We have a sneaky habit of arriving in advance to restaurants where we were only able to secure a late-night reservation. Contrary to OpenTable’s defiant claims of no availabilities, we are often seated and fed right when we arrive. At BLT Market, Laurent Tourondel’s new cuisine-specific outpost in the Ritz-Carlton, early arrivals are pointed to the bar at the Star Lounge, just outside the restaurant’s door. This is the sort of spot where city bartending legend Norman Bukofzer charms gents and ladies alike, and a cocktail-for-a-crowd called the 1k will run you a cool $1000 (try swallowing that one down). Old-school class pervades. With this as our starting point, the chaos within BLT Market was all the more striking.

BLT Market serves tasty local, seasonal fare in an atmosphere so loud that I’m not sure I would go back. But I’m getting ahead of myself; first, the food. After we were seated, magical tongs placed a long, narrow white paper bag on our table, next to the small pot of rosemary that served as our centerpiece. Inside lay a delectable baguette, each segment spread with butter, garlic, and parsley. As our 9:30 reservation had refused to budge a moment earlier, we were starving and most appreciative of this flavorful beginning—or, frankly, anything edible placed before us.

I started the meal with the heirloom tomato and watermelon salad with Vidalia onion and Westfield sheep milk cheese. Admittedly, I am a total sucker for any salad with watermelon, particularly combined with creamy cheese, and these two were well matched. The sheep cheese had a flavor and consistency much like that of goat cheese, and the watermelon was perfectly crimson and delicious. The tomatoes appeared in farm-fresh shades of yellow, red, and greenish, and varied in their ripeness.

Gourmando, as I’ve decided my husband shall henceforth be known in these parts, started with the soft shell crab with grilled local corn and date salad and pickled ramps (wild leeks). I’ve never been one for ordering exoskeletons myself, but I’ll have a bite if someone else does (double dares work well), and these weren’t bad. Fearless Gourmando said they were the best he’d ever had (sample size: four or five), juicy and fresh. I do feel qualified to comment on the corn, which was sweet and lovely.

The langoustine arborio risotto with basil broth, zucchini, and Wisconsin Stravecchio cheese was offered in two sizes. I was prepared to order the smaller one, but sought the counsel of our waiter, to get a sense of what I was in for. He assured me that the smaller size was “very small.” Me: “How small?” Him: “A couple bites?” Come on. Really? So I took his advice and ordered the large, which came in at $38 to the small’s $24. It was good, although I couldn’t help thinking that my Italian forebears, if I had any, would plotz if they knew I was eating cheese and seafood together—or, worse still, that a restaurant had offered it that way! When we traveled to Italy, this was underscored as a universal no-no. The risotto ended up being quite filling, and I asked to take my leftovers home, feeling a bit cross at not having followed my initial tummy-capacity instincts.