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Comment by blhack | Hacker News Reader

I think there is a bell curve happening here. Very very cheap restaurants will have simple menus written on paper (and possibly laminated).

Middle tier, chain restaurants (like the cheescake factory) will have heavy menus with elaborate food descriptions and departments of people who work on optimizing them.

But then at the very high end, it actually wraps back around. The nicest restaurants I've been to will often have a paper menu, with a very, very small selection of things on it.

My personal opinion is that some of these things are actually a counter-indicator. If you obviously put a lot of thought into your menu, bought an obnoxious folder for it, have lavish descriptions, etc. it's because you are leaning into the perception of your food/atmosphere, rather than the reality of it.

To make my point: here is the menu for the french laundry: https://portlandfoodanddrink.com/because-we-all-need-to-see-...

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I don't know--that French Laundry menu feels pretentious to me too. For example, many, many items in the description have unnecessary modifiers. If going for simplicity, they wouldn't be telling me it is "Maine" lobster tail, "French Laundry garden" cabbage, "Sacramento Delta" asparagus, "King Richard" leeks, etc. All of that is selling people on the idea it is quality, not simply trusting that the result speaks for itself. If I trust their reputation, I should be able to trust they select a good lobster tail, cabbage, asparagus and leek without them trying to sell it to me. Those sorts of extra food descriptions put me off (in the same way that similar modifiers in a, for example, Blue Apron ad do...)

And throwing in unnecessary french words is just as off putting to my sensibilities (but can be forgiven, given their name). So is omitting dollar signs. Or unnecessary italics. I could go on. My point is they absolutely are trying to put out a perception of quality food/atmosphere with their menu design, just in a different way and with fewer items than they Cheesecake Factory version. They're just doing the humble brag version of the same thing.

I don't disagree with you in principle, but the TFL menu specifically is kind of... a thing. It's explicitly stylized after an Escoffier-style menu (see e.g. http://ciadigitalcollections.culinary.edu/digital/collection... ), is instantly recognizable in the world of fine dining, and is actually often not given to the diner until after the meal (the menu is not what's getting anyone to eat at TFL -- you're making a reservation months in advance).

> “Maine” lobster tail

Atlantic and Pacific (spiny) lobster (not really a lobster) are quite different though and it would otherwise be ambiguous.

I really hate the gratuitous adjective issue too but the ones you chose I wouldn't call inherently pretentious, except that they are exaggerations that don't add much (or any) value. There really is pretentious gibberish in that menu.

Maine (well New England) lobsters are different from langoustines which are often referred to as lobsters in English. Though personally when eating the tail I can't tell the difference. Perhaps I'm a philistine and some can. This is up there with the "Spanish" capers..I know you can tell the difference.

"French Laundry garden" cabbage..."grown in our garden" is good enough for me. "Sacramento Delta asparagus" ... not as good as Half Moon Bay? "local" would be fine.

A "King Richard" leeks actually is a specific breed of leek. Oh but wait, it's the plain old leek you'd find in any grocery store. Sure glad they let me know.

For true prevention let's switch to the nouns, shall we? It's OK to use a foreign word that has no, or only a distant, English relative. But "Streusel" is called "strudel" in English. The Saboyon doesn't exist in English but the French word is for a sweet dessert which I really doubt is used in an oyster dish. etc.

With all those adjectives someone should do a "truth in advertising" sting on those restaurants. It'd make great TV

> grown in our garden" is good enough for me. "Sacramento Delta asparagus" ... not as good as Half Moon Bay? "local" would be fine.

But you’re eating at French laundry. The grow spot shouldn’t make any difference for a restaurant where A) they are supposed to prepare excellent dishes and B) you have so few choices.

“Well we finally got into French Laundry but decided to leave when we saw the menu and found they were serving garlic from Gilroy instead of garlic from Morgan Hill.”

> But "Streusel" is called "strudel" in English

I think you’re confusing two things. Strudel seems to be strudel as well in English, while Streusel is a kind of crumble, it’s not a dish by itself.

German "Streusel" is just the crumbly dryish component covering a cake or pastry made from a little flour, butter and lots of sugar. Streuselkuchen is a cake made with yeast dough covered in Streusel. Optionally, one can enhance this with fruit or vegetables, e.g. rhubarb. But cheesecake, cheese pastry (with a flaky pastry base) or fruity pastry can also be covered with some Streuseln.

Strudel is a bigger (generous 1 portion or more) piece of pastry (usually puff pastry, but plain pastry dough is also not unusual) with fruit filling, commonly apples and raisins. Often served with vanilla sauce.

Of those, I've usually seen strudel to have the original German meaning while streusel in english is usually used to mean Streuselkuchen with fruit.

It is just an extension of the current trends in fine cuisine: Hide sophistication behind apparent simplicity.

It isn't good or bad, it's just the current fashion that dictates how things are done. 20 years in the future, this will have changed.

It’s like any other trend. Elaborate french menus were en vogue in the 80s and 90s, eventually the style trickled down to places like Cheesecake Factory, and once they’re doing it it’s not cool any more.

As chains adopt the simple and local style the high end will move on to something else.

I agree, but do you think anything's changed over the past 10 years?

Yes, but gradually. E.g. the change from fine dining to more casual fine dining (even the officially non-casual fine dining became more casual and less stuffy). Since the 80s, complexity and affinity to exotics also went down, local and sustainable became trends. Insects and hay are extreme indicators of that. Around 20 years ago, vegetarian dining also became a (still rare) option. 10 years ago there was a short hype around molecular cuisine.

I think the big changes happen in terms of generations of chefs and guests, so around a 30year timeline. Caveat: everything is just my observation, no statistics or anything to prove it.

Disagree. If I’m going to pay $600 for a meal, I want to be sold on what’s to come. Letting me know that things are special, rare, and detailed gives me a better idea of what’s to come and makes me more excited for it. If I saw very few words yet high price tag, it would be difficult to calibrate my expectations and even know what to get.

You don’t go to the French Laundry for a meal, you go for an experience.

There's quite a bit of variation in lobster based on where it comes from though. Idk about the other stuff but lobster and seafood in general has lots of location specific nuance. Maine lobster is pretty much standard though so not really a selling point. A deepwater north Carolina lobster would be something premium.

I will say that the menu itself might not say it but the staff will give you a story behind the dish including the different ingredients.

Eh, I think it's nice to know where ingredients are coming from. Especially with the stuff from their own garden.

Agreed. One of the best restaurants I’ve ever eaten at had a single 8.5x11 slip of paper for the main menu (and a weighty tome for the wine menu).

Another place we never even got a menu - the food just started appearing, much to our confusion! Apparently it was a prix fixe multi-course meal arrangement, and you get whatever you get - the server had assumed we knew. The food was fabulous, but it took three hours longer than we had planned to spend.

> Apparently it was a prix fixe multi-course meal arrangement, and you get whatever you get

I find this unfathomable. What if you have allergies? I guess just don't eat there. But the server assumed you knew? Wild.

Places like this ask about your dietary restrictions during either the reservation or before the beginning of service. The chef will make on the fly adjustments based on each diner's needs.

My brother and I went to Eleven Madison Park back in 2016 and mentioned my allergies ahead of time. Not only did they plan alternatives for me, they even included them in the printed out menu that they give to each diner as they leave as a memento of the meal.

Funny, Eleven Madison Park's chef was the subject of NPR's How I Built This last week https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this .. May 3 episode.

As L_Rahman said, typically you register your allergies with your reservation.

That said, it's entirely possible they're unable/unwilling to accommodate every allergy and/or preference. There are well regarded restaurants near me that only do prix fixe tasting menus that I don't dine at as I know based on what they tend to serve that the likelihood of me being served things I won't want is high, and at that price point it's not worth it to me.

Normally, I would assume it would be at least written on a blackboard somewhere. That said, outside of the US, my sense is that there's less attention paid to food allergy concerns so, if you have anything of note, it's mostly on you to be pro-active and careful.

That's certainly not the case for the EU.

"All hospitality establishments in Europe are now required to declare ingredients contained in their foods that may induce allergies or food intolerances."

https://www.wko.at/branchen/tourismus-freizeitwirtschaft/gas...

Certainly not true in Italy - as a person who eats gluten free, it was an order of magnitude easier to find alternative options in many cities in Italy than it is in San Francisco.

I have a fairly mild case of Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), and I wound up at one of these places with co-workers in San Francisco one time. This is basically a nightmare scenario for me. I'm socially expected to eat, and I'm presented with strange dishes and lots of unwanted attention when I inevitably don't eat.

But we spoke with the server, and she found me a dish from the prix fixe arrangement that I could eat, and spent the night just making sure there was always some of that dish on the table.

Everything went better than expected. Sure, I don't have to be worried about death from being exposed to food I won't eat, but I could've called ahead, and would've, if the stakes were that high.

I guess all that's to say: good restaurants are pretty accommodating, even when they aren't doing the normal menu thing. It's really not that crazy.

> I'm socially expected to eat, and I'm presented with strange dishes and lots of unwanted attention when I inevitably don't eat.

I'm a very similar way as you wrt food, but not the social pressure part. I don't like eating in professional settings (eating is messy, for one), so I will usually eat alone beforehand and then only order something very small and light (or even just beverages) at the meeting meal. The social pressure thing I find to be easily deflected.

Same goes at bar/drinking events. I don't like drinking alcohol but everyone seems to report perceived pressure to drink alcohol at such things. I haven't found drinking nonalcoholic things to be the big hassle others claim it to be.

I think people build up the expectations more than they actually are in reality. Most other people don't really care that much what you're eating or drinking, if they are eating or drinking what they like.

It really depends on the culture. If you’re invited to meals and you consistently don’t eat, you will just stop getting invited (unless they are formal meetings).

WRT drinking, it can take a lot longer to build trust without the shared alcohol experiences. You’re correct that there isn’t direct social pressure, but you end up getting left out of “after-event” drinks as well.

I noticed these things when I had to go on a strict diet with no alcohol for about a year. You might argue that nothing important happens during non-formal events, but that’s a big mistake.

> The nicest restaurants I've been to will often have a paper menu, with a very, very small selection of things on it.

Yes! Because [they are signalling that] they update it and print it each day.

According to what is available fresh, from the market, on that day.

> [they are signalling that]

Not just signaling. Probably 20-30% of tables do get personalized menus due to dietary restrictions or preferences.

The (IMO) best restaurant in my town has a small chalkboard as the menu with these three items on it:

  10
  15
  18

These are the prices for the three portion sizes. The chef makes what he makes.

This reminds me of the time I went looking for a Somali restaurant in Minneapolis (this was 2007 or so, right when the Grindhouse double feature had been released)

I finally found a place and poked my head in. A bunch of old bearded Somali men in skullcaps all turned and stared at me and Al Jazeera was on in the corner.

No menu was visible so I approached the counter and asked the man behind it what was for lunch. He responded, “Goat.”

I replied, “Can you be more specific?”

He replied again “Goat.” but added “$8”

That seems a bit too simplistic. How much bigger is the 18 portion size compared to 10? Are you getting the same dish, just scaled up, or is it a different dish?

Perhaps, but very effective.

Most good restaurants I’ve been to don’t actually have a menu you choose from - you get what’s seasonal and what the kitchen has planned for. The only real inputs are how much you are going to eat and how drunk you want to be at the end of it.

I’ve been to one restaurant in the lower price range that also adopted this concept, though with a twist. There’s not really a menu to choose from, you get what you get, but the waiter will update the blackboard with “what you get if you order now”.

The reason I prefer this is because it tends to focus on what’s seasonal and what is the chef good at.

My favorite chef in New Orleans releases the menu online each day for the upcoming evening (sometimes the day before) but you don't see the prices until you get there and the dishes are first come first serve (he makes a fixed amount)

Well, it's 8 bigger, isn't it?

You could just ask of course.

One of my favorite places just had a chalk board. They would erase dishes when they ran out of ingredients, and add ones when their driver would come back with groceries

The French Laundry was only $250 back in 2017? No wonder it was booked out forever, they could (and I believe now are) charging easily 2x that number.

I don't think I ever had a meal costing more than 40€ per person in my life, drink included.

You should try fine dining, if you like food and eating. It's a really fun and interesting way to spend an evening. Kind of surreal, especially the first time around.

You don't have to spend $250, although you probably have to spend $125 (based on my experiences in Europe).

I don't think of it as "a meal", at all, eating a meal usually doesn't take me three hours. It's more in the category of an event like a concert or the opera or a theme park visit.

is there something you’re trying to imply by saying this?

It is simply a remark in reply to "only 250$". I'm not really trying to imply anything.

reason I asked, and probably why you're getting downvoted is because it comes across as a bit of a humble brag

ranges from $350 for the dining room, $450 for outdoor dining room, to $500 for a private dining room.

https://www.exploretock.com/tfl/

Similar menu for Quo Vadis in Soho, literally just the dish name, no bloviated descriptions https://www.quovadissoho.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/A-...

And similar to the French Laundry menu, there are many indicators that a lot of thought has been placed into this menu and is thus a high end restaurant. You can see many of the techniques mentioned in the article: removing the money symbol, groupings of 3-6 items, use of long and fancy words for the dish names (in lieu of subtitle description). The font choices and layout are also clear indicators.

If you're ever in London I'd definitely recommend it, interesting history, it's a private members club now (the restaurant is open to public bookings though) and the building has a storied history, being a brothel and the one time abode of Karl Marx at certain points.

That's a good point about paper menus wrapping around to the high end. Another thing to note would be the difference between the paper menus. At the low end, you have thin and flimsy paper being used, possibly tri-folded as they are also take-out menus, with low quality printing and little attention paid to graphic design or fonts. Food descriptions are likely to be nothing more than a common name for the dish (e.g. fish and chips, pad thai noodles). At the other end, there's no way to tell what paper is used for the French Laundry menu, but maybe it's bone or eggshell in a tasteful thickness. The font, design, and especially the wording (utilizing many of the techniques listed in the article) all indicate that a lot of thought has been put into the menu and thus is a high end restaurant.

Some restaurants think they're too good for traditional menus. I few years ago I went to Diner, one of the hippest Brooklyn spots at the time (one evening, Bill Murray was hanging out there, pretending a slice of lime was his teeth). They refused to have a paper menu. Instead, the waiter would verbally tell you about all 15 or so items, while casually scribbling each item in shorthand on the paper tablecloth. After they'd gone, you'd have forgotten most of the things they had mentioned, so you'd try to decipher the scribbles that the waiter had left. It was pretty silly and frustrating (and the food was merely adequate).

This is a direct imitation of a restaurant I visited in Europe (I think Rome) - but the menu items were “simple”, all had pasta and there was a meat, seafood, and no meat. Different each day but really only three or so. Quite good and didn’t feel pretentious at all - more like visiting the chef at home and getting to partake in the family meal.

That's an extension to the fact that sometimes the best restaurants are the dingy places cooking abuelita's recipe.

Very high end restaurants have a daily menu which changes daily and often a seasonal taster menu which changes with the season and often even micro changes each week as the produce is slightly different which the chef was able to buy from his suppliers and markets.

A relatively famous restaurant in Italy doesn’t have any menus beyond a few hand-written pieces of scrap paper (which customers often try to pilfer instead of returning - we dined late and since we were the last to order we got to keep them).

They customize the menu for you, with you and your party's names on it, at the Inn at Little Washington.

The food descriptions are sufficient but sparse also

>I think there is a bell curve happening here.

What you describe is more like a bimodal distribution of price of a meal in restaurants using paper menus.

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