On the heels of this month’s successful four-night Italian-themed dinner series, chef Mike Randolph has announced the dates and culinary theme of next month’s follow-up event. The 12-course dinners, 2.5 hours in duration, will be held at Half & Half (8135 Maryland), his breakfast and lunch restaurant in Clayton. They’ll be held on two consecutive weekends, June 9–10 and 16–17, and are limited to 12 diners each night. Randolph says the June theme will be “modern Mexican, an evolution of Público,” referring to his Latin-themed restaurant, which closed in late 2018. The cost is $175 per person, inclusive of food and gratuity. Guests are again welcome to bring their own alcoholic beverages. Reservations may be made here.
According to Randolph, during the first event, there were “four crowds, four different crowd personalities, and everybody had a great time.” Randolph loaded up the soundtrack with a lot of nostalgic songs—“at one point people were singing along,” he says, “the whole series was really fun. What I came to realize is that we’re just throwing a party, for 12 people, especially since it’s BYOB. We pre-sold half of the next event to repeat customers, so I know we’re doing something right.”
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On arrival, guests are served an icebreaker punch and directed to a dry bar with ice, glassware, wine chillers, a decanter, soft drinks, and iced teas. “For the next [Mexican-themed] event, we’ll set out a blender, so if someone wants to bring their best margarita kit, we’re all over it.
“I’m having a blast,” he adds. “The guests are, too. I love how people are getting creative with the BYO arrangement. One guy wanted to bring a cooler. I said, ‘Hell, yeah, get after it.’ Just take an Uber home. Another guy made Old Fashioneds and handed them out to anybody who wanted one.”
The first course is a “tasting of the tasting,” three items and/or flavors that guests will experience later in the meal but cooked in a different way. “It’s a playful and tasty way to tease what’s coming,” Randolph says. “The first week we handed out the menu ahead of time. The second week, and from here on out, I described each course beforehand, and presented the menu at the end. I explain and cook everything you’re eating that night. There’s nowhere for me to hide.
“The casual grassroots format seemed to resonate,” he continues. “When guests had a question, they just asked, Hey, chef, what is this? And I screamed back from the kitchen, It’s quail!”
Randolph fondly recalls the time that he spent at Moto, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Chicago where any wild food dream was fair game. “We made food levitate,” he reflects. “With these dinners, my goal is to revisit a little bit of that.”
Another goal was to remove the pompousness of a tasting menu. “The vibe is laid back, a we’re one of you, not better than you feeling,” he says. “Seating is often semi-communal, with two couples seated at a four-top divided by flowers. It’s pretty hard not to make friends in that kind of setting.”
Randolph says he was surprised at the number of “attaboys, high fives, and photo requests he received,” which solidified his plan is to do a similar event each month. “I’ve long debated opening up a tasting menu restaurant,” he says, “but I’m doing that here without having to pay for a buildout somewhere.”
For the June event, Randolph teases that guests can expect courses containing cobia, octopus, quail, and duck. “I’ve been starting out with a sweet course and finishing with a savory, working backwards, as it were,” he says.
Beginning in August and for the foreseeable future, Randolph will host two weekend’s worth of dinners at Half & Half. A chef friend who helped Randolph at former Charleston Food & Wine events will assist with the August event, which features foods from the South. Randolph says he’s already mapped out a year’s worth of dinners.
“At age 42, this is where I am right now and what dining is to me right now,” he says. “Great food. No pretension. Lots of fun. I’m doing exactly what I want, exactly where I want to do it, in exactly the way I want to do it.”
