The important thing about small restaurants

Sam Betts had to get pretty astute about the use of space when it came to opening his restaurant two years ago. Aptly named The Small Canteen, the tiny one-story building, with a flat roof and diamond-shaped interior, seats just 15. “We had to measure and re-measure to make sure everything fit,” he says. His modern European restaurant in a residential area of ​​Newcastle upon Tyne measures just 7m by 3m at its widest point.

Inside the space, which has a mid-century vibe, there’s some bar seating, a few tables, and a four-person booth. To the side of the counter is a small workbench, where Betts serves his £15 main courses such as soft-shelled North Sea crab with blood orange salad and braised ox cheek. “I can do six dishes at a time, there’s a lot of moving back and forth with the pans,” she says; the small galley kitchen is “too small” to serve. It is intimate, affordable and homey. “People end up chatting because the tables are so close together,” she says. “It is a very friendly space.”

the little canteen it is one of a growing number of small restaurants with 20 seats or less. But they are not serving set menus or small plates of frothy food. otto, in Berlin, is a 16-seater neighborhood restaurant that focuses on fermented ingredients and bold flavors, or “sharing dishes that underscore a lively atmosphere,” says Vadim Otto Ursus, the restaurant’s owner and head chef. in manhattan, mimi it’s an atmospheric 18-seat bistro with sexy lighting and a laid-back French menu of usually 10-12 courses. And in the North African place The barbarism next door, in London, there are barely 10 seats. It is so small that it has to borrow the kitchen from its adjacent sister restaurant. Co-owner Layo Paskin likens his mood to “a bar in Seville…it’s bustling and vibrant.”

People chat because the tables are very close together.

Cozy and casual, these little places speak to a new state of mind for eating out. Daniel Bennett, Mimi’s co-owner, refers to them as “gems…little holes in the wall that not everyone knows about.” Right now, he says, diners want a “close, not distant, sterile experience.” They are the antithesis of the fancy dining satirically portrayed in The menu: informality is its USP. It’s all about “quality food and wine” with no pretensions to “prestige,” says Vadim.

Opening a restaurant that can barely accommodate a birthday party may seem counterintuitive in an industry that has suffered catastrophic losses in recent years; with two sittings, the maximum number of diners Betts can pass through her doors each night is 30. The Small Canteen once hosted 18 simultaneous guests for a private function. “It was really hard to get everyone in,” Betts laughs. “There are definite drawbacks. It’s a lot of work and there’s an income cap; You can only bring so much each night.”

But there is a beauty in being the size of a pint. Betts says it’s “easier to control quality,” while Otto’s Ursus, who also owns the 70-seat Trio restaurant in Berlin, says it “creates flexibility, spontaneity and creativity.” Dishes are checked daily, and Ursus is able to work with smaller producers whose produce would otherwise be too scarce for his larger site: He cites cuts of beef that are “only available from time to time” and “outstanding” wines of very limited vintages as examples: “The process of changing anything in the larger restaurants takes much longer.”

Ursus turns leftover fish into a Roman-style garum and leftover bread into his signature umami sauce. “It’s a lot of trial and error, but there’s more freedom to experiment,” says Betts, who previously worked in Michelin-starred kitchens in London and who cooks at The Small Canteen: there’s just a dishwasher, a waiter and himself.

At Mimi, Bennett pulled his head chef, Jay Wolman, off the ladder of the New York restaurant scene. Small restaurants, she says, give budding chefs a “different path to the top than old-fashioned establishments.” Small restaurants are often run by “chefs not yet famous,” or by those who could have left the stress and culture of cooking for a larger space.

Smaller often means a better work-life balance. Mimi and The Small Canteen open for dinner only and closed on Sundays and Mondays, while seating eight alumni kitchen table, in County Kildare, operates on Friday and Saturday nights. There is one sitting per night, and its remote location means diners tend to stay in the rooms above. “It’s becoming our social life,” says Philip Mahon, who runs it with his wife, Kathy. “We really interact with the guests.”

Betts says that this connection is the best part of his job. “It’s personal and accessible. And made with love,” she says. “The name The Small Canteen is almost a mission statement. People can come a few times a week, instead of just for a special occasion. Customers today like to feel like they are part of something.”