Fine Dining…..thoughts?

We were discussing this at lunchtime as we took the family out to lunch at a mid price restaurant.

What we look for is good quality dishes cooked from fresh ingredients and in satisfying portions. We dislike over large portions as much as the kind of meal you describe Chrisks.

We live with in easy reach of a highly rated Michelin starred restaurant that often features in the media. Most people we know have been there to lunch at least once to celebrate a special occasion. We haven't, because we know that it is just such a restaurant as you describe. Oppressively good service, plates that come to the table so beautiful you want to hang them on the wall, but so unsatisfying as far as nutrition and adequacy.

Some years ago a friend of DD's was taken to Heston Blumenthal's restaurant at Bray for a meal. On his way home he stopped off for fish and chips because he was still so hungry.

Not for us thank you, we’ll pay for tasty, thoughtfully sourced food, our choice from the provided menu. Not a predetermined taster or wine paired menu for silly money, one of us drives anyway, so the alcohol imbibed is minimal.
One of the advantages of the internet, checking menus before you book, even a sample one gives you an idea and of course reviews.

I'm too old and jaded for fine dining! I love eating out, it's one of life's pleasures, but I'd far rather have a good tasty plate of food preferably in an independent restaurant. I like to feel relaxed too and enjoy good conversation.

The whole 9 course tasting menu thing I find a bit of an ordeal to be honest. Too rigid and too lengthy.

Give me oysters followed by lobster thermidor or a medium rare rib eye steak and triple cooked chips, a bottle Merlot or superbly chilled Pinot and I'm a very happy bunny. Oh, and an espresso martini or two to round it off.

I am not very keen on taster menus. More than 30 years ago my husband booked for our Anniversary a local Michelin restaurant, he hadn’t a clue how much it would cost and was horrified when he saw the menu. We shared a starter and had a main course each - no drinks, we think the staff felt sorry for us and gave us complementary desserts. We stopped for chips on the way home.
Years later my daughter and SIL gave us a voucher for Glyn Purnells Michelin restaurant in Birmingham. It was a tasting menu but we were full when we had finished and Glyn was lovely. We still would have preferred a couple of courses with larger portions.
I do know someone who used to be a Michelin chef but the stress of maintaining the star made him ill and not enjoy cooking. He now runs a tiny restaurant locally just 12 seats and one sitting, one menu which changes each month just 3 nights a week. It’s £75 for 7 courses (not a taster menu) the food is absolutely delicious but it’s far too much food for me so don’t go anymore.

We heard so much praise about a new restaurant opened up in a trendy neighbourhood. When we arrived most of the young women there were very glammed up like a famous girl band. A few famous ex footballers were also present it looked more a place to be than a place to eat.
We felt the restaurant wasn’t for us to be honest we did have a nice enough meal but it was tiny portions and very expensive. We ended up walking fifty yards to the chippy for something to take home. The restaurant lasted about two years the famous faces stopped going and it lost its appeal.

There was a time when I would have enjoyed it but now I simply don’t want to pay high prices for indifferent food that I can prepare at home for family and friends for a fraction of the price. We once had a meal at L’Enclume in Cartmel with many courses: by the end of the evening we were just so fed up with all the constant interruption to describe the provenance of every flaming ingredient.

I have been spared taster menus. It is just the way very small portions are hidden behind artistic presentation.

I love a good tasty meal. Sometimes plain old fish and chips is the order of the day.
We do try to eat out at least once a month as there are lots of options available to us here, however I can’t do with being over faced nor underfed.
My preference is a trip to France where you can walk around and pop into unlikely looking places and eat the most flavoursome things that always seem to delight.

It's always been a rip-off, the culinary arts taking people for fools. It has always had a whiff of Emperors new clothes about it.

What gets me is they serve what used to be poor people's food like pig cheeks and other offal and sell it at an exhorbitant price. People will pay too! They'll be serving tripe next...

I think the wine is probably what it's all about Chrisks, and anyone who wants a slap up dinner is in the wrong place. This is also where the restaurant makes its greatest profit of course. I must admit it doesn't appeal to me much, but the service is usually impeccable and the waiters' and sommeliers' knowledge is first class.

We have been fortunate enough to eat at a number of Michelin and nearly Michelin starred restaurants.
My favourite was the Aulis experience at L’Enclume, I still get the menu out and reminisce over each course and the beautiful wines.
I love cooking and eating, food is my passion and to experience some of the world’s best is something I treasure.
I am however far from a food snob, nothing beats the plaice and chips from Aldborough, long queue at the chippy then eaten on the beach, the pies at the Parkers Arms in the Trough of Bowland and the best pizza I ever had at a transport cafe in Tuscany.

Miles Kington (anyone else remember him?) once had a Do We Know Why column. One of the items one week was Do we know Why pubs say that they make all their money on the food and restaurants say that they make all their money on the wine? True, and I never did find out why.

I think that tasting menus are as varied as the establishments.
I have had a dull menu at a Michelin restaurant and an exciting one at another (not Michelin). I've had two really poor ones where I felt the vegetarian options were a distinct afterthought.

I love the good ones.
I have never bought wine pairings.

Friends of ours took a party of 8 to a very posh hotel/restaurant for dinner. At the end, when asked to comment on meal, she informed them that they would be stopping off at the chippie on the way home as the men were still hungry. Not sure how that went down!
I did win a Michelin taster meal several years ago, about 7 courses, we had to pay for the wine (by the glass) and the whole thing was excellent. They even provided coffee and a tray of lush chocolates to gorge ourselves on after.

I tend to avoid restaurants that proclaim 'fine dining' because my experience has been anything but. It's an Americanism and needs to be taken, like all sales talk, with a pinch of salt.

My son and partner had a 5 course tasting menu meal in London last week , £175 a head without drinks and it was “O.K. “!
I would feel very disappointed if it had been me and was anything less that absolutely wonderful and even then I would be thinking it was very, very expensive !

Chrisks

Came back hungry after a meal last night! Beautiful venue, staff so attentive but we got nothing on our plates! Just nibbles really. Price was ridiculous for what we had. We didn’t go for the wine pairing. Is it more about the wine than the food? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts?

For our Ruby wedding, our two sons paid for us to have a meal and a trip on the Orient Express. It was fantastic but hilarious watching my 6 ft 5 ins, well built husband staring down at the little sparrow on his plate and not knowing what to do with it.

Our two sons then took me out for a meal at a fine dining restaurant after my husband died and it was a fantastic experience but what was so special was that the restaurant was built on the site where my late husband had taken me on one of our dates in 1965 two years before we married, it was a Chinese restaurant then. Our sons could not believe the coincidence.

I'm not a fine dining fan, but there again I'm not a fan of the huge portions that are given in most restaurant either. I like a restaurant that will do 'child size' portions, not just chicken nuggets etc. My sister and I went to a restaurant recently that was serving home made chicken and leek pie with seasonal vegetables, the individual pies measured 7 inches across!! They were delicious but such a waste as neither of us could manage the whole thing

That is why posh rich people are skinny, = fine dining! I won a stay at the Connaught hotel in Mayfair, mega posh, included a fine dining meal, great big plate with tiny blob of food in the middle, cost a ridiculous amount of money (lucky I won it) after we were so hungry we left hotel to find a takeaway.

Flapper girl thoroughly agree with you. We’ve done a few fine dining places but I’m with you on this

Here, posh usually means lots of ambiance, great service, little food, and high prices....... [humm]

I don't think it's fair to call out all of the fancier places. I think, like most things in life there is a lot of difference between one establishment and another.
Also, even mid-range places (and chain restaurants) vary day to day it seems!

I simply couldn't justify spending a lot on "fine dining ". IMO there are plenty of good restaurants and cafés providing excellent meals and services without charging huge prices. Each to their own: we've friends who've done a lot of this fine dining; they both had well-paid jobs and have no children, so have plenty of cash!

Davida1968 - no one is making you go out to restaurants you don't want to go to!

People like different things - and as you said, your friends like it.