I remember hearing some story from guys at a high end steak house in Argentina and one guy asked for his steak well done. The waiter said “no” and threatened to kick them out when he kept insisting it be well done.
I’m doubtful of those stories. In the restaurants I’ve worked in the chef will roll their eyes at the order, but there’s nothing to be gained by making your guests uncomfortable (and the management isn’t going to comp the drink order for an entire table over a chef’s holier-than-thou attitude). What does happen is that you’ve proven you have no taste buds, so they’re going to serve you the oldest, driest piece of meat in the refrigerator.
It’s not that you’ve ‘proven that you have no tastebuds’. Taste is subjective and personal. It’s that you’ve “insulted” their opinion.
Get 10 chefs together and ask them each to cook a steak, say, medium rare (for the sake of the hypothetical, the steaks are exact clones) and you’d get at least 5 different steaks.
I don’t get the whole getting-annoyed-because-someone-has-paid-a-lot-of-money-to-have-food-cooked-the-way-they-want-it shtick. Chefs are in the service industry.
Yeah, I should temper that reply a little. We’re probably in agreement that the vast majority of chefs don’t recommend preparing steak well done. There probably are people who genuinely find it tastes better that way, it’s just going to be uncommon. In any case, the chef’s going to serve them an inferior cut of meat because a lot of the flavor is lost.
Honestly that’s genuinely messed up because who are they to say if the flavor is “lost”. The flavor of ketchup mixed with good quality meat is different than ketchup mixed with bad quality meat. It’s like claiming it’s fine to just serve someone melted ice cream for their milkshake just because you personally think it’s the same thing.
For what it's worth this could be a food prep planning thing rather than a snobbery thing. Depending on the size of the restaurant and the freshness of the ingredients it's possible that they don't generally buy enough fresh produce for the night's dinner service to be able to accommodate substitutions without risking running out of ingredients to prepare other menu items.
Once on a work trip in France we were getting steaks and one of my coworkers asked for medium well and the waiter basically gestured "wrong answer". They bring out the steak still bloody and my coworker gets pissed. The waiter notices, takes it back, and gets into an audible argument with the cook.
I dunno what it is about European restaurants that they all seem to do this. Never once had it happen in the US. Americans just make your food exactly how you ask for it. Easy.
Depends on the quality too - I imagine McDonald's always has a week's worth of their menu in the freezer at any given time lol. It totally could be snobbery though, maybe they are terrified of someone posting their meal on instagram and having people think that they're the type of restaurant that would serve that salad with those tomatoes, the horror.
Well now I'm just going to double down on asking for well done, not only will I be getting charcoal but the chalkiest possible charcoal meat? Sign me up
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u/Bernard_PT 10d ago
I'd love to see someone shove all 6 pieces in their mouth and chewing while maintaining eye contact with the chef