On the ground floor of a suburban office building, I ate a perfectly cooked scallop; the tantalizing caramel coat giving way to just-opaque insides, tender, creamy, and tasting of the sea. Scallops are notoriously difficult to prepare, prone to overcooking before they develop that crisp exterior. To find one this good, here of all places, took me by surprise.

The flash-seared shellfish came floating on velvety beurre blanc, under a tangle of thinly sliced frizzled onions, and with segments of jewel-toned citrus brightening the plate. A similar dish at chef John Howie’s Seastar Restaurant, 12 minutes away, runs $56. Howie is the chef at In.gredients, too, but there, I paid $24, and that included an appetizer and a flourless espresso chocolate cake to finish. With a deal like this, the restaurant should be mobbed. It isn’t, because it can’t be: In.gredients is a sit-down restaurant hidden within Microsoft’s Redmond campus. The only way to eat there is to be an employee or the guest of one.

I walked through the normal cafeteria in Building 34, a standard tech company canteen, featuring the generic plainness inherent in these spaces. Stepping across the threshold of In.gredients demonstrated the power of decor on our brains: The soft, dim lighting instantly relaxed me. Bronze pots and pans hung on the wall. The only real decoration in the otherwise minimalist space, they weirdly signaled to my brain that real cooking was happening here. One step and the hubbub of daily life echoing off metal chairs in a cavernous room faded out, replaced by the calm tones of a server asking if I had a reservation and escorting me to a cushioned corner booth.

The restaurant opened in 2014, part of an effort to boost employee retention at the software company. An executive contacted Howie with the idea: a rotating seasonal menu that’s all about providing people with great ingredients. From the beginning, the chef was given free rein to do what he wanted, as long as it didn’t require a wood-burning oven. (Open fires and office buildings, apparently, don’t play nicely together.)

My starter, the Indian vegetable cakes, was like samosa filling fried into patties. The other option was a citrus ceviche that seemed too similar to the scallops. Each menu has two appetizers, five entrées, and two finishing courses (one sweet, one savory), always with vegetarian or vegan options for each course. Those options change completely every six weeks. The faux-meat Impossible Wellington was one of the early vegetarian hits. In spring, the chef brings in Copper River salmon. Upscale comfort food plays well to the crowd: halibut fish and chips and Wagyu beef sliders. 

Despite flourishes like the steak knife arriving on its own tray, nobody would mistake this for a high-end restaurant; when I leave, I wander down a hallway where office doors open to messy desks and whiteboards full of notes. 

Microsoft notably never jumped on the free-lunch trend bandied about as an employee perk by tech companies, even as Google’s elaborate spreads made headlines. Microsoft has always been a little less snazzy, a little less flashy about benefits than the later generation of tech companies. And it’s unlikely anyone takes In.gredients into consideration when weighing career decisions, but a restaurant like this does make campus life a little more pleasant for those who patronize it. 

Groups of coworkers come in to celebrate the end of a project, managers tout it as a perk to recruits or bring new hires on their first day. Employees bring their families in to show off their office. The restaurant nerdily plods along with more PowerPoint-style utility than latest-iPhone excitement, doing something pretty impressive all the while: serving a three-course meal that costs less than two days of rush-hour commutes over the 520 bridge.

A meal at In.gredients is the best dining deal on the Eastside—if you can get in. No, there’s no well-dressed-but-snooty young hostess manning an epic waitlist. But there are a pair of administrators working a few computers at the entrance to Building 34 who need to know which employee is signing you in today so they can print you a guest pass.