6 ms·

Minimalist menus would be the best thing to happen to most of restaurants. My favorite places are single page , single sided, list of perfected dishes. Especial

Minimalist menus would be the best thing to happen to most of restaurants. My favorite places are single page , single sided, list of perfected dishes. Especially the ones that change it up every couple of weeks. Less is more. I suggest anyone interested in that concept read "The Paradox of Choice". Too many options leads people to be overwhelmed and miserable by their choices.

AtlasBarfed 6y ago
The problem is people are picky, and in groups the effective pickiness increases. So the bigger menus were likely to address dad, mom, teen, and kiddo. If a restaurant is just going to make four or five dishes, it starts getting perilously close to places like Chipotle.
- overcast 6y ago
  Those picky people end up ordering the same exact thing off of every menu. Keep that as one of your ten options. Satisfy the boring people, and provide better service to people with some culture.
  - wisty 6y ago
    The book Freakanomics mentions that Westerners in groups tend to avoid picking the same thing to avoid looking too conformist (and the last people to pick are unhappy with their choice because they were railroaded into getting something odd like the Filet of Fish just to show they're their own person) while Asians tend to try to follow the herd even if it is not what they'd rather have.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - knolax 6y ago
    > and provide better service to people with some culture If it's uncultured to know what you want to eat then call me a savage.
    - overcast 6y ago
      Too much amazing food in this world to limit yourself.
      - at_a_remove 6y ago
        A lot of food isn't that amazing, and some things some people just do not care for. You can dance around the preparation all you like, but I cannot stand the smell of eggs. Scrambled, over easy, whatever -- just the smell of them is terribly off-putting to me. There's too much awful food in the world to force yourself to try all of it.
  - ponker 6y ago
    There’s a great Jazz club+Ethiopian restaurant in SF called Sheba that has “penne pasta” on their menu for people who want the Jazz but are too numpty to eat Ethiopian.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > If a restaurant is just going to make four or five dishes, it starts getting perilously close to places like Chipotle. Not sure what you're on about here? You're comparing bistros and restaurants with highly focused, individual dishes that they're perfected... with slop from a junk-food place like Chipotle?
  - phonon 6y ago
    Maybe you're confusing Chipotle with Taco Bell? have you been to Chipotle?
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      Yes they both seem like pretty rough fast-food places?
      - phonon 6y ago
        No they're not. Have you eaten at Chipotle? No frozen ingredients. Everything is either made fresh there, or sous vide. No deep frying either (except for the taco chips.)
        chrisseaton 6y ago
        No sure a soggy burrito the size of a baby is ever great fast food.
        phonon 6y ago
        Order the salad! You clearly have never gone there.
  - mlboss 6y ago
    Is Chipotle classified as junk food place ? I find it better than most of the lunch places. Also I can kind of order a keto bowl without rice and beans.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  This is why every restaurant has chicken fingers
dsalzman 6y ago
I agree. People used to cook at home. Few restaurants could survive so they offered lots of variety. Now less people cook. The market can support more restaurants which should lead to more and more specialization.
lhorie 6y ago
I hear chef celebrities say the same thing but frankly, these kinds of restaurants usually disappoint me, and precisely because of the paradox of choice. Good chinese restaurants are the literal opposite of that philosophy: multi-page menus with hundreds of choices. I don't want to pick between a meat I want but cooked in a way I don't care for vs a meat I don't want as much but cooked in a way I prefer. And that's why the chinese restaurants with large menus excel: they pretty much have every possible permutation and then some.
- temporallobe 6y ago
  Yes, permutations is the key word here. Mexican restaurants tend to have this kind of food - where they combine just a few different base ingredients (flour or corn tortillas, meats, cheeses, beans, rice, and various sauces and toppings) prepared in various ways and just call them different things, the permutations of which could be in the hundreds. Italian food is very similar in that regard. For this kind of food, having large, multi-page menus might make more sense.
- huffmsa 6y ago
  Right but the preparation for the meats doesn't really vary between most dishes and they're added as the last step. Big marinating dishes of beef pork and chicken
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  I'd beg to differ. Really good Chinese restaurants in China tend to specialize ruthlessly, selling only a few items. If anything, the "matrix menu" where you have X proteins in Y sauces for X*Y stir-fry combos is usually a "restaurant smell" indicating that they don't really care about the end product (satay salmon, anyone?).
  - lhorie 6y ago
    Literally permutating sauces does indicate low quality but that's just because chinese cuisine has so much diversity that a decent restaurant can offer a large variety of flavor profiles without really repeating itself. Personally I'm not so picky to specifically want salmon satay, but I am able to define some parameters, e.g. heaviness (steamed/stir-fried/deep-fried), spiciness, texture, types of proteins, ratio of food groups, etc and find a suitable combination of menu items. Specialized restaurants can certainly be better at specific dishes, but at the same time, the lack of options can be detrimental. For example, my kids won't enjoy a meal all that much in a place that specializes in spicy hot pots. Or maybe one person in the party will think the food is too heavy or spicy, etc.
temporallobe 6y ago
I was recently at a Rainforest Cafe (not my first choice but it’s a good place to bring guests for entertainment value) that had just reopened and they had a simplified one-page menu. I was surprisingly pleased since they normally had pages and pages of items, so many in fact that I usually just chose the burger. And guess what was on the new menu? A burger. Of course.
katzgrau 6y ago
There's definitely a place for restaraunts with bigger menus, especially when you're dining with kids or people who generally dont stray far from what they know. The probable gripe is when the restaraunt really sucks at making 80% of what's on the menu. Not always the case, but it does happen a lot.
GuB-42 6y ago
I consider lack of choice in a restaurant a good thing, and I am not the only one. And it is not just the paradox of choice. Simply, if a restaurant offers 20 different dishes, it means each dish gets 20x less attention than if you had only one choice. Less fresh ingredients, less time perfecting the recipe and preparation. Serving only one dish makes things simpler and the restaurant is going to spend more energy making sure it is worth it. About choice. When I go to a restaurant, I just want to eat something good. But I don't know what's good, it's not my specialty. But the chef is a specialist, he knows what's good, so I want to rely on his judgment as much as possible. Like everyone, I have personal tastes, but a good chef can easily make me change my mind about things I don't like. Usually, what I think is the best is a 3 choice menu: The specialty, the one that gets the most love and ideally the one everone should take. The alternative, a completely different dish for those with different personal tastes. And another, simpler dish for the picky eater. For example, it can be vegan if none of the other two are, free of allergens, kosher,... The idea is to not let that person down if part of a group.
- knolax 6y ago
  When I go to eat I go to eat X food item and the restaurant is only a means to the end. If they don't have X food I'll just go somewhere that does serve X.
- boring_twenties 6y ago
  My uncle told a story about some restaurant in Italy, where everyone is seated at the same fixed time, and the owner comes out and announces: "Tonight, dinner will be rib eye steak. It will be cooked medium rare. If that doesn't sound good to you, please feel free to leave now."
  - fingerlocks 6y ago
    These exist in the US too. My favorite in Seattle is called Archipelago, the chef tells a story about each dish when serving them.
- rubber_duck 6y ago
  >Simply, if a restaurant offers 20 different dishes, it means each dish gets 20x less attention than if you had only one choice. Less fresh ingredients, less time perfecting the recipe and preparation. Serving only one dish makes things simpler and the restaurant is going to spend more energy making sure it is worth it. One of my favourite places has a decently sized menu (would say 40 items on there including starters/sides/deserts) while they aren't "the best" at anything, it's really good and I love the atmosphere. I like the flexibility and that I can invite anyone there since the selection is varied and quality is reliable. I can't call my vegan sister to a smokehouse even if their ribs are the best I tried, can't take my wife to a fish restaurant but my friends could be in the mood for fish, I have no clue what my in-laws will want to eat when I have to take them somewhere, etc.

AtlasBarfed 6y ago

The problem is people are picky, and in groups the effective pickiness increases. So the bigger menus were likely to address dad, mom, teen, and kiddo. If a restaurant is just going to make four or five dishes, it starts getting perilously close to places like Chipotle.

overcast 6y ago
Those picky people end up ordering the same exact thing off of every menu. Keep that as one of your ten options. Satisfy the boring people, and provide better service to people with some culture.
- wisty 6y ago
  The book Freakanomics mentions that Westerners in groups tend to avoid picking the same thing to avoid looking too conformist (and the last people to pick are unhappy with their choice because they were railroaded into getting something odd like the Filet of Fish just to show they're their own person) while Asians tend to try to follow the herd even if it is not what they'd rather have.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- knolax 6y ago
  > and provide better service to people with some culture If it's uncultured to know what you want to eat then call me a savage.
  - overcast 6y ago
    Too much amazing food in this world to limit yourself.
    - at_a_remove 6y ago
      A lot of food isn't that amazing, and some things some people just do not care for. You can dance around the preparation all you like, but I cannot stand the smell of eggs. Scrambled, over easy, whatever -- just the smell of them is terribly off-putting to me. There's too much awful food in the world to force yourself to try all of it.
- ponker 6y ago
  There’s a great Jazz club+Ethiopian restaurant in SF called Sheba that has “penne pasta” on their menu for people who want the Jazz but are too numpty to eat Ethiopian.
chrisseaton 6y ago
> If a restaurant is just going to make four or five dishes, it starts getting perilously close to places like Chipotle. Not sure what you're on about here? You're comparing bistros and restaurants with highly focused, individual dishes that they're perfected... with slop from a junk-food place like Chipotle?
- phonon 6y ago
  Maybe you're confusing Chipotle with Taco Bell? have you been to Chipotle?
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    Yes they both seem like pretty rough fast-food places?
    - phonon 6y ago
      No they're not. Have you eaten at Chipotle? No frozen ingredients. Everything is either made fresh there, or sous vide. No deep frying either (except for the taco chips.)
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        No sure a soggy burrito the size of a baby is ever great fast food.
        phonon 6y ago
        Order the salad! You clearly have never gone there.
- mlboss 6y ago
  Is Chipotle classified as junk food place ? I find it better than most of the lunch places. Also I can kind of order a keto bowl without rice and beans.
blaser-waffle 6y ago
This is why every restaurant has chicken fingers

dsalzman 6y ago

I agree. People used to cook at home. Few restaurants could survive so they offered lots of variety. Now less people cook. The market can support more restaurants which should lead to more and more specialization.

lhorie 6y ago

I hear chef celebrities say the same thing but frankly, these kinds of restaurants usually disappoint me, and precisely because of the paradox of choice. Good chinese restaurants are the literal opposite of that philosophy: multi-page menus with hundreds of choices. I don't want to pick between a meat I want but cooked in a way I don't care for vs a meat I don't want as much but cooked in a way I prefer. And that's why the chinese restaurants with large menus excel: they pretty much have every possible permutation and then some.

temporallobe 6y ago
Yes, permutations is the key word here. Mexican restaurants tend to have this kind of food - where they combine just a few different base ingredients (flour or corn tortillas, meats, cheeses, beans, rice, and various sauces and toppings) prepared in various ways and just call them different things, the permutations of which could be in the hundreds. Italian food is very similar in that regard. For this kind of food, having large, multi-page menus might make more sense.
huffmsa 6y ago
Right but the preparation for the meats doesn't really vary between most dishes and they're added as the last step. Big marinating dishes of beef pork and chicken
9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
I'd beg to differ. Really good Chinese restaurants in China tend to specialize ruthlessly, selling only a few items. If anything, the "matrix menu" where you have X proteins in Y sauces for X*Y stir-fry combos is usually a "restaurant smell" indicating that they don't really care about the end product (satay salmon, anyone?).
- lhorie 6y ago
  Literally permutating sauces does indicate low quality but that's just because chinese cuisine has so much diversity that a decent restaurant can offer a large variety of flavor profiles without really repeating itself. Personally I'm not so picky to specifically want salmon satay, but I am able to define some parameters, e.g. heaviness (steamed/stir-fried/deep-fried), spiciness, texture, types of proteins, ratio of food groups, etc and find a suitable combination of menu items. Specialized restaurants can certainly be better at specific dishes, but at the same time, the lack of options can be detrimental. For example, my kids won't enjoy a meal all that much in a place that specializes in spicy hot pots. Or maybe one person in the party will think the food is too heavy or spicy, etc.

temporallobe 6y ago

I was recently at a Rainforest Cafe (not my first choice but it’s a good place to bring guests for entertainment value) that had just reopened and they had a simplified one-page menu. I was surprisingly pleased since they normally had pages and pages of items, so many in fact that I usually just chose the burger. And guess what was on the new menu? A burger. Of course.

katzgrau 6y ago

There's definitely a place for restaraunts with bigger menus, especially when you're dining with kids or people who generally dont stray far from what they know. The probable gripe is when the restaraunt really sucks at making 80% of what's on the menu. Not always the case, but it does happen a lot.

GuB-42 6y ago

I consider lack of choice in a restaurant a good thing, and I am not the only one. And it is not just the paradox of choice. Simply, if a restaurant offers 20 different dishes, it means each dish gets 20x less attention than if you had only one choice. Less fresh ingredients, less time perfecting the recipe and preparation. Serving only one dish makes things simpler and the restaurant is going to spend more energy making sure it is worth it. About choice. When I go to a restaurant, I just want to eat something good. But I don't know what's good, it's not my specialty. But the chef is a specialist, he knows what's good, so I want to rely on his judgment as much as possible. Like everyone, I have personal tastes, but a good chef can easily make me change my mind about things I don't like. Usually, what I think is the best is a 3 choice menu: The specialty, the one that gets the most love and ideally the one everone should take. The alternative, a completely different dish for those with different personal tastes. And another, simpler dish for the picky eater. For example, it can be vegan if none of the other two are, free of allergens, kosher,... The idea is to not let that person down if part of a group.

knolax 6y ago
When I go to eat I go to eat X food item and the restaurant is only a means to the end. If they don't have X food I'll just go somewhere that does serve X.
boring_twenties 6y ago
My uncle told a story about some restaurant in Italy, where everyone is seated at the same fixed time, and the owner comes out and announces: "Tonight, dinner will be rib eye steak. It will be cooked medium rare. If that doesn't sound good to you, please feel free to leave now."
- fingerlocks 6y ago
  These exist in the US too. My favorite in Seattle is called Archipelago, the chef tells a story about each dish when serving them.
rubber_duck 6y ago
>Simply, if a restaurant offers 20 different dishes, it means each dish gets 20x less attention than if you had only one choice. Less fresh ingredients, less time perfecting the recipe and preparation. Serving only one dish makes things simpler and the restaurant is going to spend more energy making sure it is worth it. One of my favourite places has a decently sized menu (would say 40 items on there including starters/sides/deserts) while they aren't "the best" at anything, it's really good and I love the atmosphere. I like the flexibility and that I can invite anyone there since the selection is varied and quality is reliable. I can't call my vegan sister to a smokehouse even if their ribs are the best I tried, can't take my wife to a fish restaurant but my friends could be in the mood for fish, I have no clue what my in-laws will want to eat when I have to take them somewhere, etc.