In reply: Why Fancy Restaurants are Needed More Than Ever
I recently read an article titled ‘The Time of Fancy Restaurants are Over’ by Jordan Fraser. As an avid Medium reader, I tend to be more of a lurker than a contributor, based on the fact that I work in fine dining and tend to have less time up my sleeve than those who work regular office hours.
In all honesty, I am not a great writer, however given my time in fine dining and my knowledge of operations, I am far better to concisely express myself and far better equipped to rebut comprehensively why fine dining, or ‘fancy’, restaurants are needed more than ever and will continue to have a place in society.
- The Capability of Dietary Requirements
Guests have dietary requirements these days, it is just a fact. Fine Dining restaurants are better equipped to be able to accomodate for these dietary requirements than a casual restaurant by a country mile. Why? Well, the amount of preparation that takes place in a kitchen also requires care. Everything in a chef’s section, and their mise en place, is separated and has amazing quality control, beyond what you’ll see in a casual restaurant. Which is why when a guest with an onion and garlic allergy arrives at an Italian fine dining restaurant and wants a gnocchi or a risotto, the restaurant staff are able to correct suggest what the pasta has been cooked in and what can be taken out to accommodate for the request. Not only does the guest feel appreciated and heard, but the chef knows that the care taken ensures the guest’s return.
2. Sustainable Techniques
The concerning reality of increased food wastage is making restaurants second guess their practices as well as the environmental impact they are having. The attitude of purchasing cheap resources for food and layering them in salt and butter to make it gourmet is now a nonsense motion as the there has been a massive paradigm shift in how food is sourced and presented. Fine dining restaurants are leaders in sustainably sourcing food reducing food wastage. For reference, check out Josh Niland’s Saint Peter in Sydney, whose fish based restaurant and butchery is a leader in sustainable nose to tail (literally) preparation and dining.
3. Innovation and Experience
Fine Dining restaurants are the key innovators in food. It isn’t the pub down the road, it isn’t the Chinese restaurant around the corner that does BYO, it is the fine dining restaurants across the world that have the ability to create new dishes or create new techniques that are passed down the eventually reach the local restaurant (albeit after may years). Such creative culinary minds like Grant Achatz, Heston Blumenthal, and Ben Shewry, are able to take a concept, or science, or a native ingredient, and are able to make it into something edible or entertaining. ‘Fancy’ restaurants do charge more, but the stiff upper lip of society has relaxed over the years and what fine dining restaurants now deliver is an experience. Experience is about the feeling the guest’s get from the moment they are greeted at the door, to having the sommelier recommend that perfect wine within any budget, to a dessert that is a spectacle.
Fine dining is more inclusive, more innovative, more sustainable than ever. What we aim to do is drive an experience that is worth returning to, because at it’s core, restaurants are about driving experience for the guest. There is nothing better than knowing that a guest has walked away happy, and who knows Jordan Fraser, they might even get lucky!
