Don’t stoop to their level: stop trying to cook restaurant dishes at your dinner parties.
“The true gold-standard of food is in the home; restaurants provide a poor substitute.
——
We all remember an uncomfortable dinner party: a long wait for food, interrupted by a meagre starter; awkward silence between courses, interrupted by faintly growling stomachs; and at last a laboriously presented ration, rapidly congealing onto a stone-cold plate. And the culprit for this sad scene, the ambitious, restaurant-inspired “menu”: apparently whilst Le Gavroche were perfecting the Soufflé Suissese, Gordon Ramsey the Beef Wellington, and The Ritz the Crepe Suzette, Emma and Tony from Chiswick were busy perfecting all three at once.
Admittedly, part of the problem with these overreaching menu choices is the environment. The success in restaurants of pan-fried Fish and perfectly cooked duck breast relies heavily on the searing heat of the stoves, made feasible by industrial-strength extraction fans. Then there’s the skill required to reliably execute these types of dishes, which can only ever come from the often monotonous repetition of restaurant work. But these practical issues aren’t all that make restaurant dishes an inappropriate food choice for dinner parties in our homes.
The fact is, that a plate of perfectly cooked fillet steak with a silky-smooth quenelle of pomme-purées and delicately arranged baby carrots (even if executed implausibly perfectly) simply isn’t what we as guests want from a dinner party. This kind of offering may alleviate some of the anxieties of hosts, worried that guests will think their home and lifestyle too simple or their cooking too plain, but rather than sharing food with their guests, they end up sharing their anxieties.
Instead, what we really hope for as guests is to be reassured and welcomed: to arrive to the sight of a spread rather than wait expectantly for an artistic starter; and to help ourselves to a bowl of whatever’s going. Maybe even a second. And once we’ve been greeted upon arrival with a stack of warm bread (or just a generous bowl of crisps), we can relax, safe in the knowledge that we won’t go away hungry.
We look to restaurants because they appear to represent the gold-standard of aspiration for our enjoyment of food. In reality, the restaurant menu is not tailored to the needs of diners, but to the needs of businesses: individually served portions offer them the opportunity to predict costs accurately by standardising serving sizes; distinct courses afford them the chance to up-sell to patrons; and kitchen-plated dishes offer them the chance to minimise staffing costs. In short, the sections of the restaurant menu and the presentation of individual ‘dishes’ exist for the purpose of turning food into a marketable product.
Our collective deference to restaurant food owes something to historical sexism, as primarily female domestic cooks were supplanted by pioneering male chefs in the restaurants of late 18th Century. But contrary to this perceived hierarchy, many restaurants themselves are trying to emulate the domestic: they market themselves with reference to the home, whether it be ‘Chez’, ‘Casa’, or ‘Maison’ in an attempt to capture something of the domestic spirit of sharing and generosity.
All of this should give us cause for optimism as hosts. Whilst a restaurant can only ever have customers, we can invite guests. And these guests aren’t expecting value, all we need provide is nourishment. The true gold-standard of food is in the home; restaurants only provide a poor imitation.
We need not worry then about courses, dishes or menu choices. This is only the language of restaurants and of value. Instead, we can focus on food that meets the needs of our invited guests: food to welcome; food to graze on; and most of all, food to share.