You’ll always see customers asking servers, “So what do you recommend?” And the servers will promptly prattle off the virtues of the shrimp scampi, lobster linguini, tomahawk steak or New York strip.
Now, have most such servers generally more or less already eaten everything on their own restaurant’s menu and know firsthand what’s good and what’s not? If so, under what circumstances would they be eating stuff that way?
Even if they have eaten it, your taste may not be the same as theirs. And they know that.
But they do want to you enjoy your experience at the restaurant - bigger tip, more likely to return, etc. So in general they will try to recommend something likely to please you. And the best guide to that is not what pleases them, but what pleases a number of people. So if there are particular dishes that regularly attract more than their fair share of compliments from other diners, they’ll suggest them to you.
Or, at a higher-end restaurant where the menu reflects what is currently in season, etc, they may recommend the fish of the day, say, because the chef is particularly pleased with the fish he got at the market that morning.
Of course, it could be more sinister. Back in the day, if you went to a restaurant in the Soviet Union and asked “what do you recommend?”, that was the conventional way of enquiring “which of the dishes on the menu are actually available tonight?” And I suppose today you could have restaurants recommending stuff that they are having difficulty shifting and that won’t stay fresh, or even fresh-ish, forever.
In a good restaurant, Chef will go over the menu with the entire staff, including them tasting, at least when the menu changes.
But that’s an ideal, and I think usually they’re just going by some combo of having served the stuff to others, whatever they’re told to push, and whatever of the dishes they have tasted.
In my youth I spent a year as a line cook at an very nice restaurant in Pittsburgh. If a particular fish was close to going bad, there’d be a contest to see who could sell the most, with the prize of $50 or a good bottle of wine.
The waitstaff who were good, nice people would finish the night selling zero of the fish. There were a couple of assholes though who would sell it all.
In the midrange Italian restaurant where I last worked as a dishwasher, one perk of the job for all employees was free dinner — the chef was a young guy out of Culinary Institute of America and would cook us anything on the menu unless we were running out of the essential components or something. I suppose some folks just ordered the same thing each time but I explored all the nooks and crannies of the menu to find out what I liked. I got the impression that the waitstaff were mostly doing the same thing. Having an enthusiastic person at the stove who wants everyone to try his dishes encourages that.
I sometimes ask a waitress if they enjoyed a particular dish. At many restaurants they answer honestly: “I haven’t tried it.” The menu clearly highlights which dishes are most profitable (included first, picture, bigger font, “specialty of the house” yada yada).
The best restaurants do offer their staff a meal. This likely differs from “every item on the menu”. Expensive items would not likely be included, but many of the best foods are inexpensive and smart restaurants use these.
Literature by restauranteurs is full of stories about cherished employees “not paid enough to eat there” given the chance to invite their families gratis on some special anniversary.
I’ve heard that some restaurants will have a family meal, when all of the staff sit down to eat, perhaps before the busy dinner rush. Not necessarily something on the menu.
This is my experience, too. Especially at mid-price restaurants, the server will often tell me what they liked (often an inexpensive dish) and tell me that they’ve never tried the particular dish I’m asking about.
At high-end restaurants the servers usually talk about what’s popular, and what’s fresh today.
At the local diner i only ask factual questions, “do you have real maple syrup?”, “Are there bell peppers in the hash-browns?”
My experience as a patron has been “no”. Typically, servers that I know can choose from a small number of items on the menu for their free meal. When I’ve asked a server if they like this or that, many times they say they haven’t tried it. And, of course, some servers are vegans or vegetarians and wouldn’t have had any of the meat dishes.
We are going to St Martin in January after missing our trip last year (Fuck Covid).
One of the many things I love about the island is going to a restaurant and being attended to by the owners. I usually ask for whatever they suggest which might not have yet made it to the specials board.
I once ordered my meal at Le Karibuni on Pinel Island. Minutes later the owner came to our table and asked if I’d like to change my order to the fresh catch they just bought from a local fisherman. It was the first time (and likely the last) I had a whole parrot-fish. It was exquisite, but their numbers are low, so I’ll probably never run into it again.
Personally, I never ask completely open-ended. But I will sometimes narrow it down to two choices on my own and ask the server which of the two they recommend, or ask if the restaurant does a good job with one particular item that can vary wildly in quality (such as calimari).
And yes, I do often get an answer of “I don’t know, I’ve never tried it”. Sometimes they’ll add “But everyone who orders the ____ seems to enjoy it”, or the like. But I trust that the waitstaff will probably be honest, because it’s in their best interest for me to enjoy the meal (bigger tip, repeat business, etc.).
My wife always asks what the servers favorite menu item is and gets a detailed answer.
Except one time we were in a place in Oklahoma City and the waitress said “Nothing. I wouldn’t eat here. But if I did I’d order something simple. Greg [or maybe it was Craig] doesn’t know what he’s doing back there!”
Disgruntled much?
We both had brisket and it was fine.
I did. But i was the line cook and could make modifications to my own liking.
“Close to going bad” is not the same as has gone bad.
Fish doesn’t have all that great a shelf life, and can be perfectly servable one day, and have to be thrown out the next.
I don’t see any problem with incentivizing the servers to sell something that otherwise would go to waste.
Now, if it actually has gone bad, that’s a different story, but I’d put the assholeness on the chef who tries to pass it off, not on the servers that he told to sell it.
Anyway, to the OP:
When I was in charge of coming up with our nightly features, I would prepare a dish, and let the waitstaff sample it. I would provide the description that I wanted them to give to the customer. There was enough for everyone to have a bite, but not really make a meal out of it.
Outside of that, most servers, in my experience, try to recommend the higher priced items on the menu, in order to have a higher tip.
Some places I’ve worked had tastings as part of menu roll-outs, as well as training new servers, though most of the places I have worked did not.
Telling someone that the flounder is absolutely exquisite in order to use it up when in fact there is an amazing crab dish that is knocking everyone’s socks off? Thanks a bunch, server.
I dunno about that. There were times when the scrod smelled a bit off to me, but someone else thought it was fine. A restaurant known for their fresh fish flown in twice a week shouldn’t be serving anything close.
Tangent: I worked at a cigar kiosk in a mall (remember those?) one holiday season and was often asked for recommendations. I can’t tolerate nicotine and had to tell them I hadn’t tried of the cigars.
Sorry: sone delay between my edit and a message I did not think posted - but did.
I sometimes ask a waitress if they enjoyed a particular dish. At many restaurants they answer honestly: “I haven’t tried it.” The menu almost always clearly highlights which dishes are most profitable (included first, picture, bigger font, “specialty of the house” yada yada). Statistically, most customers only sample a small portion of any menu.
The best restaurants do offer their staff a meal. This likely differs from “every item on the menu”. Expensive items would not likely be included, but many of the best foods are inexpensive and smart restaurants use these anyway. It’s a tough business and those who survive turn cheap into cheerful chews (using cheese, chocolate and charm).
Literature by restauranteurs is full of stories about cherished employees “not paid enough to eat there”, thrilled to be given the chance to invite their families gratis on some special anniversary (as written in the owner’s book).
Ask waitstaff what’s popular, if you ask them what they eat there it’ll be off the menu and strange, namely because they’re sick of everything on the menu they would eat since they eat there so often.
Or they’re new, in which case, your guess is as good as theirs.
I love meatloaf, and if I’m in a restaurant that has meatloaf on the menu, I’ll ask the server if it’s good. Most of the time they’ll say it is, but if they equivocate in any way, I’ll skip it.
I never ask an open-ended “What’s good?” sort of question.
I bought some whole chickens at a local farm recently. There were two breeds, so I asked an employee what the difference was. He started, “well, I haven’t eaten meat in 15 years, but…” and proceeded to give me a good description of how the breeds differed.