Can put you up close to the kitchen team. My first time was many years ago in a Baltimore waterfront hotel. We sat at a rather ordinary table in the kitchen, no glass walls or fancy chairs and accoutrements like so many today. The food was wonderful and the chef ever present to explain the ingredients and techniques.
Tasting menus can be an ethereal experience even in the main dining room as with our visit to Aquavit and interview with Chef Marcus Samuelson a few years back. Every few minutes another dish rolled out from the kitchen for us to try. Three hundred pounds later I rolled out to the street with a gigantic smile.
Another beautiful room with an extensive tasting menu including hot full sized dessert soufflés was at the Marriott on Marco Island. This trend continues and our recent tastings at the Ocean Grill at Amelia Island Plantation, the Dylan Hotel in Dublin, in the kitchen at Salt, Ritz Carlton and a number of other places shows that the trend hasn’t faded and special intimate rooms in the kitchen continue to grow in popularity.
My best advice is to try and book a night when the main dining room isn’t over booked allowing the Chef and his team plenty of time to devote to you and your friends.