Date Night: RH Courtyard Restaurant and Etc.

Date Night is a multipart road map for everyone who wants a nice evening out, but has no time to plan it. It’s for people who want to do more than just go to one restaurant and call it a night. It’s for overwhelmed parents who don’t get out often; for friends who visit the same three restaurants because they’re too afraid to try someplace new; and for busy folks who keep forgetting all the places they’ve driven past, heard about, seen on social and said, “Let’s remember that place next time we go out.” 

The Christmas mornings of my childhood were both magical and methodical: One of us would be handed a gift, then would guess what was inside based on shape, size or, as my sister and I got older, clues my mother wrote on the wrapping paper. Next there’d be the unwrapping, the oohing and aahing and storytelling if the gift was particularly hard to find or involved a delivery snafu. The third and final step commenced when the recipient balled up every shred of wrapping paper and threw it into a Hefty bag Scotch-taped to the back of a dining room chair. Then we moved on to the next person, starting back at step one. This, as you might imagine, took a family of four approximately eight hours, with a breakfast break in-between.

So I was not prepared, on my first Christmas with my husband Dom’s family, for seven people to open gifts at the same time, thanking and talking over each other in a frenzy, and turning the living room into a wasteland of dollar-store gift bags and discarded stockings. The whole thing took 10 minutes, leaving the rest of the day for snacking, napping, more snacking and, of course, dinner.

It used to overwhelm me, but over the years I’ve learned to lean into the short-lived pandemonium, knowing there’s rest and recalibration on the back end. And that’s the approach I took when planning a mid-December Date Night in Green Hills, of all places: Jump into the holiday chaos for a hot minute, then retreat somewhere quiet and cozy.

Stop 1: RH Courtyard Restaurant

The textbook definition of “chaos” is what happens in The Mall at Green Hills’ parking lot day and night, Nov. 1 to well after the New Year. Surprising no one, Dom and I argued while trying to find a space. I thought it made sense to park close to our destination, but Dom thought we might find open spaces near The Cheesecake Factory, which we all know is illogical at best and flat-out asshattery at worst. Give yourself at least 30 extra minutes to circle the lot slowly, lose all hope, consider falling prey to one of the paid VIP parking spaces, come to your senses and stalk shoppers as they leave instead.

RH Courtyard Restaurant is the first-floor eatery inside the mammoth four-story furniture and accessory showroom that is Restoration Hardware. While its name lacks sexiness, the ambience does not, thanks to an extreme number of low-lit chandeliers plus subtle wall sconces, real-looking fake trees, a center court fountain and the barely perceptible beat of background music that makes it feel like a low-key rave for people who’ve aged out of raves. This did not distract me from the fact that I was dining in the middle of a showroom that’s adjacent to but accessible to the mall: Over Dom’s shoulder I watched a couple test couches for comfort.

Like the furniture, the food at RH Courtyard is well-made and laughably overpriced — $21 is bananas for five lightly and perfectly fried artichoke hearts surrounded by burnt artichoke leaves and potato disks as filler, but those five artichoke hearts sure were good. Same goes for the $19 shaved vegetable salad, though the ribbons of carrots, fennel and shaved radishes, tossed with greens and pecans, presented an excellent mix of color, texture and complementary flavors.

When I leave the mall after a few hours of shopping, I want to go home and lie down, not sit and dip $20 black truffle- and Parmigiano-Reggiano-topped fries in truffle aioli, even if they are the perfect cross between a thick fry and shoestring, and impossible to stop eating. I marveled at the mother-daughter duos and families with shopping bags parked next to their tables, and the groups of young women, posing for pictures by the faux foliage in their strapless sequined pantsuits, as they kicked off their night on the town.

As a friend so eloquently put it, RH Courtyard Restaurant “embraces its obnoxiousness.” After dropping $127.55 on three appetizers, two drinks and the tip, we walked the rest of the showroom, floor by floor, until we reached the patio deck, walked to the edge and looked down. Maybe my heart is two sizes too small, but it’s a lot of fun to watch people in the cars below fight for a parking spot when I’m not one of them. 

Stop 2: Etc.

What a difference a half-mile makes. Etc., pronounced et cetera, is on Bedford Avenue, one street behind Cleghorn Avenue, which borders the mall to the west. At 7:30 on a Saturday night, there wasn’t a soul on the street, which is lined with daytime doctors’ and dentists’ offices. We parked directly across from the front door and walked right in. Heaven. 

With 68 seats and a small bar, Etc., which opened in 2016, is a sliver of a restaurant. This is the anti-scene: a quiet spot to focus on what your companions are saying, not how they look in selfies. Though I do appreciate the pendant lights, which eliminate the need for the Phone Flashlight of Shame, the draw is certainly not the basic decor that speaks to Etc.’s hospitality group roots — it’s the woman in the kitchen. Legendary chef Deb Paquette, who’s blazed all the trails and won all the awards, created a following first with the long-defunct Zola off West End in the late ’90s, then Etch downtown in 2012. Etc. feels like a good way to feed those of us who respect her work but don’t necessarily want to deal with downtown dining. 

Paquette’s plates are so much fun — just creative and joyfully alive with so many elements that I feel for the servers who have to remember and describe them. Paquette has zero time for the traditional protein + vegetable + carb setup, which bores me to tears and — to a greater or lesser degree — is something I can make at home. Know what I’m not making at home? The cauliflower remoulade, beet hot sauce and spongy cube of hushpuppy bread pudding that bordered my cornmeal catfish. That dish goes in my top five of 2023, and frankly I can’t remember what the other four were.

It just occurred to me that Dom and I eat our meals the same way our families approach Christmas morning gift-giving: I delight in each component separately, moving slowly around my plate, while Dom wolfs his down in a matter of minutes. Huh. As much as I appreciate a good metaphor, I did not see that coming. 

Surprises were my parents’ M.O. There was always one last oh-what’s-this-behind-the-chair gift under the tree. I have fond memories of opening a boring-looking box as a teenager to find parts to the waterbed I desperately wanted. (True story: It was a twin.) That was back in the days when presents could be kept a secret, and not something I stumble upon on the front step or while checking my debit card transactions. Etc. isn’t a secret, but it feels like one — whether you savor your meal slowly or scarf it down is up to you.