The Restaurant Serving A $125 Meal For A More Affordable Price

How much would you pay for a seven-course fine dining experience? Does $125 sound like a reasonable price for such a meal? At some restaurants, that's probably a bargain. We are talking about seven courses, after all, and if it is upscale, then surely that's reasonable. It's also well out of the price range of many diners. $125 is not something most of us can afford to drop on a single meal, especially in this economy. If you're dining out with somebody else, that's $250. New York City's Community Kitchen has come up with a novel approach to making a fine dining experience more accessible to everyone. You could pay $125, or maybe just $15. If you can afford closer to the restaurant's cost, the meal is $45.

While traditionally the quality and price of dishes on a menu go hand in hand, that's not the case with Community Kitchen. Everyone gets the same quality food, the same care in preparation, with no consideration given to what the diner might pay for it. Community Kitchen works on a sliding scale where you are asked to pay what is fair based on your income. They don't police this idea, either. No one is going to check your taxes, but they ask you to pay what feels reasonable for you based on the three levels available. No shame or judgment, only the idea that everyone has a right to good food regardless of their financial situation.

In his newsletter The Bittman Project, Mark Bittman said, "I realized that for the first time in fifteen years none of my projects had a deep emotional hold on me." That was where the idea for Community Kitchen began, a restaurant located in the Lower East Side Girls Club in New York's Alphabet City. He teamed up with James Beard Award-winning chef Mavis-Jay Sanders in the kitchen, and chef Jose Andrés is on the board. Employees get paid over $32 an hour.

The menu, which some sources cite as having nine courses, is developed from locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, so it will change over time. Diners may be treated to corn pudding, whole wheat steamed buns with collard greens, monkfish, chili, and roasted plums with almond streusel. Similar ideas have taken off in the past. In New Jersey, Jon Bon Jovi's JBJ Soul Kitchen famously has no prices at all on its menu. Chef Massimo Bottura's Food for Soul in Harlem offers free gourmet meals two nights a week plus a pantry where customers can shop without paying on Tuesdays. Brazil's People's Restaurants are government-subsidized to offer meals for just one dollar or less. Other chefs and activists around the country and the world have launched similar projects to address food insecurity and income disparities.

On the Community Kitchen website, you can make reservations based on which tier of the sliding scale works for you, but they also accept walk-ins. If you're in the area and want to experience a meal that delivers both exceptional flavor and a real social mission, stop in and give it a try.