How to Order Small Plates Like a Regular
The first time someone opens a small plates menu, we can see the math happening. How many is enough? Do we each order our own? What if someone takes the last one? Relax. Tapas-style dining has exactly one rule, and it is the good kind: everything lands in the middle, and everyone is invited.
Here is the field guide, straight from the people who watch a hundred tables figure it out every week.
The Numbers
For two people, start with three or four plates and see where the evening takes you. For four people, five to seven covers the table generously. The plates arrive as the kitchen finishes them, not all at once, which is the secret to why the format works: the table stays in motion, the conversation never stalls, and there is always something new landing.
Under-ordering is not a mistake here. Adding a plate mid-evening is half the fun, and the kitchen is built for it.
The Opening Moves
Some plates exist to start an evening. Warm olives with roasted garlic and Meyer lemon do their best work beside a first glass, the whipped ricotta has converted more skeptics than we can count, and Cheese & Company never needs a defense. Gildas, the briny Basque skewers, are the single most efficient way to make a glass of anything taste better.
The Summer Card
Our menu turns with the season, and the Summer 2026 card from Chef Albert is built for exactly this kind of eating. The tuna tartare and the market aguachile are bright, cold, and made for a crisp white on a warm night. The watermelon plate is the sleeper hit of the season. The crab cake and the beer battered fish tacos bring the shoreline to the table, and the charred octopus shows up in more guest photos than the storefront does.
When the table wants one substantial plate to close, the bavette steps up like a headliner. And nobody has ever regretted ending a July evening with the mango passionfruit sorbet.
None of this is homework. Point at anything, ask your server what is pairing well with it tonight, and you have unlocked the entire system.
The Real Reason Small Plates Win
A table of shared plates is a different social contract than four separate entrées. Everyone tastes everything. Every plate is a small decision made together. By the end of the evening the table has a shared history, which is more than most dinners can claim.
Add a cellar list with six continents on it and a team that loves an open question, and you have the Enology formula in full.
See the full menu, then reserve a table in Saint James and order like you have been here before. After one evening, you will have been.
From the Page to the Glass
Reading about it is one thing. Reserve a table and taste it for yourself.