Aperture & Void: A Restaurant Review

By Ridley Longsworth

Aperture & Void, located deep within a reclaimed industrial park, promises an experience of gastronomic friction. It delivers on that promise, but the friction is entirely between the diner’s common sense and the chef’s nihilistic ambition. The visit felt less like a meal and more like a high-end, carefully orchestrated psychological evaluation designed to see how much absurdity one would tolerate before demanding the check.

The ambiance is less "minimalist chic" and more "brutalist purgatory." The walls are poured concrete, painted a noncommittal shade of ash, and the temperature is maintained at a perpetual, slightly too-cool 62 degrees. The only sound is the white noise of a faulty ventilation system, giving the room an air of sterile, expectant dread. Our server, whose uniform resembled a hospital scrub and whose demeanor suggested deep-seated philosophical regret, presented the "menu," a pair of smooth river stones on the zinc table, making it clear that hospitality here is subservient to the chef's performance art.

We began with the appetizer, The Unwritten History of the Cod ($85). This was served on a polished, black granite slab that was freezing to the touch. The dish consisted of three things: a single, glistening flake of perfectly poached cod; a massive, unappetizing chunk of raw, hand-mined sea salt; and a single, tiny, lukewarm parsley leaf. The flake of fish was sublime (tender, oily, oceanic), but its isolation was agonizing. The presentation did not complement the fish; it mocked it. When questioned about the gargantuan salt rock, the server merely whispered, "It is meant to suggest the vastness of possibility."

The centerpiece was the disastrous Quiet Collapse of Structure ($120), a supposed pork cheek course. The presentation was stunning: a single, deeply caramelized cube of meat centered on a bone-white plate. The moment my fork (which was fashioned from a cold, heavy piece of oxidized copper) made contact, the meat, which should have been firm, simply dissolved. Not melted, but instantly collapsed into a dark, rich liquid that soaked immediately into the ceramic. It was technically cooked, yet engineered to defy the physical act of eating, turning the pursuit of flavor into an instant failure. I was left with a forkful of sauce and the dizzying realization that the meal was designed to be beautiful, expensive, and impossible to consume.

After the existential crisis of the pork cheek, we proceeded to what was labeled as the mid-course: The Parable of the Empty Plate ($95). This dish was a culinary exercise in auditory distortion. It featured a teaspoon-sized coil of bright green, extruded kelp "pasta" placed at the very center of a massive, heavily insulated, bell-shaped ceramic bowl. The bowl had been heated to an unnerving temperature, causing it to amplify every scrape of the copper fork and every distant, guttural kitchen noise into a shocking racket. The kelp coil itself tasted profoundly of nothing but saltwater and regret, and the volume of the serving vessel felt specifically designed to humiliate the diner with the sheer disparity between the size of the container and the emptiness of the experience.

For the grand finale, we faced Negative Space and the Taste of Yesterday ($75). A dessert should be a gentle denouement; this was a sharp, bitter conclusion. It arrived as a perfectly square block of frozen, clarified shiitake mushroom consommé, placed on a slab of slate. The block was dusted heavily with ultra-fine, flavorless activated charcoal powder, which resembled soot. The texture was clean and cold, but the flavor was jarringly savory and earthy (a bitter, cold anticlimax that extinguished any lingering warmth or expectation of sweetness). Our server informed us that the dish "challenges the binary of comfort and consumption," which, translated, means "it tastes like frozen dirt."

In summary, Aperture & Void is a culinary critique of dining itself. The dishes are brilliant in their cruelty but fail as food. It is an act of expensive, self-indulgent conceptual art. Unless you are looking to spend your entire paycheck proving the chef's cynical point about modern consumption, avoid the Void. Rating: 0.5/5 Stars (The perfect collapse of the pork cheek was at least a memorable scientific feat.)

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This work first appeared in The Radish on January 5, 2026. It won a Scholastic Gold Medal Writing Award and an American Voices Award. It is part of my satirical “Restaurant Review” series. You can also read my reviews of The Fern & Fable and The Rusty Hubcap (all fictional establishments, just like Aperture & Void). Any resemblance to actual restaurants is purely coincidental.

The Fern & Fable: A Restaurant Review

By Ridley Longsworth

The Fern & Fable is the kind of café that makes you feel like you accidentally walked into a high-budget commercial for insurance or name-brand dish soap. It is perfectly, relentlessly pleasant. There is not a single scuff on the whitewashed floorboards, and every potted plant looks like it has been coached on how to grow in the most photogenic direction possible. It is a space designed for people who want the idea of a coffee shop without any of the actual mess that comes with human beings existing in a room together.

When you walk in, you are met with a wall of sound that consists entirely of “Lo-Fi Hip Hop Beats To Study/Relax To.” It is played at a volume that is just high enough to prevent you from having a private conversation, but low enough that it feels like a soft wool blanket is being held over your face. It’s undeniably beautiful, and yet, five minutes after sitting down, I found myself desperately wishing someone would drop a tray or yell at a delivery driver just to break the spell.

The menu is a masterpiece of modern font choices. I ordered the “Signature Oat Miel,” which the barista told me was their most popular drink. The barista was perfectly polite, wearing a linen apron that looked like it had never met a coffee stain in its life. He smiled with exactly the right amount of teeth and asked if I wanted my name on the cup. When the drink arrived, the latte art was a flawless rosette. It was almost too symmetrical to drink.

As for the taste, it was…fine. It was the absolute middle of the road. The espresso was mild, the oatmilk was creamy, and the honey was sweet. It tasted exactly like every other thirty-dollar bag of ethically sourced beans I’ve ever had. There was no bitterness, but there was also no character. It was a drink that was impossible to hate and equally impossible to remember. I also tried the avocado toast, because apparently it’s a legal requirement for shops like this to serve it. It came topped with “micro-greens” and a sprinkle of chili flakes that looked like they had been placed there with a pair of tweezers. It was fresh, it was crunchy, and it was entirely devoid of any soul.

The customers at The Fern & Fable are all part of the aesthetic. Everyone is sitting behind a very thin, very silver laptop. No one is talking. The only noise is the light tapping of keys and the occasional hiss of the milk steamer. It’s a great place to go if you need to finish a spreadsheet or if you want to take a photo of your shoes against a nice floor. If you want a place that feels alive, or a place where the coffee tells a story about where it came from, this isn’t it.

The Fern & Fable is a “decent” café in the same way a boutique hotel lobby is a “decent” living room. It provides everything you ask for but gives you nothing you didn’t expect. I left feeling caffeinated and strangely empty, like I had just spent an hour inside a very nice screensaver. It’s the perfect spot for when you want to disappear into the background of your own life for a while. Rating: 3/5 Stars

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This piece is part of my satirical “Restaurant Review” series. You can also read my reviews of Aperture & Void and The Rusty Hubcap (both fictional establishments, just like The Fern & Fable). Any resemblance to actual restaurants is purely coincidental.

The Fifth Step

By Ridley Longsworth

The tunnels beneath the city always smelled of dust, metal, and secrets. Lira moved through them like a shadow, her patched coat brushing the damp walls, her boots soundless against the concrete. In her bag, a thin bundle wrapped in oilcloth—a copy of The Old Histories, one of the last known to exist. Worth a fortune to the right buyer. Worth her life if caught.  

She paused at a junction, pressing her hand to the stone. The vibration told her what her ears couldn’t—footsteps above, slow and deliberate. Patrols. The Ministry’s Seekers. 

She waited. Counted the seconds. Mapped their rhythm. 

Five steps ahead, always five. 

Once, long ago, she hadn’t been quick enough. The orphanage walls had closed in like iron jaws—rules, punishments, the Director’s shouts. She’d escaped by crawling through a drain pipe in the dead of winter, lungs burning, heart promising never again. Never trapped. Never caught. 

A soft buzz in her earpiece broke her thoughts. 

“Lira? You there?” 

The voice was cracked, old static—Jett, her contact.

“I’m here.”

“Change of plans. Client’s dead. Ministry raided the docks.”

Lira swore under her breath. “Then why am I still carrying this thing?” 

There was a pause. Then, quieter: “Because I found something else. A name. From the old orphanage records.”

Her breath caught. “Don’t play with me.” 

“It says Mira Pell. Transferred to Facility Nine. Alive.”

For a long moment, all she could hear was her own heartbeat—fast, sharp, disbelieving. Her sister’s name. After all these years.

“Send me the coordinates,” she said finally.

“Lira, that place—”

“Send them.” 

The route to Facility Nine took her beyond the city’s grid, past the neon hum of the towers and into the ruins where silence was law. Along the way, she bartered pages for passage, stories for shelter—each trade a small erosion of the walls she’d built to stay unseen. Every step closer to Mira felt like walking into light, and she hated the hope that came with it. 

When she finally reached the facility, dawn was bleeding through the clouds. The gates were rusted, the walls half-collapsed. But the locks—the locks were new.

Inside, she found rooms full of broken machinery and ash. The ghosts of experiments past. And in the lowest level, a flicker of life—a generator still humming, feeding a single cryo-chamber. 

Through the frost-covered glass, a girl. Pale. Sleeping. 

Her reflection stared back at her—lean frame, messy hair, eyes ringed with exhaustion. For a heartbeat, she couldn’t tell which one was real. 

“...Mira?” she whispered.

A voice behind her answered instead.

“You shouldn’t have come.”

She spun. A Seeker stood in the doorway, gun leveled, his uniform gleaming with the Ministry’s insignia.

“We kept her alive because she’s valuable,” he said. “You can walk away, Lira. Stay invisible. Like you always do.” 

She looked once more at her sister—and then at the book in her bag. The Old Histories. The truth no one wanted known. 

“Not anymore,” she said.

And for the first time in years, she didn’t think five steps ahead. 

She just moved.

When the explosion lit up the morning sky, the city’s alarms screamed awake. And in the ruins outside the city, two figures walked together beneath the breaking dawn. One limping, one weak but alive. Lira didn’t look back. She’d lost everything she’d built to survive.

But for once, that meant she was finally free. 

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Milk Run

“While you're at the market, please pick up some milk, but be careful: Medusa just moved to this town."

The text came from Mom, like it was nothing.

No exclamation marks, no emojis. Just a casual warning wedged between “milk” and “this town.”

At first, I thought it was code. Maybe she meant the HOA president again. But then I saw the sign taped to the grocery store’s glass doors:

CAUTION: REFLECTION HAZARD. DO NOT MAKE DIRECT EYE CONTACT. Town ordinance #247. Thank you for your cooperation.

Inside, the lights were dimmed. Mirrors had been covered with sheets of black cloth. In the freezer aisle, a man’s stone hand poked from between the waffles and the ice cream. Someone had carved the word “help” into his palm.

The milk was near the back, of course. Always near the back. I gripped the cart and pushed it past the quiet statues that used to be people, all of them frozen mid-gesture: a woman sneezing, a kid holding an orange, a cashier half-smiling.

At the dairy section, I caught movement in the chrome reflection of the refrigerator handle. A flash of a woman’s silhouette, hair writhing faintly, like seaweed underwater.

I grabbed the first carton I saw and turned to leave, but her voice slithered softly through the aisle.

“Whole milk?” she asked. “Or 2%?”

Her tone was polite. Almost neighborly.

I didn’t look. “Whichever’s on sale,” I said, my pulse drumming in my ears.

When I got home, I set the carton on the counter. It was still cold, but the expiration date read April 14, 541 B.C.

Mom smiled. “Perfect,” she said, pouring herself a glass. The milk was thick, grey, and gritty, like freshly poured concrete.

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