Ridiculously small entrees at very high end restaurants: true?

Cafe Society
1

I’ve eaten at quite a few high-end restaurants, but never at a very high-end, Michelin two- or three-star gourmet restaurant in NYC, San Francisco, Paris or some other foodie destination.

It seems like a common trope that entrees at some high-end restaurants are ridiculously small; for example an ounce of beef, three peas, or salads with two leaves of lettuce. Granted, the presentation may be excellent, the ingredients described as heirloom or artisanal, but still … three peas? The almost daily posts on the SDMB about portions in typical American restaurants being “so huge” seem to reinforce the trope.

So, if I go to some Michelin-rated gourmet restaurant in NYC or Paris, will my $75 meal be something like this or this?

2

It is a novel idea with the second one, serving it on a toilet seat.

3

It depends on the restaurant, but it isn’t uncommon.

If you ate here, those are the kinds of portions you could expect.

4

I’ve had petite entrees, but typically I’ve already had an appetizer, soup, salad, etc. It is nice to have room for a desert for a change.

5

I’ve eaten at a few very nice restaurants, and though the portion sizes are smaller than the typical American restaurant meal, I’ve never had “3 peas and a piece of lettuce” small. In fact, I’ve never left a table hungry at all.

You might have a course similar in size to your first picture, but keep in mind that you typically have a minimum of 3 or 4 courses when eating at a high-end restaurant. That plate would be fine, size-wise, if you had an appetizer, a soup course, a fish course, a cheese plate, and a dessert (or a combination of any 3 or 4 of these.)

Of course, there’s also restaurants that specialize in many tiny plates - Alinea in Chicago for example, where you do get very small plates - one or two bites each - but you get a LOT of them, like 15 or 20 courses.

6

What you describe is more typical, but there are a bunch of places that serve 4 or 5 courses the size of the one in the linked picture. Eaten over the span of an hour, many people will walk away hungry.

Besides myself, I know of about 10 couples who have eaten at the Georgian Room (I linked to it above), 8 ordered room service afterward. We were tempted, but not that hungry.

7

At one of the better restaurants I frequent, one of the veggie sides is three or four stalks of grilled asparagus. I do not regard this as an adequate serving of asparagus. The mashed potato serving is about half a cup, which is actually the recommended serving size of mashed potatoes. The lamb chops (oh, the lamb chops!) come in triplets, and each one is very thin, and there’s perhaps an ounce of meat on each chop, even if you pick them up and gnaw and suck each delectable morsel off the bone.

At lower end restaurants, well, the mashed potato portions might be a cup and a half (three servings) to about five or six cups (which is really more starch than I should eat for the entire DAY). It’s cheap for restaurants to put more food on the plate, and the diner thinks that he’s getting his money’s worth by looking at a plate that’s covered with food. The diner is concerned about getting a full belly more than savoring the food.

Higher end restaurants offer wonderful appetizers, desserts, and drinks, and they want their diners to have room to enjoy them. A group of people going to Denny’s might order an appetizer to share, but it’s more likely for each person to get one meal, and expect to eat everything on the plate, and expect to be completely filled up by that plateful (unless the diner is a teenage boy, those are impossible to fill up).

On the other hand, eating at a high end restaurant is partly about eating as fuel, but mostly about enjoying the experience. It’s not just the food that should be enjoyed, but every moment of being in the restaurant. There will always be some sort of centerpiece at a higher end restaurant. It might be flowers, it might be candles, but it’ll be there. A centerpiece doesn’t automatically qualify a restaurant for being higher end, though. Cracker Barrel has oil lamps on its tables. Also, a lower or middle end restaurant will have a clean, functional bathroom, possible with air freshener, but with minimal decoration, if any. One or more stalls or sinks might be out of order. The toilet paper and towels will be just barely adequate. In lower end restaurants, especially, the stalls might be out of toilet paper (and management requests that guests not throw paper towels into the toilet, which probably wouldn’t happen so often if the stalls were restocked more often). A high end restaurant bathroom will be pleasantly (but very subtly) scented, it will be tastefully decorated, everything will be in working condition, and there are usually some amenities in there. A diner never needs to notify someone in a high end restaurant that the ladies’ room needs to be restocked, because someone has checked the bathrooms recently, and has put in new supplies before it’s necessary.

8

Heh, just found this thread, with pics of a dinner at Alinea (scroll down on the first page a little bit for the pics.) It’s a few years old, but it’s a good example of a Food-As-Art restaurant. Supposed to be amazing, but I’m guessing the great majority of non-Food-Enthusiasts would simply laugh at most of the courses.

9

As opposed to in the bowl?

10

It depends. The most I ever paid for a meal was at Emeril’s in New Orleans. The three courses we ordered weren’t anything like Chili’s-sized portions, but my wife and I certainly didn’t leave hungry.
I’ve been to some tapas restaurants where most of the dishes are like the ones pictured - think two really thin egg rolls on a plate, or a couple of cheese cubes with silver dollar-sized bread slices. Really tasty, but you have to order at least a half dozen courses to get filled up.

11

The few times we’ve eaten at Emeril’s we’ve found the portions more than adequate. No little bits of this or dabs of that.

12

Ditto all the higher-end restaurants we’ve eaten at. They don’t bury you in food, but the preparation and presentation more than make up for the “dearth” of calories.

13

This.

I eat at very haute quisine restaurants about once a year, and the portions usually look pretty small and are intensely flavored. I’ve had the tasting menus at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, the Fat Duck, and Gordon Ramsay at Claridges. Each dish was tiny, but packed a punch of flavor that totally made up for it. Amongst many great dishes (the Fat Duck blew my mind), a good example was the crab salad at Le Manoir: it was literally just a spoonful - as in, it was served on a spoon - but I can recall the taste to this day; it was the best crab I have ever eaten.

The good thing about tasting menus like that is, though, that you get a lot of courses. Gordon Ramsay’s was seven I think, Le Manoir was 10 and took two hours, and the Fat Duck had 17 courses and took three and a half hours. After each meal, I left feeling perfectly full - not bloated or hungry - but with the benefit of having had an experience, not just a meal.

14

I never understood that trope. When I have eaten in Europe, and ordered a European style meal, I am always more than full when done. And I ain’t no dainty eater. It’s just that high end and/or European meals are different. In Italy you might order some sort of appetizer or soup, followed by pasta or risotto, then an main course, maybe a side of vegetables, then cheese or desert, then maybe an aperitif with biscotti. A meal takes an hour or longer, you eat slowly, the courses come out well spaced, and you enjoy spending time with friends or family.

When you go to a high end restaurant in the US they expect you to have the table for a couple of hours, or maybe the entire night. The servings are smaller so you can order several courses. The rare times I can afford it and go all out, I want to be able to try several things on the menu. If I want a huge entree I go to a steakhouse. That’s good too, just different.

15

In Spain, tapas are what you eat early in the evening, maybe on the way home from work, to tide you over to the real dinner which starts at 10 PM

16

I’ve notice that even places like Applebees and TGI Fridays are getting in on this too with a menu where you can pick 3 or 4 smaller items.

17

It’s probably worth noting that a European entree is an American appetiser, so it’s not the main course of the meal.

18

I’ve noticed the high end places have a different presentation of food than your typical family restaurant, there is more height to the presentation. Although more of the plate is visible when you get your entree - when you get into the dish, there is more than enough food.

19

I don’t recall any of the high-end restaurants I’ve visited using either nomenclature. The courses are either numbered or named after the type of food they contain.

20

Entree is very problematical. In France it means an appetizer, but we use it to mean main course here. Some American French restaurants will have entree on their menu and mean it in the French way, some will use it in the American way, and some avoid it all together by using terms like starters, or doing what garygnu said. You can usually tell by context, but it can be confusing.