Fine Dining Without SUDs: Ça Va Todd English

What makes fine dining fine? Flavors composed so well that they play a symphony with each bite? Swank decor and thin-stemmed wine glasses? A server so attentive you wonder if she can read your mind? 

All of these things matter, of course. But what really separates the chefs from the cooks is attention to detail.

And one detail at Todd English's Times Square restaurant Ça Va (aside from the perfectly crusted truffle mac and cheese) was the stack of cloth towels next to the sink in the bathroom. 

If I had to say, my favorite part about cloth towels in the bathroom (which get washed after each use) isn't that I can try my hands with confidence that I'm producing much less waste and that the likelihood that old growth forests were felled for my hand-drying needs is essentially zero.

It's how soft those reusable towels feel on my hands. How I feel like I'm not just in any old restaurant, but in one that gives me a little something extra. One that's got that extra something.