Few things divide opinion in the restaurant world like the tasting menu. Over the past 20 years, this extended format has both accumulated cachet as a signifier of culinary ambition and attracted relentless dyspeptic criticism.
In 2012, the New York Times’s restaurant critic, Pete Wells, was feeling “trapped, helpless” in the face of “marathon” meals. Last year, Tim Hayward in the Financial Times was still bewailing this “exhausting to-do list of knackered cliches” – despite the tasting menu repeatedly being declared dead in the intervening years. Street food, small plates and casual dining had reportedly consigned it to the food recycling bin of history.
