Art of the Table

One of the best of the unrestaurants, this teensy six-table Wallingford room with the butter-­yellow walls and the World Beat music also serves careful, delectable food: eight courses, Fridays and Saturdays (a la carte midweek), along a seasonal theme that chef Dustin Ronspies shyly narrates from the kitchen door. (This may include a sermonette, be warned, about the virtue of eating communally.) The charming Ronspies is a gifted chef, turning out dishes marked by subtle contrasts and textural interplay: smoky poussin with sweet spring vegetables and yam puree, perhaps, or thin-sliced red and golden beets over whipped chevre on flaky pastry. If it’s summer you may get nasturtium petals strewn across your salad and a “full moon” of honey panna cotta for dessert—fun dishes to speed the bonding with the other foodophiles at your table.