Behind The Scenes at One of Dallas' Most Exclusive Dinners

When Anthony Bourdain penned the seminal Kitchen Confidential in 2000, readers were enthralled with anecdotes from the back of the house of America’s restaurants, for better or for worse, and the popularity of the food-as-entertainment genre skyrocketed. For those who have spent any amount of time working in restaurants, they alone can relate to the drama, intensity and colorful characters described by Bourdain or appearing in reality shows like Hell’s Kitchen, comedy films like Waiting or Chef or dramatic series such as The Bear.

These shows offer a glimpse of an industry that most diners will never see firsthand. Many of us will go out to eat time and again at our favorite restaurant and we don’t give a second thought to the epic amounts of planning and work that go into creating a single night of dinner service. You might notice servers flitting about the dining room, bussers clearing tables or occasionally see a chef pushing an entree through the window of the kitchen. As chaotic as it appears, this ballet of staff and plates has been meticulously planned ahead of time. And those best laid plans often get modified on the fly when issues arise, all with the idea that any chaos is hidden from the view of the guests.

The Observer was recently offered a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into a night of service at a popular Dallas restaurant. But it wasn’t just any restaurant, and it wasn’t just any night. For the second year in a row, chef Toby Archibald is hosting his Drifter Dinner Series at Quarter Acre on Greenville Avenue, where Archibald teams up with a visiting chef to create a one-off tasting menu for guests, all to benefit Baylor NICU’s Tiniest Texans program. The dinner series launched on Aug. 8 with Dallas’ own chef Misti Norris taking up residence alongside Archibald for an eight-course dinner that was a blend of their styles.

On this night, we were invited to step inside Quarter Acre hours before the first guest arrived, with nearly unprecedented levels of access to the front and back of the house, and document what goes into an event of this scale. Armed with our phone to record conversations and a bag full of camera gear for visuals, that’s exactly what we did. And when we finally left the restaurant nearly eight hours later, we were sore, tired and hours away from coming down from an adrenaline high from the experience. After sifting through hours of audio and over 500 images, we get to share the experience here.

Arrival Time: 1:56 p.m.

When we walked in the front door of Quarter Acre, it felt jarring. Not because we easily found parking a few minutes before, but because the lovely dining room we’ve come to expect still had chairs on tables from last night’s cleaning. There were no barstools at the bar and no one to greet us at the host stand. Two days prior, general manager Michael Crownover had sent us the “run of show” schedule for the day. Guided by that agenda, we arrived a few minutes before 2 p.m. to sit in on the first meeting of the day with Quarter Acre’s leadership.

Crownover appears from the back to greet us, dressed casually in shorts and a t-shirt. Beverage director Jacob Fergus is also casually attired as he unboxes wines for the evening at the bar. Archibold sports his black pinstripe apron over a black t-shirt. The only staffer who seems already dressed for the evening is Kristen Cook, who will be working the expo window for tonight’s service.

The foursome takes a seat at a four-top closest to the kitchen and Archibald begins by talking briefly about the evening’s menu. There’s a lot of talk of timing and pacing, as the evening’s service will run differently than most evenings. Since the menu is predetermined, the usual ticketing system of orders will be shelved in favor of strips of paper that list each course, tied to each party as they are seated, so Cook can control the pacing of their meal. Crownover handled expediting last year, but he felt that kept him away from interacting with guests like he would have preferred, so Cook will be tackling this for the first time

“I’m a little nervous. It’s been a little while since I expedited,” Cook says with a laugh. “And this is kind of a different way from what we usually do, but I think we’ll be OK.”

The management meeting is also the time to voice concerns, and there are several. One of Archibald’s dishes is a beef tenderloin that will be smoked in a glass dome, then plated table-side, so extra “hands” will be needed for that course. Crownover shares that they have 65 reservations this evening, up from a max of 48 during last year’s Drifter Series, and approximately five of those have dietary restrictions that will need to be addressed during dinner. And with the extra covers, Fergus and his bar team will need to wash glassware on the fly to keep the wine pairings flowing smoothly. One kitchen staffer called out the night before, but Archibald arranged a replacement.

But most importantly, Norris won’t arrive until after 3 p.m., with her own chef de cuisine in tow, and some of the details about her dishes are still up in the air. Archibald adjourns the meeting so he can head back to the kitchen and prep while the rest of the team breaks off to finish their pre-shift tasks.

The Wine List: 2:29 p.m.

We catch up with beverage director Fergus as he unboxes wine for the evening. Quarter Acre’s eclectic beverage program is one of the best (and the $55 wine pairing on QA’s new tasting menu is a testament to Fergus’ skill.) But tonight, with Norris in the kitchen, is an opportunity for the wine options to stretch to the obscure.
“This forces us to be a little more creative, so for this dinner, we’ve gone all B-list grape varieties,” Fergus says. “The idea is we’re picking things that are new and intentionally different. These are all wines that we’ve never poured at this restaurant ever. This is about mimicking Misti’s style.”

Fergus reached out to his wine distributors several weeks prior to starting to identify wines that would fit his vision. Around two weeks before this evening’s service, Norris and Archibald had provided “about 80 to 85% of the menu” so that Fergus could refine the wine choices for the evening.

There’s also a unique cocktail that will start off each guest’s meal this evening. Fergus and team have batch-prepared the cocktails — a blend of sherry and reposado tequila - in advance to ensure that each cocktail will be identical.

“We’ll just pour it over ice, garnish with an orange and send it out,” Fergus explains. “It’s faster, it’s more consistent, and I know everyone’s experience will be the same.”

Family Meal: 3:10 p.m.

Family meal is a staple of many restaurants. Nearly every staff member has arrived at the restaurant by 3 p.m., even though the first seating isn’t until 5:30 p.m. Most times, family meal is prepared by the kitchen staff, but with today’s special dinner comes a special treat — a stack of pizzas from Greenville Avenue Pizza Company.

“Two, maybe three times a year,” Cook tells us in between bites of her pizza slice. “They don’t have time to feed us today.”

The vibe among the waitstaff is relaxed and light while they eat, the camaraderie of the team apparent after just a few minutes. Cook tells us that was one of the things that inspired her to come to Quarter Acre when they opened. Cook had worked previously with Crownover when he told her about his new gig.

“I was actually thinking about leaving the industry,” Cook says. “But Mike was like, 'This is everything we’ve ever talked about wanting to see in Dallas and the restaurant industry.' So I came over when it opened and have been here ever since.”

As relaxed as the staff are, Crownover is a bit nervous. Quarter Acre isn’t a big restaurant, and there’s a bit of a log jam in seatings at the peak of service, between 7 and 8 p.m. “We’re really hoping the tables will turn over in time, but we’ll do the best we can when we get there,” he says.

Crownover tells us that tickets for this year’s Drifter Dinner Series were released in two batches. They made season passes to all four dinners available first, and sold 27 seats, so over 40% of the guests seated this evening will be back for the three other dinners. And when they turned on individual ticket sales, Norris’ dinner sold out overnight.

“These are fun nights,” Crownover says. “It’s not the norm, so it’s always challenging on how we react and tweak things on the fly.”

The Guest Chef Arrives 3:30 p.m.

Norris has arrived at Quarter Acre, and after a quick introduction with the kitchen staff, sits down in one of the dining room banquets alongside Archibald. Introductions are quickly made, then Norris and Archibald talk about their menu for the evening. Norris starts by talking about her inspirations from her grandmother, who taught her how to pickle, how to preserve and other aspects that have become signatures of her cooking style.

Together, Archibald and Norris walk through the dishes, each of them explaining the dishes and their components. Perhaps more fascinating to our insider view was the furious note-taking by every server. Nearly all of them had the menu in front of them and as Archibald and Norris spoke, nearly all of them were making notes of ingredients and techniques so they could speak to the dishes later as they served them to the guests.

And there’s a lot to take in across seven courses, and listening in is like getting a crash course in culinary technique. Norris speaks of the process to create her pork pithivier, which is a terrine of ground pork and prunes rehydrated in blueberry tea, then moves into a smoked chicken heart that is lightly pickled in red wine vinegar and a garlic-infused ginger oil that will sit atop a gelatinized strawberry shrub extraction that Norris fermented over the summer when strawberries were in season. Archibald has created a mushroom custard that will be served with a fermented XO sauce, fermented from tofu, shrimp and chilis that have been curing in the Quarter Acre walk-in for weeks. The custard will be plated on a wooden spoon, topped with the XO sauce, then sprinkled with katsuobiushi, or dried fermented bonito tuna flakes.
These detailed descriptions are just for the trio of snacks that will start the meal before the first course. And for nearly 30 minutes, Archibald and Norris talk through each of their dishes they’ve created for the evening while the staff furiously scribbles on their menus and notepads. After taking a few questions about specific dishes, Archibald and Norris retreat to the kitchen to fire each one of the dishes for a staff tasting before service, while the rest of the team gets final service notes from Crownover and Fergus before disbanding to get the restaurant ready for opening.

An Energy Shift 4:15 p.m.

There’s a notable shift in the restaurant staff's energy as the dining room is set up for service. Chairs come off the tables, tables are set with menus and silverware and the floors get a final sweep and vacuum. At the bar, oranges are peeled and sliced for garnishes for the opening cocktail while every piece of glassware gets a final polish.

As Archibald finishes his preps, we take the opportunity to ask what goes into arranging chefs for this second go of the Drifter Dinner Series.

"This year, I actually had an idea of who I wanted to invite. Misti was the first one I asked. We were just having a beer after Petra had closed,” Archibald recalls. “Byron [Gomez] was the second one I asked, even though he’s doing the fourth dinner. I met Kevin Fink at the Michelin event last year, and I asked if he was interested in being part of this, and immediately he was like, “Let’s go!” Then I got Chef Rodrigo Rivera on board for the second dinner.”

Archibald, for his part, is excited at the opportunity to cook alongside Norris.

“When we were trying to put food together that would at least seem like it came out of [Misti’s] kitchen, it’s been really fun,” Archibald recalls. “Whenever I eat at her restaurants, it’s like, here’s carrots, but it’s not just carrots. Here’s carrots that taste like 'Holy shit, these are carrots that we’re having five different ways'.”

Norris recalls her response to Archibald’s invite as almost instantaneous.

“Oh, immediately yes, as soon as he asked,” Norris recalls. “Thinking of food makes me think of my childhood, and that’s always a good memory. So I think that’s why I cook now, to make these memories.”

The First Tasting 4:45 p.m.

With Norris and Archibald’s discussions and prep with the kitchen team complete, they start firing a few of every course that will be served this evening. All the dishes are assembled on a table next to the bar, and the front of house staff gather around to see the dishes for the first time so they know what to expect. Archibald or Norris goes through the dishes again, and field any last-minute questions from the team around ingredients, accommodations for diners with dietary restrictions, and serving processes.

The energy notably kicks up after the food show. Crownover and Fergus disappear briefly to change into sports coats and slacks for dinner service. Servers make final checks of the tables, and many of them huddle in corners of the dining room, re-reading their notes and rehearsing their speeches they’ll soon be giving to guests when they arrive.

Guests Arrive 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

The first guests arrive just a few minutes before their 5:30 p.m. reservations, and are promptly seated as service gets underway. Norris and Archibald take station on the kitchen side of the expedition window, and Cook starts tracking the cardboard strips that note each course.
“Fire three snacks for table 32!” Cook calls out. “Oui, chef!” the kitchen responds. Cook then marks the minutes of the hour when each dish was fired. The timing of courses will be critical as the evening progresses. Guests are going to be seated on the half hour until 9 p.m., but the 7 to 8 o’clock hour will be the test to see how the timing is working. Ideally, the first guests from the 5:30 will wrap up their meals around the two-hour mark, which is critical to open up seats for the second turn of tables.

Norris and Archibald, for their parts, seem relaxed as service gets underway, and we often catch them laughing, relating stories, or trying tastes of the dishes being prepared. And every dish comes across their purview for assembly or garnish before getting pushed into the kitchen pass.

“Hands!” Cook calls out, and servers step to the window. “Two tomatoes to table 21,” she declares, oblivious to the alliteration. The server repeats the dish and table assignment before grabbing the plates and dispersing through the dining room, while Cook strikes through the course on the paper strip. The ballet of servers and staff may appear chaotic, but a rhythm quickly forms. Chants of “corner!” flow freely when teammates enter the short service hallway between the expo window and the kitchen. We’ve been granted access to all parts of the restaurant, and we quickly fall into the habit ourselves as we navigate the kitchen spaces to visually document all aspects of the evening’s service.

Two hours quickly pass, and as we slide into the back part of the kitchen to photograph some of sous chef Gosha Kalashnikov’s mochi dessert dishes being prepped.

The Second Turn of Tables 8 p.m.

The second turn of tables is underway, and at this point in the service, we’ve photographed nearly every dish from the menu. While it never appears so to the guests, the intensity at the pass has ramped up. Cook is calling out fire orders more rapidly, and the kitchen responses are sharper as line cooks get dishes underway.

Calls for hands are happening more often too, and if one of Cook’s calls for hands goes unanswered for more than a few seconds, she quietly raises a hand instead of repeating herself. A raised hand brings servers quickly to the window to run the next course.

Norris and Archibald both have more sharpened looks on their faces as they are plating more and more dishes at a quicker pace.

“I’m normally quite easy going,” Archibald would tell us later. “But I know I don’t come across that way in the kitchen. I’m very intense when I’m in here.” Part of the intensity is ramped up by having a guest chef on hand, which Archibald likens to having your family visit your home.

“You hope they come away feeling good about the experience, but it also makes me hyper aware of everything that’s going on,” he says.

Crownover expected the table rush, and he’s assuring guests as a short wait has developed on the next round of reservations. It’s hard to say where time slips away with so many parts in motion, but it's on the management team’s skill to navigate the backup as quickly as possible and ensure that the guests waiting are happy while the guests finishing their meals are wrapped up and tables cleared as quickly as possible.

We’ve been on our feet for more than six hours and have developed a new appreciation for the physical toll the restaurant staff will endure as they push through three more hours of this evening’s service. Free from those obligations, we duck out of the restaurant for about an hour to sit down somewhere quiet and look through our notes and photos and plan for the rest of the evening.

Last Call 9:30 p.m.

When we pop back in the front door, the last reservations of the evening have just been seated. As we grab an open seat at the bar, Crownover updates us on the earlier delays.

“We got a little backed up for a bit, and two of our tables had to wait a little bit for their seats, which we hate to see happen,” he explains. “But we think we’ve got everything back on course now.”

The intensity near the kitchen feels somewhat lower than 90 minutes before. The calls for hands still come with regularity, as do the instructions for the kitchen to fire dishes, but it's almost as if the staff can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The slightly slower pace also allows Archibald and Norris to take turns away from the kitchen pass and come out to interact with some of the guests in the dining room.

Over the next hour, we had a chance to try some of the evening’s dishes from a quiet spot at the bar. There was a delectable sous vide then char-grilled octopus char siu in a creamy cashew broth, followed by a Rosewood ranch wagyu beef served with chantrelles that was smoked with hay under a glass dome on its way from the kitchen. We tried chef Gorsha’s vanilla mochi, brightened by an orange compote and fermented blueberries, then wrapped with a few of the sweet candy-inspired “lollies” that Noris and Archibald created just for the evening’s meal.

Clean Up 11 p.m.

We skipped back into the kitchen to find cleaning well underway. Norris had ducked out a few minutes before, as Archibald explained she was exhausted from a full day of work at Far Out, where she’s the culinary director, before heading to Quarter Acre late afternoon. But Archibald had a chance to fill us in on how they came up with the evening’s menu.
“I’ve usually a format that I email off to the chefs,” he explains. “Here’s the format, we do snacks, we’ll do a few cold dishes, then two hot dishes, a few cleans in the middle. And they tell me what they want to do and I fill in the gaps.”

“But for Misti, she’s so fun to work with because she’s always in flux. She’ll have something brand new, and she comes at things from such a different way," Archibald says. "Like that pork bah-oan she made tonight; she texted it to me, and I was like, OK this seems pretty standard. But then she sits down to tell us all about it before service, and it’s like a month’s worth of things that have gone into it.”
We thank Archibald and his team for allowing us to document the evening, but he’s more grateful for the chance to share what he thinks is one of the best food events to come through Dallas.

“I’m really proud of this. I know last year, it was all chefs that I met along the way, and I was really happy with how it was organized,” Archibald says. “But for this year, as cool as this is for me, I think it’s really cool for this restaurant and it’s really cool for this city. People are excited.”