The Tasting Menu: Take It or Leave It?
New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni wonders whether diners really enjoy tasting menus:
They want a fine-dining experience, and they want to relax, and they want to linger, but only to a point. And many tasting menus take them well beyond that point. For them, the tasting menu isn’t a luxurious journey. It’s like recent Martin Scorsese movies: thrilling at moments but tediously long.
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3 Comments:
As a Brooklyn resident who dines out frequently in both Manhattan and Brooklyn I find the tasting menu a perfect way to be introduced to a restaurant for the first time.
Although I'm cynic enough to be aware of the tasting menu's profit potential as well as its remedy for a restaurant being over-inventoried, the tasting menu is still one of the best ways to judge the skills of the chef/kitchen and to see how inventive they want to be in combining ingredients, textures, etc
Livetotravel at 3:36PM on 12/09/06
I am a big fan of tasting menus – the diner can try many different dishes and experience the true breadth of the chef’s skills. It is also a good choice for omnivores who cannot easily make up their mind when confronted with menu choices. Most restaurants pace the menu very well and serve portions that make it easy for patrons to enjoy and savor the multitude of plates.
One thing I really don’t like is a restaurant’s insistence that the entire table (often five or six persons) order the tasting menu. I have eaten at fabulous restaurants where this restriction was not in effect and there was no problem with “pacing” dishes, even if someone at the table did not want the tasting menu.
Thor Thorson at 1:19PM on 12/10/06
Out in the boonies there are not the skilled, adventerous chefs who would offer one. If I travel out a bit I have had them. The thing I don't like about tasting menus is things I don't like invariably show up on the menu. I am a very picky eater.
I had a viennese tasting menu once that was amazing. In Cherry Hill NJ Viennese Cafe (http://www.andreottis.com/) This place has the talent and the overall not too secular tasting menu.
I have had french tasting menus all over and there were only 2 I liked both of these places are closed now. The food was so good the place closed. I hate when that happens. Someone opens a place and uses the best ingredients and finds out that without hype their concept is not sellable.
JerzeeTomato at 3:37AM on 12/13/06