First of all I am really not-not-NOT a foodie of any sort. I am not a gourmet. If it’s someplace with a tasting menu, then I probably shouldn’t waste my money, or whoever’s money is paying for the dinner. Because that means the food is “interesting” and is likely to include asparagus and something like beet-flavored ice cream for dessert. And the service has a good chance of being pretentious and the wine overpriced.
On the other hand, if I go to a non-chain restaurant and order and receive excellent food, prepared excellently (and despite not being a foodie I can recognize it when I get it), then I do like that. I can get myself into a fine dining mood, and could probably do it more often than I do.
I hear ya. We’ve spent a lot there, and at similar restaurants, But it feels very different than spending $300 for yet another ho-hum steak, baked potato and creamed spinach dinner that I knock out at home every other weekend for $40-60(for the whole family). It also feels very different than spending 3x as much at a place like Alinea (I’ve never been there, and I would like to one of these days, but I’ve been to some similar joints) and still wanting to stop for some Taco Bell on the way home.
New Orleans restaurants are another story. They don’t even parse. I’ve spent $100/person for absolute schlock, and $10/person for some good stuff. At least Chicago prices kinda make sense.
Yeah, I get that. That’s part of what I was getting at with “it has to be innovative.” Maybe “innovative” isn’t the right word. More like… it has to be something I can’t make at home in a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon.
You stop at taco bell after a 25-course tasting dinner?
I never quite know what to think when folks mention the small portions. The places I’ve gone that have small portions are designed that way because they want you to order multiples. Yes, the scallop dish has only 3 scallops… but given that it’s designed to be one of 5 or 10 courses, it’s perfect. If it’s not properly explained on the menu or by the waitstaff that the menu is set up that way, then that’s a fail. Have folks really been to places where the courses are so small, and it’s not a multi-course/small-plate kind of place, and you’re an average eater (ie, you’re not a linebacker or ran a marathon yesterday or are 6’ 10" tall) that you more often than not walk away hungry?
I’m hardly a tiny person or tiny eater, but… I’m usually sitting on my hands trying not to dig into the bread basket at the beginning of a meal because I know if I do I’ll be full by the third course.
Well, I was being leetle bit facetious. But in all honesty, the few places we’ve patronized that were more nouvelle/molecular gastronomic were much less well-planned than Alinea seems to be. More like 5 courses with a pea, an endive leaf, and a baby scallop on the plate, and 2 of the courses are a thimbleful of sorbet. These were in Vegas, Phoenix, and STL.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever tried “fine dining”. I’ve certainly never been able to afford a place with $300 steaks. So I certainly wouldn’t want my first experience to be a rushed lunch in the middle of the weekday.
I’ve enjoyed Campagnolain Evanston a few times. I don’t think it would pass muster as “fine dining” in general, but it was for me. That was my first experience with a Prix Fixe dinner, with trained waitrons - and I found the service impressive. I appreciated the fine line of attentiveness and not feeling like I was under a microscope - I didn’t feel like I had a stalker, but when I dropped my napkin, someone was there with another before I could reach to the floor and retrieve the first. That was nice. The food was wonderful. I liked not having to agonize over choosing my food, too; it felt nurturing in a way that I rarely get to enjoy, because I’m usually the one choosing and preparing the meals. Just sitting back and enjoying great food without any effort at all was so relaxing and indulgent.
So, since I believe that many of those elements are part of the fine dining experience, I believe I would like it, if someone else were picking up the tab. I can’t be sure though. Empirical evidence is needed. Who wants to take me to dinner?
$10-$20 is an odd range in my mind; usually my ‘standard’ lunch is under $10 (burgers, pizza, mexican, and gyros all hit this price point easily), slightly nicer is under $15. If the price of a place was typically on the $20 side of that range, it would be more than I’d like to spend for lunch. I’m also not really sure what ‘fine dining’ is hitting that price point; if I think fine dining, I’m thinking of places that are a bit more upscale than the places where I’d spend $20-$40 for dinner.
I do remember going to an upscale Italian place for a wedding rehearsal dinner that had portions that were just absurdly small. Typically you think of Italian food as being very hearty, but when we got back to the hotel after dinner everyone was ordering pizza or finding a place to pick up some food. I also remember having rack of lamb at a place that was trying to be a ‘good food and good beer’ place that failed miserably; the lamb was cold when it came out, and the hominy side was too small and undercooked. I ended up stopping at cookout on the way home for some food that might not be high quality but at least was heated. (If it hadn’t been a birthday party I would have sent it back to the manager, but I didn’t want to kill the mood).
So it’s not my typical experience going to nicer restaurants, it certainly is something that I have experienced before.
I’m with you on this, although most of the places I’ve been to in this category DON’T explain that to you. For the most part, we figure that out for ourselves contextually, with one exception, where the mains were the size of the apps. We walked away hungry from a $200 dinner.
forgot to answer the OP question: not usually for lunch, unless I’m out on vacation somewhere and want to try some new place without the whole dinner scene hassle
I would completely agree with this, and i have been out of the industry for a while now. When I was in culinary school, we would take turns visiting the restaurants that each of the students worked at, mostly upscale and fine dining establishments, including La Maisonette, a 41 year 5 star rated restaurant, because we’d often be taken care of by the staff there if we came during off nights/ hours. Almost all were wonderful meals, with impeccable service. Very few were worth the money that regular guests would have to pay.
Instead, the best meal I have ever had was eaten at Osteria Pastella in Florence, where I could wear a polo and shorts, and my 12 year old son could wear a t-shirt and shorts comfortably. Multiple course meal that left me hearing angels for less than 120 euro for three of us to eat, including wine and prosecco.
Some friends and I are going to Vegas later this year, and they mentioned wanting to eat at the steakhouse at the Wynn. Looking at the menu, there appears to be some good food. However, there is no way in hell that I would spend that much on a meal, it is simply not worth it, and I enjoy finer food.
I like fine dining, and don’t mind paying for it. But there are limits. Funny you mention the Wynn. I’m still offended by the cost of my meal at this place, $600 for three of us. (and only $100 on wine.)
I would consider all those places “fine dining”. White tablecloths. Formal full service. Implied dress code. So on and so forth. Perhaps not the finest dining, when compared to a 3 Michelin Star place like Per Se. But “fine dining” is a style of restaurant, not necessarily a definition of quality. To me, it seems silly to not consider Emeril’s, Ruth’s Chris, Smith & Wollensky, Del Fresco’s, Capital Grill or Legal Sea Food “fine dining” just because there is more than one of them.
Chain restaurants like Outback Steak House and Chili’s are “casual dining”. Places where one can show up in a baseball hat and cargo shorts and eat wings and drink pitchers of margaritas all night.
To the OP’s point, I like eating out, but unless it’s with a client or team event, or perhaps a really slow Friday, the cost and time make most “fine dining” restaurants impractical for lunch. Usually it’s either a corporate cafeteria, food truck or hole in the wall take out restaurant.
I thought it was just sort of frowned upon
Off topic, but I think everyone should feel uncomfortable wearing khakis. They are too casual for formal occasions and too dressy for most casual activities. In a business setting they make anyone look like a big box retail chain store employee.
I live in the Cincinnati area and miss the Maisonette (had many friends and my brother, that worked there and learned their chops in that kitchen), but for a small city, Cincinnati has some INCREDIBLY inspired food at MANY eateries now, and many of the chefs are all spawned from the chef tree of the Mase from Georges Haidon, Jean Robert de Cavel (who’s made Cincinnati his home and is as close to a “celebrity chef” as we have here).
The new Boca restaurant that now occupies the former Maisonette space is simply stunning the way it’s been remodeled. You almost wouldn’t recognize it.
At lunch you want to eat quickly. If these fine dining establishments aren’t charging much more, then the only thing I can think of that would make them fine dining is if they aren’t very fast. And, since you have limited time for lunch, fast dining is often better.
Those are the two things that keep me from the finer restaurants.
In a word, “yes”. But there are a lot of restaurants that have all the trappings but none of the substance, and I have no interest in those.
If a restaurant has really good food and is a very nice place to be, then I’ll pay a lot to go there.
There are a lot however that have fancy sounding food which isn’t actually good to eat (for all that it may be trendy or complex). They may have good food but are like sitting down to a nice meal… on a Stock Exchange trading floor. And so on and so forth.
My first thought was, I’ve never had “fine dining,” but then reading through the thread, I kind of realized that I have “fine dining” all the time, but usually in foreign countries where fine dining is relative cheap for those of us earning US dollars. Particularly in China, Vietnam, Thailand, and India, the hotel restaurants are always fine dining restaurants, although I never really gave it much thought. I don’t get dressed up; when I’m travelling, that’s field work, so usually blue jeans and a button down shirt. Kind of the same thing in Mexico.
Here in the States (including Ontario), I tend to avoid chains, and thus I don’t really know what “fine dining” really is. Some places try to be pretentious, but pretentious doesn’t feel like fine dining to me; it tends to make me not want to return.
I’m sure socioeconomics plays into it, too. For a lot of folks, Red Lobster is a special occasion worthy of your best Sunday dress, whereas to me it’s just a chain, and not anything special.
Ambience, too. I don’t care if you have a Michelin five star chef; if it’s in a casino, it’s not fine dining.
Overtly commercial is just commercial, not fine.
Just a quick Google search for “fine dining Detroit” gave me the first hit: “Andiamo’s,” which is a perfectly nice, mid-scale, local restaurant chain. Maybe my expectations are just out of whack??
From what I’ve seen, at most corporations it’s a fireable offense according to the rules, but not enforced most of the time. Makes it extremely risky to enjoy wine for most people though. Doesn’t apply to upper management at all, of course.
