Being a coffee shop, eatery and a catering business all in one is a tall order for Miles Table, 1620 South St. , but the restaurant accomplishes it by keeping the focus on good and interesting food.
Besides a menu of standard fare featuring sandwiches, burgers, pizzas and salads, the restaurant has an ever-changing seasonal menu of specials for patrons to drool over. We’d like to kick ourselves for not stopping by for breakfast or brunch, as the brunch specials feature items like banana- bread French toast and Miles Table’s interesting takes on huevos rancheros and breakfast burritos. We were shown pictures, and they look even more spectacular and decadent than their descriptions on the menu. We are determined to make a return trip …
The night we visited, the specials were all pasta dishes, and we decided to keep it simple. Did we mention that the busiest times for Miles Table are during breakfast and lunch, when neighborhood residents pack the sleek but cozy confines of the space? Hopefully those early birds will come around more often, because the dinner menu is impressive and creative as well.
According to the friendly staff, everything at Miles’ kitchen in house-made, down to the pickles they use on the burgers. And it shows.
The harvest soup ($6) was a lovely, velvety take on butternut-squash soup, with carrots and fennel thrown in to give the sweetness of the squash something to play against.
Normally we shy away from white pizza but since it’s Miles’ most popular pie, we had to try it ($11). The crust was pleasantly thin and crispy. The pizza itself was piled high with chicken, cheese and pesto. This particular pizza, to our delight, held back on the garlic-y over-seasoning we’ve come to expect with white pizzas.
Another house favorite we tried was the falafel burger ($9.50), which is one of two occasions we can think of in recent memory where the chef nailed the perfect consistency of falafel. This sandwich can easily compete with our carnivore lust for burgers. It was perfectly crispy on the outside and moist and smooth-textured on the inside. The toppings of tomato and feta cheese added a terrific brightness to the overall flavor of the sandwich as well.
Miles has set up a pretty interesting table, so if you pull up a chair, you will not be disappointed.