AIBU to conclude that "Fine Dining" restaurants more often than not offer miserly portions of food?

[FineDining]

Have been to a number of restaurants which are listed in the Michelin Guide. Without exception, the portions have been tiny and we have come out hungry.

Paid £60 for a vegan tasting menu the other week at a Michelin recommended restaurant. After 2.5 hours of getting a tiny portion of food every 15 minutes, we were still not satiated. Had to go to Greggs straight after to top up with a sausage roll after!

I think it's a cheek to charge high prices for portions that wouldn't keep a sparrow alive.

I never thought I had a tiny stomach but I’ve actually resolved not to get a tasting menu again because I’m almost too stuffed by the last course. A vegan one might be different though!

We went to Restaurant Story for the tasting menu once. Was one of the best meals I've ever had , also the most expensive but four of us went home and ordered a large pizza to share a few hours later.

I am not a small eater (and my size testifies to that) but I'm almost always absolutely stuffed when we have a tasting menu, they're both very filling when you eat a lot of small courses but also usually quite rich. I think it's the vegan aspect which may have been a bit lacking for you, which is a real shame.

I’ve been for tasting menus where 10 tiny courses have filled me up but also to a local Michelin star restaurant who served similar sized portions for a three course meal. We had McDonalds on the way home.

I also have never walked out of a tasting menu hungry. I think most restaurants’ portions are far too big and I would rather have a cheaper meal which is 50% smaller in size. We had a three course meal in France on our last trip and left the table full but not stuffed. I think it is a much more sensible way to eat.
Wouldn’t be happy with a single carrot under a drop of dressing, mind you.

I've only ever come out of any high end restaurant feeling like I don't want to eat for a week, it's so rich, there's no way I'd be looking for a Greggs afterwards so maybe it is the vegan aspect.

I’m in no way a competitive undereater, I’m 5ft 2 and weigh 11 stone, but I am easily overfaced by huge portions, hate having to leave half of it, and would actually rather pay more for a reasonably sized portion that I can finish.

We had a 12 course taster menu once at a restaurant with 2 Michelin stars in Madrid and I had to undo my trousers at the table 😂

Agree with PPs that it's the vegan thing - the only 'fine dining' restaurant I've been hungry after was a vegan one.

This, plus there's unlimited free bread to fill up on.

Not that I get the chance these days with an 18 month on board, but in my experience of fine dining, tasting menus etc. I always look at the portions and assume I’ll be starving but have always ended up being very satiated, if not completely stuffed. I agree with the comments about these experiences not being designed as gut busters but if they’re so small that they leave you hungry (I’m not talking button popping stuffed) then I suppose they’re not doing their job. Maybe it’s the vegan thing? Or perhaps your particular experience was under-portioned? All I can say is that in my experience, as someone who can pack it away, I’ve never come away hungry.

I always enjoy these threads. It’s always the extremes. I think there is a certain inverse snobbery or an opportunity to signal how down to earth they are by having a go at fine dining. “I don’t like all that malarkey, get me to greggs for a proper feed!” (In my head it’s in a Yorkshire accent, or perhaps Karl Pillkington style Mancunian- sorry, they’re fine folk, it’s the stereotype). Then there are the people who take delight in telling the plebs who struggle to justify the price tag to get back to their troughs.

You pay your money, you take your choice. It would be boring if we all loved the same things.

Happy to celebrate the joys fine dining as long as stuffed to the ginells following the meal 😀

@FineDining 😂😂 Fair play.

£60 for a tasting menu at a Michelin restaurant is a bargain.

You can always ask for some bread, OP.

Having said that I don't think I've ever left a fine dining/ tasting menu experience still feeling hungry, so maybe it was that particular restaurant or because you went for the vegan option.

(If so, that's a fault with the restaurant really as if they are offering a vegan menu then they should ensure it's enough to fill you up).

I've found with tasting menus - which I really enjoy - that you normally feel satisfied and full, but not bloated, by the end of it all. I'd be disappointed to still be hungry after several small plates.

I do agree that there is a lot more emphasis on taste and presentation than quantity with those meals, but I like that every so often.

I think OP is teasing us, what with the mention of a 'Greggs sausage roll' that she 'needed to top up with'😉(of course she didn't, she wasn't going to faint from hunger after 'being served even a small portion of food every 15 mins for two and a half hours!')

and also this - "I think it's a cheek to charge high prices for portions that wouldn't keep a sparrow alive." - I'm sure OP knows full well it costs a good deal less to make huge vats of cheap and filling food which would keep her, the sparrows and a few bald eagles alive than to craft tiny fussy individual cubes of lobster in aspic with a samphire curl! You prankster, OP! 😉

Let's pretend OP is NOT on a wind-up, well, if you really want to leave feeling 'full' or 'stuffed' or 'satiated' you'd go for an all- you-can-eat buffet, or fish and chips - probably a better choice anyway 😉 (who doesn't love fish and chips?) - 'tasting menus' are a completely different way of dining, and not intended to fulfil your full sustenance requirements but to give you a chance to experience lots of different tastes and flavours and combinations.

(I did a tasting menu once, in Lisbon, and to honest I was very glad the portions were small as, while the food was interestingly themed and beautifully presented, it was ghastly. The three mortuary-cold rubbery chunks of boiled octopus in strangely-flavoured water, I found myself actually unable to gag down, though other tables were raving about it.

I think the food at Michelin starred restaurants is specifically designed to leave you craving a Greggs sausage roll. 😁They did their job to perfection.

I'm not someone who is going to bang on about portion sizes – I love a huge bowl of pasta, but I also think fine dining should be approached and enjoyed for the experience of the food. If you're not someone who appreciates that and comes away satisfied for that type of experience then it's just not for you. Which is fine.

Tasting menus usually work on the basis of small, but incredibly flavourful, calorie/protein dense courses.

It doesn't really work that well with vegan food as its very hard to get enough calories into small bites - replacing meat with mushrooms for example is far less filling. You tend to need a larger portion of vegan food to feel as full as you do with calorie dense meat or egg.

Imagine if all those chefs went out foraging enough for big portions. The entire country would end up looking like the Utah Salt Flats.

I have a big appetite but that’s not been my experience. I regularly eat in a multi-award winning high-end vegetarian restaurant with a set menu of six small courses, and am not hungry afterwards. I do think that people who are used to having a main course that makes them feel actively ‘full’ after they’ve eaten it, and in need of a pause before looking at the desert menu would probably feel differently.

😀

I eat bigger portions (something I need to work on) and I also haven’t experienced hunger after. In fact the opposite due to the amount of time spent eating is spread out so much. Your stomach has time to realise what’s going on 😂

If you want some proof on portion sizes then look at old plates for dining from the 60s, 70s and 80s. They are tiny compared to today. A lot of people fill a plate and that is a portion to them. But do that now and chances are you will be eating a lot more than 50 years ago.