already familiar with the concept, Half & Half had already become established as a higher-end breakfast and lunch spot in Clayton when Randolph opened modern Mexican restaurant Medianoche in the same space at dinner. Medianoche begat Little Country Gentleman, which offered seasonal, Heartland-driven food using an ambitious, three-tiered prix-fixe tasting menu. Both concepts featured memorable, creative fare, but neither ever resonated. “At the end of LCG’s run,” Randolph reflected, “when we had the tables set up in front of the espresso bar and not splayed out all across the restaurant, it had the intimate vibe it should have had in the first place. That’s our starting point this time around.”
“I’m anxious to obsess over a menu again,” Randolph adds. “I want to reconnect with the people who supported me for over a decade with food that evokes some emotion in a setting that evokes some emotion. It’ll be me, one assistant, and 12 guests. That’s where I am right now.”
