I don’t see anything that unusual about the OP. It seems like a menu that could easily appear in a real world restaurant. I’ve certainly eaten at places where that menu would not raise any eyebrows.
Here’s the actual menu from Lento, a local restaurant.
That’s a place I could definitely eat at! To the OP, I don’t know where some of these people eat, but your prices are in line for a quasi-fine dining to fine dining establishment. I’d have the empanadas, the chorizo sautee and the cannoli.
I do agree with the general sentiment that the menu isn’t varied enough and that you ultimately are going to have to make a couple concessions to the meat and potato crowd though. But it doesn’t have to be just some by rote familiar steak and baked potato type dish either.
Here’s a menu from a restaurant where I used to work and that I helped open: http://www.cincinnati.com/dining/daveeds/
It changes daily/at the chef’s whim/seasonally, but take a look at the variety of proteins offered in the appetizers and in the entrees. Scallops, foie gras, crab, carpaccio, hangar steak, venison, fish (arctic char), duck breast, pork shoulder…
You don’t need to be locked necessarily into a common theme on your menu, unless that’s what you’re trying to do. But, like you said, yours isn’t trying to be nouvelle cuisine and this menu most certainly is.
This restaurant is in Cincinnati, BTW.
You really don’t see the difference between the menus?
The Lento menu is firmly rooted in the classics- solid preparations of meat, gussied up traditional sides, and a emphasis on high-quality rich ingredients. They are all pretty much just super versions of stuff you’ve had before. The menu overall has a theme emphasizing rich food. When there are unusual ingredients or pairings, it’s as a compliment to an otherwise solid main dish. The vegetarain options are pretty classic- stuff like sage-butter-pumpkin ravioli is well tread ground.
That’s different than a hunk of pineapple in peanut sauce on cornbread and crabby-cheesy-plumby empanadas.
Savory Black Bean Pastry or Crab Empanadas
Roasted Chicken and Savory Cranberries
Milk and Cookies or Habanero Tres Leches
I’m not sure about the habenero tres leches, but I’d give it a try. I just wish there was a place around here to get good regular tres leches; I can’t even find that.
i was judging this menu’s pricing as if it were for a small bistro-type restaurant, not a “quasi-fine” dining establishment. if it’s quasi-fine, then i would have a whole other set of nitpicks - like the ingredients are too pedestrian. No duck, no steak, no seafood (deep fried salmon doesn’t cut it), etc.
the prices are too high for bistro-level food (imo), even though the menu appears to be comparable other bistros. the quality of the ingredients aren’t up to the standards of “fine dining”, much less michelin rated restaurants.
it’s kind of caught in a no-man’s-land of between being better than cheescake factory and not as good as a $20 entree restaurant.
you’ll have suburbanites sticking to the outback steakhouses, PF changs, and the splurgers looking for restaurants that are serving lamb, lobster, and duck. i really don’t see a market for people wanting to spend $15 for a veggie burger, or $17 for roasted chicken.
plus, i doubt the executive chef of a legit, fine-dining restaurant would be soliciting ideas for his/her menu on the dope.
I’m surprised at the number of people who say there are too many unrecognizable ingredients. Maybe they need to go to Applebees?
I wouldn’t eat at your place every week (I couldn’t afford it for one) but there are several dishes I’d like to try.
I don’t know. That menu looks cohesive and balanced.
My problem with the OP’s menu is it looks like it’s trying too hard, if that makes any sense. There’s nothing I wouldn’t try, but nothing really pops out at me, except perhaps for the fried chiles with mango mayonnaise–that sounds like it would be really good and the chicken-and-apple dumpling soup.
You know, I think something along this line isn’t a bad idea, although getting a cooking show is probably pretty difficult given the large number of people vying for a limited number of slots. Besides, TV cooking seems to be a fairly short-term career for most these days. So I would suggest that you might want to consider teaching cooking classes, which offers the same benefits Chronos listed in allowing you to purchase just what you need to keep everything fresh, cook what you find interesting, and present it in the way you like. It would require far less in the way of research; you won’t be having to please everyone in a group; it would be less of a hassle in terms of employees and regulations and health inspectors and equipment and research; and best of all - no heavy financial risk. Before she became famous, Julia Child conducted cooking classes. There’s nothing at all wrong with that.
But several people were saying that Jane Public and Joe Sixpack wouldn’t want to eat there because they wouldn’t recognize the ingredients and the prices were too high and only the biggest cities can support a restaurant with food like that. I wanted to show that a restaurant can exist serving things like $12 “crisp confit of house cured Aberdeen Hill Frams pork belly on warm brioche with cranberry mostarda” appetizers and $34 “crispy grilled Grassland Farms duck breast with local parsnips cooked risotto style, applewood smoked bacon, thyme and chanterelle mushrooms, braised rappini and dried cherry ju” entrees in a mid-sized city.
The Fish and Chips, with either the soup or salad for starter.
Pretty ambivalent about dessert (rarely order it), though the Milk & Cookies sound intriguing
Chile Pepper Fries
Crab Empanadas
Fish and Chips
Milk and Cookies
Habanero Tres Leches
Oddly enough, I could afford to eat at this place every day, but I’d rather eat at Applebees. Because they have things I know what the hell are.
I’d be interested in at least trying out pretty much anything on that menu. One thing I tend to think when I see unusually joined ingredients is that the recipe has been tested and tweaked to the extent that it’s balanced and tasteful. This isn’t always true of course, but I don’t see anything in this menu that makes me think WTF?
I would think that the menu would need to be larger though, with some more traditional dishes. At the prices listed, it sounds like a nice sit down cafe, which puts it in the realm of people there to eat and not just taste.
I live in Seattle and this menu doesn’t look so strange to me. I bet people would go for it.
As a vegetarian I’d probably give it a miss, since I’m sick of veggie burgers (even good ones) and not personally a fan of the sweeter elements like pineapple.
Savory Black Bean Pastry
Roasted Chicken and Savory Cranberries
Habanero Tres Leches although Rose Mousse sounds interesting too.
Your last point may have some merit.
Me too. Jeez, I thought the Dopers were a sophisticated lot!
I tend to agree.
That’s exactly what I was trying to point out by posting the link to the menu of the place I used to work at.
Really? Different strokes and all, but damn man, you’re walling yourself off from culinary adventures just because you aren’t familiar with something. Many, many uncommon ingredients are used by good chefs all over the world to create dishes that people that have your mindset would actually enjoy if they would just try it without prejudice.
I would not order any of the appetizers or entrées. There seems to be a general theme of putting sweet things in the dish, which I simply do not like. Desserts are sweet, not the other courses.
The plum cobbler sounds okay as a dessert.
Scanning over the menu, IMO the theme seems to be “trying too hard”. Why would I go for those items when I could go to a place like Luc, Bisato, or Tilth?
Nothing. You don’t have any basic dishes most people would order. They all would be an experiment for the person walking in off the street.
In riposte, I offer these words of wisdom from the late Lewis Grizzard, a Great American.
