À la carte À la carte In restaurants, à la carte is the practice of ordering individual dishes from a menu in a restaurant, as opposed to "table d'hôte", where a set menu is offered. It is an early 19th century loan from French meaning "according to the menu". The individual dishes to be ordered may include side dishes, or the side dishes may be offered separately, in which case, they are also considered "à la carte". The earliest examples of "à la carte" are from 1816 for the adjectival use ("à la carte meal", for example) and from 1821 for the adverbial
Poison à la Carte Vincent Pyle, is poisoned and Wolfe quickly concludes that arsenic was administered by a server. Pyle is a Broadway angel, and it's clearly possible that he knew one or more of the Hebes. Plot devices used in "Poison à la Carte" appear in other Wolfe stories. For example, the list of possible murderers (here, the Hebes) gaining access to the victim one by one recalls "Too Many Cooks", "Fourth of July Picnic" and "The Silent Speaker". Then the murderer is trapped into making incriminating statements at John Piotti's restaurant, a location used for an identical purpose in "Gambit". And Fritz