As everyone knows, free restaurant bread is a national (and, perhaps disappearing) treasure.
Forget about salads and other starters. The key to a good night out is to begin with the bread.
A server shows up and there it is, in a basket, wrapped in a napkin.
In the best of all worlds, the server also puts some butter on the table. It’s sometimes in individual squares, sometimes it’s in a small bowl. I know, olive oil is replacing butter. It’s a mistake.
Of course, free restaurant bread is not free. You can’t go into a restaurant and say, “I’ll just have the free bread.”
The reality is that accountants know how to slide the cost of the bread into the cost of the meal. You buy the meal. You get the bread.
We also all know that free restaurant bread is an endangered species. Servers whistle by, never putting any bread on the table, not even one lousy roll.
If you’re lucky, you’ll have a cranky friend with you who will shout out, “Will we get some bread, ever?”
The room will go silent and then break into applause. The room, too, wants bread.
Speaking of shoutouts, or, in this case, missing shoutouts:
I wish Rochester restaurant bread had more of a presence in a recent story in The Atlantic Magazine.
Caity Weaver, one of the magazine’s star writers, gives a wonderful, rambling account of her search for the “Best Free Restaurant Bread in America.”
To her credit, and to the credit of an Atlantic expense account, Weaver, did her homework.
She traveled 13,000 miles in search of bread. She conducted a survey that received 555 responses, and she did what she described as “months of monomaniacal research.”
Some of Weaver’s research included asking celebrities to name their favorite free bread restaurant.
“There is only one good celebrity in this world,” Weaver concluded. “The author Stephen King.”
What’s so good about King? Well, he was the only celebrity to answer Weaver’s query. All the other celebrities ghosted her or slid her off to a P.R. person who had nothing to say. Reporting is not for the faint of heart.
In his answer, King named the bread at Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse in Sarasota, Florida.
You have to wonder about King. He was born in Portland, Maine, and has had a home in Maine for years. So why didn’t he choose the free bread at Fore Street, a restaurant in Portland. It’s terrific. Trust me.
Weaver does not seem to have been in Rochester. There is a glancing mention of the Olive Garden, which is renowned for is breadsticks. But could be any Olive Garden, not a Rochester Olive Garden.
The brown bread at The Cheesecake Factory did receive the most mentions in Weaver’s survey, and she gives it praise. Again, it could be any Cheesecake Factory, not necessarily the one in Pittsford.
I won’t spoil Weaver’s story by revealing where you can get the best free restaurant bread, though, be warned. you will need to get a loan to cover the meal.
Rating Rochester bread
Where is the best free restaurant bread to be had in the Rochester area?
Let me know at jmemmott@gannett.com or Remarkable Rochester, PO Box 11, Geneseo, N.Y. 14454. Be sure to describe the bread, and feel free to include pictures and testimonials from friends. I’ll reveal the results in a few weeks.
Bird update
In a February column, I worried that birds wouldn’t come back to western New York, given the cold winter.
Dr. Alan Bloom, a birder’s birder, reassured me that the birds would return. “They always come,” he told me. “They always do.”
He was right. There are birds everywhere. And I’m happy to report that a red-breasted grosbeak appeared at our feeders on April 30. Usually, the grosbeak arrives on April 29, the birthday of our son-in-law Drew Mokris. The bird can be forgiven for being a day late.
From his home in Geneseo, Livingston County, retired senior editor Jim Memmott writes Remarkable Rochester about who we were, who we are. He can be reached at jmemmott@gannett.com or write Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Free restaurant bread is becoming an endangered species
Reporting by Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
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