Modern Bird

The Art of Building a Menu With Shared Plates | Bon Appétit

"I found that Andy Elliott and Emily Stewart’s Modern Bird in Traverse City treats sharing as part menu design and part service choreography: servers will suggest ordering two of certain starters (if a table of six wants the pillowy cheese bread with ranch butter they’ll recommend two), and the gnudi deliberately arrives in four oversized pieces. The kitchen favors plates that are physically easier to share—chunky beets with horseradish, speck and a jammy egg instead of a leafy salad, no soups, and a pre-sliced wagyu denver steak plated to make stacking a forkful simple—while also rethinking crudos (Elliott menued a hamachi crudo topped with ponzu foam rather than submerged broth) to reduce fuss at the table." - ByMaggie Hennessy