Ultimately, all art is a form of communication, and all communication works best when it’s a two-way process. Making the dish exactly the same way every time would make sense if every person eating it were exactly the same. But when you’re communicating anything, you should be keeping an ear open for what’s working well (in that particular instance) and what isn’t. Now, some forms of art are intended for many different people to appreciate the same work, and there, you just have to aim for somewhere close to the tastes of the group as a whole, but when you can customize, you should.
Let me answer with a question: why would I care what you did, or how the chef responded?
Feel free to ask. The chef should feel free to accede with or decline your request. You should thereafter feel free to remain at the restaurant or leave. Afterwards, you and the chef should join together in a duet singing the praises of the invisible hand of the marketplace.
Well that’s lobbing a softball over the plate.
The sole purpose of this thread is to discuss these types of questions. So I’d say the fact that you’re participating probably means that on some level you care.
The answer, as many have pointed out, is “it depends on the restaurant.”
Most restaurants, yup, go ahead and talk with the waiter.
But if you’re at El Bulli or noma or wd-50 or Alinea, I’d order something else, because you’re going to one of those restaurants to experience what the chef envisions. But again, if you do wish to talk to the waiter, he/she should be accommodating and friendly, even if he tells you “no, we can’t do it.” Nobody should ever be rude or condescending.
Huh? While painting in public and taking input from the audience would be an interesting piece of performance art, it’s not how any masterpiece has ever been made–and plenty of masterpieces are made with no input from any consumer whatsoever. (Yes, plenty are painted to order by patrons, but that’s not necessary). It’d be bizarre to suggest that the best paintings are a two-way process of communication between the artist and the audience; how, short of a Ouija Board, can I tell Michelangelo what I think of the Sistine Chapel?
If you want to go to a restaurant where they take requests, awesome for you. So do I. If you want to go to one where the cook brings you what’s available without asking for your input, awesome for you.
A good server would simply inform the customer (discretely as to avoid public humiliation) that the establishment isn’t the sort of place that would stock such an item, and that the customer might be better served at the Golden Corral down the block.
Ketchup? :eek:
Err, we’re playing basketball over here–put away the bat!
You’re incorrect. I don’t care about what you do. I care minimally about the issue only inasmuch as I bother to argue on a messageboard, and inasmuch as I think folks are turning a non-issue into an issue.
If you were arguing that people who like the color blue are assholes and that everyone should like pink, I’d disagree with you. That wouldn’t mean that I like blue, nor would it mean that I care about what colors people like. All it would mean is that I care (minimally) about people turning personal preferences into some sort of moral issue.
I’m on the chef’s side. If I’m at a high-end restaurant, I like to order the tasting menu: it allows you try more dishes and it gives you a better understanding of the chef’s style, vision, talent, aesthetic… whatever you want to call it.
It’s very rare that I’d ask for a substitution or a change to a dish, but I think if you ask politely if such a thing is possible, you should be accommodated. I’d also like to think that phrasing it the way you did will ensure a good waiter’s honesty. I’d prefer that a waiter say, “If you don’t like blue cheese, may I suggest [this other dish],” rather than bring me an altered dish that is much poorer for the changes.
Neither - a chef’s duty is to his boss, the restaurant owner. The owner can choose to favor the customer or the chef/standards of cuisine and the chef should follow his lead. If the owner and the head chef are one and the same, then of course he gets to set the rules.
Oh man, if I could go to el Bulli (and I’m bummed they’re going to be closing it before i have the chance to experience it), I wouldn’t complain with anything they served me. I could just imagine asking Wylie Dufresne “excuse me, I really don’t like Guar gum powder, can you make this foam using vegetarian gelatin instead? kthx”
But no, perhaps I should have clarified. We’re talking an upscale to extremely upscale restaurant but NOT one using gastronomy or the like. Say you go to a extremely nice restaurant (below Michelin but still high up there) and there’s a single ingredient (say blue cheese) which is a component (but not the main component) of a dish. Say also you’re in the “Chef as artist” camp. Would it be acceptable for me to request either that component be left off or an appropriate substitution of the chef’s choice be made? Or is your contention that ANY fucking with the chef’s creation shant be done, no matter what?
And if you want to be suckered into spending a hundred bucks on a one-ounce sliver of undercooked meat, more power to you.
I think the former is acceptable. If I were eating with you and you did this politely, I wouldn’t be appalled or embarrassed or anything. However, I probably would not do it myself.
In that case you are free to ask about substitutions. Especially if the ingredient is a garnish or easily-subbed component of the dish. the worst they can say is “no.” It’s when you hit the starred places that “Chef as artist” becomes more stringent to me.
You’re not in the Pit. Dial back the invective.
No warning issued.
twickster, Cafe Society moderator
Cool. Fair nuff.
And hi vix. Long time, no see.
It is NOT my contention that any fucking with the chef’s creation shan’t be done. I think the closer the restaurant is to being something along the lines of one of the ones I’ve cited, the more silly it is to not eat it as the chef created it - the point being that the closer you get to one of THOSE chefs, the more you should just be going there to eat it as the chef envisioned it. That’s the whole point, and if you don’t agree on that point, go somewhere else.
But there’s plenty of fine dining where that’s not the case; I’m thinking of hotel restaurants, for example. It’s not at all uncommon for high-end hotels to have high-end restaurants. But being in a hotel, one of the restaurant’s primary clientele are hotel guests, who quite simply need to be fed, and they should have food that they like, regardless of if they happen to be foodies who are enamored of the chef’s creations. First and foremost, they must eat. And in that kind of fine dining restaurant, I believe the chef should try to accommodate a wide variety of tastes.
And note that both of these restaurants are considered fine-dining, and they are probably both equally expensive. The division between “eat it as the chef created it” and “go ahead and substitute out the blue cheese” isn’t one of cost or snobbiness; it’s the type of restaurant and the chef’s vision.
I’ve never met a chef who didn’t bend over backwards to please and accomodate his guests’ requests. After all, he’s not in it just for an artistic outlet; he wants the folks sitting in the chairs to recommend and return.
My husband frequently ordered a dish (a cajun pasta dish) that had been taken off the menu at one of our favorite restaurants. The chef loved that he remembered the dish and was more than happy to prepare it for him whenever we dined with them. He came out to meet my husband, where they lamented its lack of popularity because it was soooooo goooood.
Me? I ordered off the menu, and the Chef just gave me a passing smile.
Hmph.
BTW, if serving a steak sans a pat of butter on it offends the chef, he should get out of the food business.
Hi! It has been a long time. I mostly lurk here, and haven’t been to a Dopefest in years, what with the moving to FL and the kids. Hope you are well.
Off-topic, though some of the discussion is related - does anyone recall the story that served as a criticism of ars gratia artis in which a chef talks about not caring whether his food was edible or not? I’m pretty sure it was by Aldous Huxley, but I could be wrong.
But as I said, the executive chef WASN’T offended, and would have been happy to give the customer what he/she wanted.
The waiter and (apparently) some SDMB regulars are more offended by the idea that this customer wanted to put ketchup on meatloaf than the celebrity chef who created the dish was.
Which is my point- sometimes, the “artiste” is far more flexible, good-humored and service-oriented than foodies are. Foodies think putting ketchup on Dean Fearing’s gourmet meatloaf was an outrage. Fearing himself didn’t mind at all. Heck, he uses Heinz ketchup in come of his own trademark recipes!
Dean Fearing (like most chefs of comparable stature) wants to make his customers happy. He doesn’t take himself as seriously as many foodies do.