Expectations and accommodations: or, I’m not mad, I’m disappointed.
This is it. The main reason I started this account.
As part of a bougie lifestyle, I frequent a lot of higher-end restaurants. I love fine dining. Ambiance, service, and a holistic positive experience are all part of the bill at a pricey place, and to me, it’s worth that price.
What I don’t love is unimaginative food. The new American, simpler style of farm-to-table cooking can be incredibly done and just as thoughtful as a classic French restaurant, but it can also hide a lot of lazy cooking. New American hipster gastropubs are a dime a dozen, and their food can taste that way, too.
Although the restaurant industry has made truly incredible strides to adapt to changing cultural needs and tastes (gluten-free and veg*n), I have a theory that if you take some of the top chefs and tell them to create dishes not centered around protein, that they will fail.
It seems like it’s the default way of thinking when conceptualizing a new dish — start with the protein, and build from there. This becomes painfully clear when you have a meal that doesn’t include their standout steak, the perfectly poached fish, or the 16-hour confit. These dishes are where the love and attention goes, and the others are just side players.
I’ve paid for more lazy grilled carrot dishes than I can count — before and after being vegan. And that’s okay — at the right place.
Context matters. I don’t expect a medium price-point place to materially change their menu or dishes to accommodate my food preferences, especially when they don’t advertise themselves as such.
I get that.
However, an expensive restaurant promises a certain experience. At places with higher standards, being told you can be accommodated means you shouldn’t just be tolerated, but considered.
Removing the ricotta and butter from a dish and sending it out as-is, is the bare minimum, and at times, insulting. I have very little price sensitivity, but it takes some real chutzpah to charge $22 for half a charred squash with some pea shoots.
In a perfect world, where restaurants aren’t at the mercy of capricious tastes and vulnerable to a customer-first market, they could be honest and say “no, we don’t design our food that way and we don’t have the time to customize dishes when trying to turn over 400 heads a night.” Restaurants are perfectly within their right to politely decline requests for substitutions, and they should not be decried for that.
But isn’t it fun to try something different? To see if you can work with restrictions and create food that meets the standard your restaurant sets for itself?
Renowned Austin chefs like Bryce Gilmore, Tyson Cole, and David Bull delight in the challenge, and their kitchens and staff do, too. Their restaurants are some of the most meat-forward in town (save steakhouses, of course) but I’ve had incredible experiences where the food was thoughtful and considered, and wholly within their flavor and texture profile.
Fine dining with friends and significant others is one of life’s great pleasures, especially when a kitchen can think beyond the standard to create a stellar experience for everyone.
Accommodation is a weak standard. Inclusion is a better one.
