You might not realize it, but until recently, many of New York’s top toques were subject to what chef Wylie Dufresne has called the “tyranny of the entree.” Under the oppressive regime, most restaurants thought it necessary to serve “main dishes” — large plates of food containing an entire varied meal for one person, at a single, vaguely reasonable price.
But you won’t find me in the streets happily crying, “Viva la revolución!” In the name of supposedly giving diners more choice, the entree has been forced out by trendy small plates, family-style eating and tasting menus. Lately, I’ve found myself missing having the choice to order a main course.
Dufresne’s new East Village gastropub, Alder, only serves small and medium-size portions of his experimental fare. In March, Empellón Cocina chef and owner Alex Stupak removed all entrees from his East Village menu, dramatically declaring on Twitter: “I can’t stand them, so I’m never cooking them again.”
Meanwhile, at Feast, a new East Village restaurant, the main focus is on family-style meals — starting at $49 per person. And you no longer have to go to Per Se or Daniel for a tasting menu. As of June, even casual Asian barbecue joint Fatty ’Cue offers them. Chains have also freed themselves from the entree’s greasy shackles: TGI Fridays debuted a “taste and share” menu nationwide in April, while Olive Garden has been testing out a “Taste of Italy” small plates menu that will go nationwide in December.
Hallelujah! Let freedom ring! Or maybe that ringing is just the sounds of restaurant cash registers. Sure, these new menu formats allow chefs to cook outside the box and let diners opt for lighter meals — but all of those small plates don’t come cheaply or easily.
Pearl & Ash, a small-plates restaurant on the Bowery, has been praised for its reasonable prices since opening in December. The average cost of one of its dishes hovers around $12. That’s reasonable — if one will do. On a recent visit, a chilly waitress suggested my friend and I order three to four each. Two hundred bucks later, we were still peckish. Some of chef Richard Kuo’s delicate dishes are quite tasty — but try dividing a single octopus tentacle or tiny bowl of green beans and sea urchin amongst a party of four.
I love tapas and insisted on family-style dining at my wedding, but prices and portions aside, the act of ordering non-entrees is tiresome.
I long for the good old days when ordering could be as simple as saying the name of a single large item you wished to eat. I’m tired of being guided through an artfully vague menu that’s sign-posted only with monosyllabic words like “share” in sans-serif text, that features no real information about the size of the dishes or when they might appear in the meal. I want to take out-of-town pals to restaurants and not have to deal with the awkward conversation explaining they’re going to need to order more — and that the main course is now a silly concept limited for provincials in fly-over states.
At places still offering standard entrees, it’s oddly accepted that said section of the menu is a boring wasteland for those poor souls who lack creativity or cash to assemble a meal from “snacks.”
It’s now to be expected that at great newer restaurants — Pig and Khao, Louro, Estela — if you want to enjoy a memorable meal, you’d best avoid the entrees.
Worse yet are the somewhat casual restaurants where you must order the tasting menu to understand the chef’s brilliance. Case in point: Prospect, a “modern new-American” restaurant, opened on Fulton Street in Fort Greene last year. Its chef de cuisine, Vinson Petrillo, was named one of Zagat’s “30 Under 30” earlier this year. I’d love to love it. But I failed to enjoy Petrillo’s talent recently, when a waitress advised my husband and me that two of the menu items toward the bottom of the page were normal entree size, and the other items weren’t — rather, they existed in that nameless purgatory between entree and appetizer.
Portions were small, but the plates were massive. Two dishes could hardly fit on the table, and dinner was a cramped, flavorless affair, despite the inclusion of heirloom tomatoes, lobster and truffles.
Perhaps I would have enjoyed dinner more had I opted for Prospect’s five-course, $80 tasting menu. That’s what one positive review said was the “wisest” approach, despite conceding the entrees are “obvious” and “less exciting” than other menu sections.
It doesn’t have to be this way. An entree of chili prawns was a standout dish when I recently dined at Khe-Yo, a Laotian spot that opened last month. At Clinton Hill newcomer Marietta, the “large plates” on the menu are just as intriguing and delicious as the smaller ones.
That’s how it ought to be. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think diners should have to order an $80 tasting menu — or four appetizers — to get a great meal. It’s nice that chefs may have been freed from the tyranny of the entree — but it’s diners who are paying the price.