Dishes typically offered by fine dining establishments often combine flavors and textures in a way that celebrate food and the art of preparing it. However, this cultural triumph can be discouraging to those with selective eating habits.
Take Gordan Ramsey’s Las Vegas restaurant, Hell’s Kitchen, for example. Its menu features appetizers such as seared foie gras, pan-seared scallops, and lobster risotto. While these dishes are impressive, they feature layers of complex ingredients besides the main protein. These additional elements often make or break the meal for a picky eater.
And, in the world of fine dining, customization is unthinkable. It is incredibly rude to ask for eliminations or substitutions within meals because this insults the chef’s creative vision. Chefs like Ramsey agonize over the tiniest details of their dish, searching for the perfect ingredients and flourishes to bring their masterpiece to life.
So, are picky eaters simply out of place in fine dining? Maybe.
Fine dining restaurants are often established as a place to explore the boundaries of food. Chefs seek to elevate their customers’ experience with artfully created dishes that cannot be had anywhere else. Picky eaters despise the unknown, so entering an atmosphere of invention can be daunting. It appears to be a lose-lose situation – picky eaters and chefs are faced with the challenge of finding the line between creating something wonderful while working within the bounds of what a customer is willing to eat.
So, can it be done? I don’t know. As a picky eater myself, I am not optimistic about my chances of entering a high-end restaurant and finding a meal I can enjoy.
I have been told time and time again to “grow up.” However, some foods I genuinely cannot stand as a result of my long-standing hatred. No amount of forcing myself to mature will make my taste buds change. Swallowing food purely for the intention of pleasing the chef unravels the very thing the fine dining establishment stands for— pleasurably experiencing a piece of artwork.
And so, I have come to the conclusion that fine dining restaurants do not provide an inclusive experience to those with a particular palate. While this is unfortunate, there is nothing that can be done to remedy this, for changing the composition of a fine dining dish makes the dish ordinary— the exact thing the chef is striving away from.
As a picky eater, and I hope you will agree, fine dining is an art form. While it is not meant for everybody to consume, it is a concept that can be appreciated by all.