Omnivore - A visit to The Sound Table

Still a hit in the Old Fourth Ward

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My Friday night dining friends joined me at The Sound Table last week. This restaurant, owned by people involved with Top Flr and Dinner Party, is one of the hottest hipster-hangouts in town, mainly because of the DJ’s music that overtakes the restaurant after 11 p.m.

We arrived at 7:30 p.m. and found the restaurant mainly empty. I’ve finally learned my lesson. If you want to go to a restaurant from about 8 to 10 p.m., don’t try to make a reservation online, if there are more than four of you.

As readers have told me before, many restaurants block that time out online. I had tried to get us an 8 p.m. reservation online and was told no tables were available. But the restaurant was still almost empty when 8 p.m. rolled around. By the time we finished, it was filling up fast, with a lot of people gathering in the bar area.

Chef Brendan Keenan’s menu remains compelling, if not very adventurous. For starters we shared fried chickpeas, lamb meatballs, a plate of antipasti, fried cauliflower and an arugula salad full of local peach slices.

Our main courses included hanger steak, roasted chicken, bronzini and Chinese pork ribs. The star of the evening was the crispy-skin bronzini with olives and lemon preserves in an especially well made romesco sauce. The notable thing about Keenan’s cooking is its attention to detail. That means the ingredients are local wherever possible and often surprising in the way he plays flavors against one another.

If you haven’t tried the restaurant, it’s definitely worth the considerable parking hassle. The owners, incidentally, will be opening yet another venue on Juniper Street in the space vacated by Lupe (and Cuerno before that).

Oh. The restaurant is staffed by men and women who look like they are about to do a photo shoot. They are all beautiful. And they’re conversant about the menu. Our server, Fafelle, was terrific.