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Chef Alex Hardy wants to take you around the world, one menu at a time.
The owner/operator, along with his wife, Tara, of Wayne’s At The Table has delved into the food of Morocco for the latest tasting menu.
“I have a dedicated French (cooking) background,” Hardy said. “One of the really cool things is it’s kind of helping me expand my culinary mind. Basically what I’ll do is, I’ll spend an entire day just being in front of a computer and looking up all the Michelin restaurants and looking up Wikipedia about a certain area. This time I did that with Morocco.
“I look at everything from the government all the way to their people to their cuisine to the weather, so on and so forth. I just find out as much information as I can, kind of make notes about everything.”
The note-taking turns into food inspiration for the chef and what comes back is an adventure for Hardy in the kitchen.
“When I look at the food, I say ‘These are the big items,’ ” said Hardy. “What’s cool is half of the words (ingredients), honestly, I don’t even know. I have to take the time to Google everything. What does this mean and what does that mean? Once you figure it out and you kind of start getting your proteins together.”
The third course on the menu is a grilled and stuffed squid. It’s made with M’Hamsa, merguez vinaigrette, green olives and a herb emulsion.
“So, I’m using M’Hamsa in the squid,” said Hardy. “I had no idea what it was. I then realized it’s just couscous. I’ve used that before, then I just started rolling.”
Hardy freely admits he didn’t know what exactly he was getting into.
“This is fun.” Hardy said. “I was making the squid yesterday and, I’ll be a hundred percent honest with you, I’m sitting there like, ‘I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.’ I’ve never, I’ve never made this in my life, and, and then it works. You know, you do the test dish. And then you’re like, oh my God, this is awesome.”
At The Table, which offers a complete al-a-cart menu as well as the changing world tour, has been garnering rave reviews and awards since opening five years ago.
“We offer both menus in case this might not what everybody wants,” Hardy said. “I think that us being able to do something unique, something different, but also still having people come in and get what they always like.”
At the Table is also getting bigger. They are in the process of moving into the space formerly the Landis Restaurant on Lancaster Avenue in Wayne.
“We are going from 26 people to 75 people inside,” said Hardy. “We didn’t want to go over 100, because we wanted to keep it special for everybody.”
While that’s exciting for the close-knit family and crew running At the Table, Hardy is over-the-top excited about the new Moroccan menu. It comes on the heels of deep dives into Greece and the South of France.
“I kind of wanted to start with the Mediterranean,” Hardy said. “(Lead server Aleksander Salla) is from Albania and he’s a huge soccer fan and we were actually talking about a game that he was watching with Morocco, and I was like, ‘How’s food over there?’
“And he’s like, ‘Oh man, it is so good.’ I started checking it out and really got inspired to thinking what I could do.”
Each course on the tasting menu comes with a signature Moroccan cocktail, which has proven to be a challenge since At the Table is a BYOB and alcohol is banned in Morocco.
“One is literally called Moroccan whiskey,” said Hardy. “Alcohol is banned in Morocco, so I had to figure that out. I mean, I’m a chef not a bartender.
The Taste of Morocco runs through July 1 and Hardy is already planning his next menu trip as he’s doing a deep dive into the food of Honduras.
“You know the old mantra: ‘If you’re not having fun, don’t do it,’ ” Hardy said. “(This is) really fun and it’s really exciting and we’re really geared up to show people what can be done with different foods around the world.”
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