The French restaurant Chou Chou in my neighborhood was billed as a modern brasserie when it opened in 2016. Operated by the Michelin-star chef Lam Ming Kin, the restaurant offered prix-fixe menus for lunch (three-course) and dinner (four-course). The food was excellent and moderately priced. Occasionally I would take my wife and two daughters to Chou Chou for a nice lunch on the weekend. My girls would always start with a French onion soup, follow by a steak, and end with a soufflé. My wife and I were more adventurous and chose a variety of different dishes for our visits. In late 2021 the restaurant closed temporarily to retool the concept. Two months later, Chou Chou reopened as a tasting menu-only restaurant. Currently, lunch is a six-course tasting menu priced at NT$2,880 and dinner is nine-course at NT$3,880. I have been back once to try the new format with a friend, but my family has not, and probably will not.
There are many reasons for not going to Naked and Chou Chou anymore. The restaurants are no longer suited for my family. My kids and parents simply cannot and don’t want to eat that many courses for lunch or dinner. They like to choose the dishes they want to eat instead of being dictated to by the chef. I also don’t want to spend that much money every time I go. Furthermore, the tasting menus at the restaurants don’t change for the season, and I certainly don’t want to eat the same dishes every month; the restaurants are not for regulars. Perhaps the change to tasting menu-only is good for the chefs and their businesses, but not necessarily for the diners.
In the February, 2013 issue of Vanity Fair, Corby Kummer wrote an article titled “Tyranny–It’s What’s for Dinner”. Kummer criticized the endless multi-course meals at some of the best restaurants in the U.S., where the diners have no say over what he or she would eat. Instead of caring for the diners, the restaurants demand total reverence to the chefs’ creations. Kummer attributed this phenomenon mainly to two chefs, Charlie Trotter and Thomas Keller. While Kummer came across as a jaded diner, I agreed with some of his points of view. However, Kummer was writing about a very small sampling of restaurants and they were some of the most expensive and prestigious restaurants in the world: French Laundry, Per Se, Eleven Madison, Alinea, Noma, and the now closed Charlie Trotter.
Most of the diners in these restaurants are local residents with special occasions to celebrate or tourists. They want to experience the creations of the world’s most talented chefs, who have ambitions to change the future of food. Eating at these three-Michelin star restaurants is akin to going to the Museum of Modern Art to see the works by Jasper Johns and Richard Serra. And if a person has the financial means to be a regular, these chefs are happy to customize the menu. Keller actually changes his menu everyday at the French Laundry and Per Se. Regular customers at Charlie Trotter never got the same meal twice since Trotter made it a point never to repeat a dish. Therefore, when I read the article at that time, the idea of tyranny didn’t register strongly with me.
Little did I know that eight years later the idea of tasting menu-only restaurant is not only ubiquitous among the above average Western and Japanese restaurants in Taipei, it is gaining traction among mid-range restaurants. While the chefs in Taipei are good and talented they are not in the same league as Grant Achatz, Daniel Humm, or René Redzepi. The main reason chefs in Taipei offer tasting menu-only is not to express their artistic and culinary ambitions, nor the diners’ wish to experience the chefs’ geniuses, rather it is economics.
In contrast to à la carte, a single tasting menu for all the diners is easier for the restaurants to control cost. Together with a strict reservation policy such as charging a deposit when booking a seat, the restaurants know exactly how many of each dish needs to be made. There is less prep work and less waste. Besides the savings on food cost, the restaurants also save time and money on training the staff. In the current environment where good cooks are hard to find, one tasting menu means only a finite number of dishes needs to be mastered. Given that some of the dishes on the tasting menu are often cold, they can be made far in advance. And since the same dishes are served to everyone in the same sequence, it is easier for the kitchen to assemble the dishes during service. All these factors allow the chefs to better control the quality of the food. And unlike the French Laundry where the menu is slightly different everyday, the tasting menus in Taipei stay the same for months. The chef doesn’t have to go to the market every morning to see what’s fresh and then go back to the kitchen to develop new dishes à la minute.
The tasting menu-only format is also easier for the front of house staff. Instead of setting the table for different dishes for each diners, everything is the same. The servers also just need to memorize a script to explain the dishes to the diners without any spontaneity. Maybe one day the restaurants just need robots to deliver the food from the kitchen to the table. The work of the sommelier for wine pairing is also simpler. There’s no need to open different bottles to pair with the different dishes of the diners at the same time. There is also no need to ask the diners what they like to drink. All the choices are made already and good for at least three months. And if a diner doesn’t like the pairing, that’s the diner’s problem.
Tasting menu-only also guarantees a minimum amount of expenditures by the diners. The restaurants don’t need to be concerned if a table of four is only going to order two appetizers to share to start and skip the desserts at the end. Everyone is charged the same amount independent of the diner’s real desire. Since most restaurants in Taipei cannot rely on diners to spend money on wine, the tasting menu and wine pairing provide more stability with the revenue.
Tasting menu is also easier for publicity purposes. The restaurant conjures up some concepts for the tasting menu which get regurgitated across the traditional and social media. The release of a new set of dishes becomes an event to be experienced by the diners. It is much harder to market if the restaurant just has a few new dishes a month or a different menu everyday. Going to these tasting menu-only restaurants and eating the chefs’ creations is now similar to going to fashion shows every season. If one hangs around with the so-called foodies in Taipei, one would hear questions such as, “Have you tried this season’s menu at RAW or Logy?” In a city where FOMO (fear of missing out) is prevalent and hipsters spend more money on experience for Instagram than goods, the tasting menus at the hard-to-book restaurants have become the new proxy for lifestyle.
Another reason for the ubiquity of the tasting menu-only format is the Michelin Guide. There seems to be a conception that Michelin likes tasting menu. In 2019 when I was having lunch at Jean Georges in New York City, I was told the restaurant would soon change the format to tasting menu. One of the reasons was the restaurant hoped to regain its third Michelin star. I was disappointed to hear the news. At lunchtime, a diner used to be able to order à la carte with just a minimum of two dishes. The excellent food, great service, and flexibility with the menu made Jean Georges my favorite place to lunch in New York City.
The Michelin Guide arrived in Taipei in 2018. The effect of the Guide on the dining scene is enormous. Now instead of cooking for the average diners, chefs are cooking for the Michelin Guide inspectors. Getting a Michelin star not only ensures an increase in business, it also puts the starred chef on the international circuit and press.
Currently in Taipei there are 29 starred restaurants in the Taipei 2022 Michelin Guide. 16 restaurants are tasting menu-only (Longtail serves a different à la carte menu after 9pm). Of the other 13 restaurants with à la carte, nine are Chinese/Taiwanese restaurants and three are steakhouse/grill (Danny's Steakhouse, A Cut, Da Wan). Only one gourmet Western restaurant, L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, offers both à la carte and tasting menus.
Why do Chinese restaurants always have à la carte? Because the local diners don’t expect anything less. In fact, if I walk into a Chinese restaurant where there is just one tasting menu, I would think the chef has very limited skills and cannot manage a large brigade. A tasting menu is usually reserved for banquets (often lousy in quality) at weddings or mass gatherings. No self-respecting Chinese foodie will order a tasting menu at a Chinese restaurant. Ordering dishes involves consultation with the maitre d'hotel on what’s good for the day and the occasion. Ordering for the table is an art and shows the sophistication of the diner.
One would think that since the Chinese food is shared while Western cuisine is not, that the tasting menu would be more prevalent in the West. In fact the European restaurants don’t just have tasting menus either. Look at the Italians. Many of the three-Michelin star restaurants in Italy, Osteria Francescana, La Pergola, Le Calandre, Enoteca Pinchiorri, all have à la carte in addition to tasting menus. Italy’s most famous chef Massimo Bottura can easily switch to a tasting menu-only format at his restaurant in Modena and people would still be flocking to his restaurant.
Diners in Taipei spend more money with tasting menu at Western restaurants than at comparable Chinese restaurants. However, they are not getting a luxury product. Tasting menu is not bespoke, rather it is assembly line cuisine. The restaurant doesn’t really care what the diners want to eat. If the diners don’t like the dish, it is the diner’s problem, not the chef.
When I first went to Taïrroir, it didn’t have any Michelin star. The restaurant is tasting menu-only and one of the dishes (the chef’s signature) has taro. I don’t like taro and when I asked if the chef could substitute the ingredient, the answer was no. The substitution of an ingredient was perhaps too troublesome for the kitchen. Or maybe the chef thought I wanted to mess up his masterpiece. Either way, clearly the chef didn’t care about the preference of the diner. The server didn’t offer an alternative dish either. Take it or leave it. I haven’t been back to Taïrroir ever since. Now with two Michelin stars the kitchen probably care even less about the customers.
Eating a tasting menu in restaurants in Taipei reminds me of buying music on cassette tapes in the 80’s. Too often an artist (Bobby McFerrin) or group (A-Ha) would release one great song. But in order to get that song, one has to buy the entire album. Besides the one great hit, the rest of the album are full of lackluster songs. Skipping to the one great song on a tape machine is not as easy as on a CD player. Many tasting menus at restaurants are similar. Only a fraction of the dishes on the menu are really good, the rest are not fully thought out and are just there to pad the bill. While the music industry is moving away from the idea of an album and giving some of the purchasing power back to the consumer, the restaurant industry in Taipei seems to be just the opposite.
Another problem with tasting menu in Taipei is many chefs simply have very limited skills and imaginations. They don’t have the discipline and creativity of someone like Thomas Keller. At Keller’s French Laundry and Per Se, no single ingredient is ever repeated throughout the meal. If the restaurant doesn’t allow me to choose a balanced meal, I expect the restaurant to give variety in dishes and not have repetition. A few months ago I had dinner at the Japanese restaurant, Watanabe, and the chef served uni with three different courses. The chef could not make dish without uni. How about just make a shorter menu and charge less money?
In general I like tasting menu when the kitchen is helmed by a highly skilled chef with a strong point of view about food and sequence. And sometimes the best thing to hear from a server is “the Chef would like to cook for you”. But very few restaurants in Taipei are at the level where I can simply trust the chef to make a great meal.
Given the economics of the Western restaurants in Taipei, I know I cannot expect to see a menu like the one at the three Michelin-star Le Bernardin in New York City: a four course prix fixe dinner with multiple choices for each course, an eight-course chef’s tasting menu, and an eight-course vegetarian menu. Besides the formal dining room, Le Bernardin even offers a separate lounge menu.
Perhaps we should look to the French chefs as the model. Many high end restaurants in France offer a very limited menu. But they almost always offer the diners a choice. At Alain Ducasse’s Louis XV in Monte Carlo the menu changes with the seasons and there are around five starters, seven main courses, cheeses, and five desserts. Diners can also select the Gourmet menu which has three dishes at half portions, cheeses, and desserts selected by the Chef. A similar format is at the hottest new restaurant in Paris, Jean Imbert at Plaza Athénée. On the menu of this media-savvy chef, there are five starters, six main courses, cheeses, and six desserts. If the diners wish to taste more dishes there is the option of Le Menu de Jean with three half portion dishes, cheese, and dessert. The dishes in the tasting menu consist of items in the à la carte, just in half portions. This way, the scope of work for the kitchen is limited while also giving the diners some options.
During the Covid pandemic the three Michelin-star chef Yannick Alleno of Pavillon Ledoyen published a new book, "Tout doit changer!" (Everything must change), that serves as his manifesto for post-Covid haute cuisine. Instead of having a fixed menu he proposed to speak with diners a few days before the meal to discuss their preferences and budgets. Alleno said, “We can no longer impose a menu on the guests”. This is the exact opposite of the current trend of tasting-menu only at the restaurants in Taipei, where food comes off an assembly line with no regard for the diners’ desires. Alleno in Paris is moving towards a bespoke menu as the future of cuisine. Will Taipei follow?
