Restaurants play host to all classes of diners: the good, the grand, the gullible, the greedy and so on. However, as a consequence of the last three decades of chef-artistes, many of the most famous dining establishments in the world treat these diverse clients as if it they were an audience with a single palate and a single motive — to worship at the chopping board of the cook-auteur.
There is only one magnificent tasting menu full of delights and curiosities (with, of course, adjustments for allergies and some degree of protein preference, though these polite accommodations rarely equalled the innovative originals).
These multi-course, hours-long extravaganzas inspired a generation of fine-dining restaurants to develop smaller-scale “tasting menus”, where the diner gets a set roster of dishes that showed off the chef’s personality and skills.
”They became popular because people are credulous, chefs are controlling,” wrote Tanya Gold in August in The Spectator. In addition, they were advantageous for managing a kitchen’s workload and expenses.
Set menus afford a restaurant a large measure of predictability: There are a limited number of dishes to prepare, over which a set number of cooks could be assigned, for which enough produce could be stocked. The best restaurants still work à la minute — with plates sent fresh off the line — but, sometimes, you can end up in a place where the salad has that just-out-of-the-refrigerator feel. Ah, that whiff of hydrofluorocarbon!
But even in the top spots, the tasting menu as an expression of a chef’s persona has ceased to have drawing power. Diners — that diverse group — have rediscovered culinary democracy, that is, their right to choose what to eat on a menu.
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The tyranny of the set menu is ending. Here in London, two of my favorite places have come back to à la carte dining. Evenings at Lyle’s in Shoreditch used to be monopolised by a tasting menu that set the rhythm of a meal. Now, the more freewheeling and adventurous a la carte lunch (my go-to on Saturdays) is available at night.
Before Covid-19, I used to walk more than two miles north to get to Black Axe Mangal in Islington for Lee Tiernan’s quirky and iconoclastic menu, featuring flatbreads topped with lamb offal; what was basically a squid-ink bagel topped with cod roe; mapo tofu topped with fried eggs all over hash browns and a crazy roster of multi-culti edibles.
After Covid-19, the restaurant dubbed itself Formerly Known as Black Axe Mangal and switched to an overwhelmingly sumptuous set menu, which severely limited my visits because, as voracious as I am, I only have so much stomach capacity. Now a la carte is back, and I’ll be resuming my habit of walking up to Islington.
The shift means restaurants have to become nimbler, catering to customer wishes instead of pushing a curated experience. It’s not that set menus are easy. But they require the kitchen to reframe its flow and tempo — akin to switching from a 45-minute Stanley Kubrick single-shot cosmic sweep to a frenetic Michael Bay action montage.
The chef at Lyle’s, James Lowe, told me the kitchen had to adjust its rhythm on-the-go during one of the first a la carte evenings when only a couple of customers asked for the set menu (which is still available) and about a dozen others mixed and matched off the broader list of available offerings. It was a whirl but they’re getting used to it.
The customers are excited too. Restaurants that have been around for years feel new again.
Of course, there are restaurants whose entire raison d’être is to allow the chef do his or her thing — the expensive shrines of sushi masters come to mind, or similar sacrosanct temples in Europe and America that diners continue to flock to. Still, even the most commanding of chefs have to be sensitive to the malleable yearnings of customers.
There is some talk that Noma — the Danish gourmet destination that keeps pushing back its much-heralded closing — may remain open but with a twist. Its current format offers three gorgeous tasting menus a year, each lasting about three months and each focused on game, fish or vegetables. The restaurant has plans to transform into a high-end condiment enterprise. But chef-auteur Rene Redzepi has left the door tantalisingly open for the dining room to continue its operations. “We want the restaurant to be our hobby,” he says coyly.
There is speculation that if Redzepi continues to feed guests in Copenhagen, he will unite fish-game-and-veg into a single menu but move dishes in and out based on what’s most delicious during a specific growing season. Will it be a la carte or even semi-a la carte? So far, there’s only silence about that from my sources.
Noma’s been good about catering to its customers. One of my favorite stories is of the day a couple came off a cruise ship to dine. The wife was ecstatic over the all-vegetable menu; the husband not so much. Noticing he was moving the elements of each dish around on the plate and not eating, the manager walked over. “Sir, is there something we can do for you?” he asked. The man shrugged and said, “As long as she’s happy.” The manager pressed his question more explicitly: “What would you like to eat?” The man thought for a moment and said, “A burger.” The manager sent a staffer out to bring one back. The man was all smiles.
The coda? The manager confided to me with a laugh. “No one dared tell Rene!”
