Long Table Club Brings 'Village Square' Feel To East Windsor Restaurant

EAST WINDSOR, NJ — When Shai Rilov moved from Israel to Princeton two years ago, he noticed something was missing.

Back home, he said, there was a spontaneous "village square" feeling. In New Jersey, he didn't find much of it.

Rilov had come for his wife's postdoctoral position. He had also just handed off Robin Food, the food-waste-prevention nonprofit he founded, and had no set plan for what to do next. So, he did what he usually does and started organizing neighborhood picnics.

The more people he talked to, the more he heard the same thing. Many found it hard to make new friends once work and home took up most of their week. Many also wanted to eat better and try new recipes.

"Food could become a kind of community glue," Rilov said. "Something universal that people can share, and sometimes make together, shoulder to shoulder."

That idea became Real Food Club. The first event was in March at Jersey Girl Café. Ten guests who had never met cooked together with Chef Kathy and her team, ate what they made and took meals home for the week. Three more events followed, each filled to the kitchen's limit of 16 guests. About 60 people have taken part so far, counting returning guests, and more than 400 local residents are on the club's interest list.

Rilov said the friendships were the best part. After the first event, one guest who loves to cook invited the group to his home, and several went.

"To me, that was the clearest sign that something real had formed," he said. "The event had generated its own next gathering without my organizing it."

One guest told him, "I felt so energized having met new people while learning, working and feasting together."

Rilov jokingly calls the experience a "large-person-collider." The idea is to bring together people whose paths wouldn't normally cross, give them something to do, and see what happens.

The problem was size. Chef-led cooking events take a lot of planning and can only fit so many people.

This summer, while traveling in Europe, Rilov came across large communal dinners where strangers sat at long tables and shared one menu. He wondered if that could work at restaurants back home.

He asked local Facebook groups to recommend community-minded restaurants, especially ones with a quiet or closed night. Hundreds of suggestions came in. Kochi Indian Cuisine stood out. Rilov said owner Jebu Matthew talks with his diners and treats hospitality as real human connection.

The result is Long Table Club. Its first dinner is Thursday, Oct. 8, at 7 p.m. Thirty-five guests will sit together for a family-style, four-course Kerala-style meal:

• Masala vada, crispy lentil fritters

• Vellayappam, a Kerala rice pancake, with vegetable stew, a gently spiced coconut stew

• Lemon rice with black chickpea curry

• Vermicelli payasam, a creamy South Indian vermicelli pudding

The menu is mild, with extra heat available at the table. Kochi's homemade nonalcoholic drinks will be for sale, and guests can bring their own alcohol.

Rilov hopes guests will try something new on the plate, too. "It's different from your typical tikka masala," he said.

The evening is not networking or speed dating, he said. Before the dinner, he is collecting one surprising fact from each guest. He is keeping how those facts come back up at the table a surprise, and plans to keep his own role light.

"The table itself already does a lot of the work," he said.

Guests can come alone or bring someone. Rilov said arriving solo is normal and is what the evening is designed for.

"I hope people leave feeling joyful, energized, inspired and amused by the unexpected conversations they had," he said. "They took a small leap of faith in breaking bread with a bunch of strangers on a Thursday eve."

Tickets are $40 per person. Eventbrite adds a service fee and required sales tax. Details and tickets are at events.realfoodclub.co.

More dinners are planned. Rilov said they will rotate among independent restaurants, towns and cuisines, but he wants to learn from the first one before announcing the next. He is open to hearing from residents, restaurant owners and community connectors who think the idea could work in their area.

"I'm still quite new here," Rilov said. "Building it with the community is the only way this project will be possible."

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