Restaurant Week is back, and reservations are piling up
Although Kansas City’s Restaurant Week doesn’t start until Friday, January 15, the first weekend of the 10-day “week” is already booked up at many places, promising another big year for the fundraiser.
A good example: Affäre, the stylish
German-Austrian venue at 1911 Main Street operated by chef Martin Heuser and his wife, Katrin. Monday of this week, nearly every reservation for lunch and dinner on January 15 and 16 had been taken, with January 17-23 also going fast. “We don’t have a single reservation for the last day of Restaurant Week, on January 24,” Katrin Heuser tells me. “That would be a great time to come.”
Affäre, like the other 184 participating restaurants, is offering a special $15 lunch menu and a $33 dinner for Restaurant Week. Because Affäre — like a number of those nearly 200 locations — is not an inexpensive restaurant, these upcoming 10 days lend a superb opportunity for local diners. If you’ve toyed with the idea of visiting (or revisiting) Affäre or Michael Smith or Novel but have been intimidated by their price points, here’s your chance to eat in some of the metro’s most acclaimed dining rooms without having to sell the Toyota.
And for the 185 participating restaurants — a record number for the seven-year-old event — Restaurant Week is a chance to welcome many first-time patrons, as well as do holiday-season volume during the traditionally slow month of January.
“It is,” says Bart Hickey, the managing partner at Seasons 52 (which is also participating in Restaurant Week), “a win-win situation for everyone involved.”
It’s also a win for the three local charities that receive financial support from the dining event: Boys Grow, the Children’s Center for the Visually Impaired, and Cultivate Kansas City. Since Visit Kansas City first proposed the idea of Restaurant Week to the Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association, the event has raised more than $1 million for area charitable organizations.
This year’s Restaurant Week, presented by US Foods, offers an interesting mix of fine and casual dining, along with plenty of bar-and-grill options across the metro. You get steakhouses (among them Capital Grille, which traditionally books up well in advance; the Journey Wood-Fired Steaks at the Argosy Casino; and Sullivan’s). You get pizzerias (Topp’d, Spin, Waldo Pizza, among others). Much menu browsing — and maybe a touch of decision fatigue — awaits you at kcrestaurantweek.com.
Browsing that site is how I found that Affäre’s three-course lunch begins with a choice of Southern German snail chowder and diced cellar vegetables (prepared with vermouth and tarragon), or candy-striped beets, wasabi espuma with fresh horseradish and beet-cured gravlax. The second course prompts another decision: beer-braised pulled pork topped with handkerchief pasta, with cheddar sauce and broccoli florets; or a polenta-crusted chicken breast, poached in Riesling and draped in arugula pesto over mushroom risotto with asparagus.
The dessert options for the Affäre’s lunch menu: apfelstrudel à la mode, chocolate Bavarian cream with a Riesling-poached pear, or a poppyseed torte.
The dinner menu at Affäre is more elaborate, offering several more choices — the entree list also includes Westmoreland bison sauerbraten with potato dumplings or chef Heuser’s Westmoreland bison ragout with lingonberry sauce and butterspätzle.
Among other participating restaurants high on my own list are Webster House, Westport Cafe & Bar, Renee Kelly’s Harvest, and the Rozelle Court at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. And classic Kansas City standbys abound, including the 53-year-old V’s Italiano Ristorante in Independence, Tasso’s Greek Restaurant, and J. Gilbert’s Wood-Fired Steaks & Seafood.
Several of the participating restaurants will offer menu items appropriate for vegetarian, vegan, nut-free and gluten-free diets.
Because the prices — $15 for lunch and $33 for dinner (not including beverage, taxes or gratuity) — are such a bargain, it’s not uncommon for Kansas City restaurant lovers (along with those just nursing a crush) to schedule a different dinner spot for each night of the 10-day event. Amateur eaters, this is your chance to turn at least semi-pro. •
