A Guide To The World's Best Fine Dining Restaurants

Final Thoughts     
Spending three hours with a tasting menu from an exciting chef will be preferred by many. For others, including Jeff Gordinier in Esquire magazine: "Tasting menus are platforms for a chef's inflated sense of self-importance – the bloated rock operas of the culinary realm." Others argue that these are glorified catering operations where all customers eat almost the same meal. Many think tasting menus represent a euphoric way to eat with a better glimpse into the mind of a chef. In contrast, some think it's a tedious and unneeded extension of a self-indulgent chef's persona. Ultimately, the customers should be given the most choices possible (customer-centricity). They should be able to select what they want to eat and how much to spend, including how much of their time and the number of calories they wish to consume to hopefully have the 'perfect' meal for them, not the chef. The tasting menu could fit their needs on the first or second visit, but then they might prefer an à la carte menu for another visit. I think most of France's fine cuisine restaurants have it right.

                   Benefits for Diners & Chefs

A More In-Depth Look at The Chef's Cuisine
Degustation menus offer a much more thorough look at the chef's cuisine than a few à la carte courses. Per chef Alain Ducasse: "Tasting menus are great to understand the world of the chef – the vision, the philosophy and the cuisine. It's a summary of what a chef can offer….if you have the perfect wine pairing with a perfect tasting menu, you have a perfect picture of a place."

Better Culinary Control for Chefs
If chefs are the experts, why leave the choosing of the food to those less educated about it? It hands chefs much more control of the dining experience. By removing choices from menus, chefs have more latitude to easily impress, better educate and delight their customers.

Better Cost Control for Chefs
A chef can have less kitchen staff, more precise purchasing, and charge much more through a much higher minimum check average. A restaurant knows exactly what diners will eat for minimal waste.

               Disadvantages for Diners & Chefs

Lack of Choice
Most degustation menus remove the customer's ability to choose what they eat. Why have diners been demoted from 'the customer is king' or giving the customer what they want? Why are customers in many restaurants held hostage to the chef's notions? On the extreme, but not alone, are restaurants like Geranium and Noma in Denmark with 500+ Euro dinners with 20 to 25 courses, no optional number of courses, no meat but serving insects, and a 3-hour minimum. Some restaurants offer two options for the total number of courses, like 5 or 9, but compared to an 'a la carte' menu, this is still an off-putting "straitjacket" for many guests.

Most restaurants will ask what you do not like and know the possible substitutions. However, changing a chef's masterpiece dish is not ideal and can get old if you have many change requests for a 20-course meal. Of course, with an à la carte menu, some will ask about substitutions(exclusive of allergies, vegans,..), but it is rarer than degustation menus.


Local regular customers, who frequent the restaurant often, how does such a limited choice affect them and the level of repeat business?

 À la carte menus offer a history or customer votes for each dish. Without these votes to establish what should be on a menu, the chef can be pulled away from their customers' desires, affecting both the restaurant's revenues and the customers satisfaction. Customer feedback about dishes that they liked is far less exact in making menu decisions. A masterpiece signature dish could be easily discarded when the season changes, or a dish is kept that customers may not enjoy as much as thought on a tasting menu.

Many tasting menu restaurants do not publish menus on their website and/or sometimes are not up to date. Would most people spend hundreds of dollars to buy a writer's book, an artist's painting, or orchestra symphony tickets without knowing the contents or being given the wrong information? These 'mystery menus' requires a much more significant 'leap of faith' for customers to make reservations, especially if deposits are required.  

Long Length of Time to Dine
Some well-traveled diners do not want to spend 3+ hours at a table… strapped and trapped. It is easily avoided by offering an à la carte menu, which is very common in France but not America, Denmark, Japan, and other countries.

Diminishes Diner Knowledge
Having your meal preset discourages customers from asking questions and getting answers when ordering from the service staff, which imparts knowledge that is now lost. It makes diners lazier. Better customer awareness usually results in better culinary outcomes. The continuous overwhelming barrage of courses happens so quickly that it discourages remembering and learning as well, though this is offset somewhat by seeing more dishes.

More Calories
The small plates create the illusion of a light meal, which seems healthier, but 10-20 courses stretch out the amount of time required to eat, so a stomach feels like it had less to eat. For example, a typical 10-12 course dinner with wine is 2220 to 2700 calories.

Culinary Drawbacks  
The tiny scale that chefs work with eliminates many preparations served on the bone or offered whole, like fowl or fish, which reduces the variety of tastes offered. A diners knife gets used very little. The large number of small dishes requires more preparation in advance, faster cooking times, and ultimately shortcuts are needed, which can be seen in the newer culinary techniques, which are not all necessarily better. Is a 'perfect' meal possible with so many courses? Did one or two courses tarnish a diner's experience, where three courses from an à la carte menu might be closer to perfection?

The Higher Cost
If only a tasting menu is offered, there is only one very high price, though sometimes fewer courses are offered at a lower price. Contrast this with having a few courses from an à la carte menu with all different prices and spending much less if desired.

Taste Suffers
In the end, taste is the primary mission for diners but often receives secondary status as more time is spent on a dish's presentation, unique ingredients, and techniques as this is what the online world can see pretty easily, where taste cannot be as easily seen or talked about. As a result, the 'subjective' area of taste takes a backseat and can require the most time to do it well. It could explain why blogger critics have become more popular recently. They look at taste a lot as they write extensively about each dish.

 

The Tasting/Degustation Menu
A tasting menu, or degustation menu (the French word for 'tasting), consists of several bite-sized dishes served to guests as a single meal. They were inspired by the French term degustation, defined as the careful tasting of various foods with a focus on the senses and culinary artistry consisting of many courses spread out over a more extended period of time. In some cases, completing a tasting menu can take over three hours. Many restaurants offer two or more differing prices, with the number of total courses reflecting this.

Elements
Many courses - typically five or more, and more recently, with some restaurants offering 15 to 30 courses
Smaller portions
Plating and presentation- creating towers and stacking, painting of the plates with dabs and dots and brushstrokes of sauces. Over the last 40 years, there has been a migration from oversized white porcelain plates to custom plates for many menu items.

An ever-increasing trend, especially with and after Covid, is tasting or degustation menus. Unfortunately, I find this shift to be generally more negative for diners. Should customers be given the most choices possible, or is it more important to get a better glimpse into the mind of an exciting chef while being held more captive?