Want to eat as well as a chef when dining out? CTVNews.ca spoke with a number of professional chefs to find out what they avoid when they get out of the kitchen and become the restaurant patron. Here’s a list of things to avoid when dining out, according to the pros:
1. Bread basket
Toronto-based chef Massimo Bruno avoids one item that is considered a staple at many fine-dining restaurants: the bread basket.
Bruno, who emigrated to Canada from the southern Italian region of Puglia, said he was raised not to “fill up” on bread before a meal. So when dining out, he doesn’t bother with it.
“I don’t want to fill myself with bread because that’s what I eat at home,” he said. “It’s a filler, easily available.”
Armenian-Canadian chef Sebouh Yacoubian, who is opening an eastern Mediterranean restaurant in Toronto called Mayrig, says while it is in his culture to eat bread with dinner, he too, will think twice about ordering it in a restaurant. However, he is more concerned that uneaten bread baskets untouched at one table are “recycled” and sent to other tables.
2. ‘Cookie-cutter’ desserts
Craig Wong, a French-trained chef who owns Asian-Caribbean restaurants in Toronto and Dubai, says he’ll never order desserts that have been “brought in” to the restaurant, rather than made fresh on site.
“They taste so mass-produced,” Wong said. “You’re getting attacked on both sides because both companies are trying to make a markup on this dessert and the factories are using the cheapest ingredients.”
Wong advises diners with a sweet tooth to ask the server before ordering dessert: “You guys make this in-house?”
Wong acknowledges that hiring a dessert or pastry chef can be expensive for a restaurateur, but he says even small-kitchen restaurants should strive for at least one single fresh dessert option rather than a full dessert selection provided by a third party.
“If it’s just one of those frozen cheesecakes that you just cut and put onto the plate, that’s when it just lacks soul,” he said.
3. Mussels
After a number of “bad experiences” with mussel dishes in restaurants, Toronto chef Scott Vivian said he’ll stay away from a “big pot” of the mollusks. He said restaurants would likely have a hard time tracking down the “bad” mussel in a batch, so one can easily make it into the dish. “When you’re shucking oysters … you’re doing it individually so you can check each one,” he said.
It’s harder to check every single mussel in a batch, added Vivian, who owns and operates Beast, a Toronto favourite of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. Sometimes the restaurants have no control over it, Vivian added, so “you don’t know that it’s a bad mussel until you actually put it in your mouth.”
4. Complicated dishes
Both Wong and Bruno said that they’re turned off by large menus and restaurants that feature complicated dishes laden with ingredients. “It gives me the idea that someone is trying too hard,” Wong said. Bruno, who owns and operates his own supper club and Italian kitchen studio, said he finds big menus "overwhelming."
If the patron must even “turn a page” in a menu, it’s probably already too lengthy, Bruno said. Similarly, Bruno said he generally won’t order a dish that features a long list of ingredients.
“I wonder how they’re going to have all those (dishes) fresh” if each one requires significant preparation time, he said.
Christie Peters, chef at contemporary restaurant The Hollows in Saskatoon, said patrons should be looking for the restaurant’s signature or “classic” dish, and stick with that. That’s why you’ll never find her ordering a seafood dish at a steakhouse. “I just know that a steakhouse isn’t going to do it well,” she said.
When in doubt, she said, order the chicken fingers. “You can’t really mess up chicken fingers, they’re always delicious,” she said with a laugh.
5. Sweetened drink mixes
Jacob Wharton-Shukster, a barman at French bistro Chantecler in Toronto, says even your drinks should be made with fresh ingredients. Wharton-Shukster said he’ll never order a drink from a bar if they’re using bar lime, which is a syrup made of lime or lemon juice and sugar. “Any time you see that, some gross glucose-filled disgusting mess, you don’t want to drink that,” he said. Anything coming from a soda gun is worth avoiding, he added. “If the place looks like they can’t make you a proper Negroni, don’t order one,” Wharton-Shukster said.
A good bartender will use fresh ingredients, including fruit, he added. "Fresh is best."
Chefs will also check out the vibe of a restaurant and its cleanliness before committing to a table. Though most people don’t like to wait for a table, Bruno said he’ll avoid restaurants that appear to be empty. If the eatery is dreary, empty and “not fun,” Bruno said, “your food is most likely not going to be very fun, either.” Rather, he seeks out the restaurants that are typically full and bustling. Not only does it indicate to him that the restaurant has a good “vibe,” but it most likely it will have fresher food due to a quick turnaround: the meals aren’t sitting in the kitchen uneaten and going stale, he said. “I have a simple palate, but it needs to be fresh,” Bruno said.
Yacoubian said whenever he eats at a restaurant, he’ll come in and order an appetizer and then go scope out the washroom conditions. If it isn’t clean or up to his standards, Yacoubian said he’ll eat the appetizer and then leave. “The bathroom reflects the restaurant,” Yacoubian said. If it’s dirty and unhygienic, he added, “imagine what the kitchen looks like.”
