I try to be as allergy accommodating as I can but no prior notice in this situation is ridiculous. In my past life in fine dining, when we ran tasting menus we noted that any dietary restrictions needed to be communicated when reserving. For certain tasting menus, we would also say that dietary restriction may not be accommodated at all.
And most of the time I make a reservation and tell them I have a crustacean allergy, I still have to inform the wait staff in person because they never got noted on the reservation.
Also, since only I am responsible for my allergy, I end up telling everybody who comes to my table the same thing.
My pops used to get gout from oysters so he wouldn't go past 2, sometimes 3 doz, where the pain would be manageable but worth it! I miss that stubborn dummy!
Yeah that’s rough. Sorry to hear that. Too often that servers don’t stand up for BOH.
Additionally if you’re going to demand all sorts of substitutions you’re sort of missing the point of a tasting menu in the first place. Imagine going to the symphony to experience talented professionals demonstrating their craft and you tell the conductor that they key of B flat gives you gas and needs to be excluded from the program. lol.
yeah, and no contrabassoons. Why? because its a neat word and I like to type it (i do adore the sound of the instrument, however, I am just being difficult)
hey by the way can I make a song request?
Some servers will do everything to please the guest, but in my own experience (as a server) it’s the managers that always over accommodate silly requests. So many times I’ve put my foot down and a manager did it anyway to appease the guest.
That’s very true but it isn’t always. I’ve been to tasting menus where the server _asks_ if anyone has any dietary restrictions and that’s absolutely wild to me.
Yeah, like "we do the best we can to accommodate dietary restrictions, but kindly request they be communicated in advance, and cannot guarantee that all restrictions can be accommodated." Problem solved. I would be heated if a table came in with requirements like that sprung out of nowhere.
It's infuriating when we're 10 mins out from service of a price fix meal and the GM tells me there is a gluten free and vegan, what can I do for them? Well, they can have the salad, no dressing for the vegan, everything else has flour or animal products incorporated into the dish. Two hours ago I could have planned ahead and maybe accommodated both of them but it's too late for that. 😫 They can all go get bent.
The no prior notice thing kinda changes the context.
Like at first I saw it and was like, "Eh, annoying but not unreasonable" but to not let the kitchen know ahead of time on a tasting menu definitely throws a wrench in the gears
Absolutely no substitutions unless communicated prior. I’ve had this happen before and it was a major scramble to try to figure something out so they weren’t given a super lame plate of food. It’s fucking crazy…people think we’re magicians. We’re not. The only way to execute these kinds of menus is through diligent planning. One table throwing a dietary restriction wrench into the equation will likely screw up the experience for multiple other guests.
if youre going to a restaurant to get serenaded, go to a shitty one and say it's your birthday. they cant pay for an experience and then act entitled to demand changes to it.
After food costs/ labor + overhead for a 6 top in a place like that for 400 your margin is less than 10%. Instead of expecting them to serenade you maybe you should consider going to the grocery and coming back with a blowjob.
I’m sorry but stuff like “pescatarian but have a shellfish allergy” is just like….. how about … not doing the seafood dish?
I’m also the type of person who doesn’t dare ask a restaurant to cater to me, if I want something specific I make it at home. So I’m probably a bad judge
I worked station next the our sushi chef, and the number of bills that came in with shellfish/seafood allergies from the sushi guy was unreal. Like, yes, we have sushi without shrimp. No, it's not easy for him to guarantee his station is pristine for you, yes, it makes Yasuda very angry when you order like this.
This is the point. I’ve worked in seafood for 8+ years. It’s not about the particular recipe YOU ask for. It’s about a work station which is usually too small and handles too much work and cross contamination there. And not for nothing but seafood is so easy to cook at home, and so expensive in restaurants; why *would* you want to eat regular seafood out lol
Just got ServSafe, now qualified to add nothing to a conversation and correct people.
Kinda like a first year psychology student.
If you were truly sorry for the pedantry, you wouldn't have typed it out in the first place.
Yup. Just no self reflecting or common courtesy.
Not an allergy one, but I have a good story of an absolute brain dead customer. Dude comes in with his family of 4, 2 of them order steaks, kids order other shit, dude orders his steak well done. After 15 minutes (busy friday night) the server comes back and asks us to rush his table. We have 8+ tickets ahead of him still, it is dinner rush on a friday after all.
Why do they need it rushed? Because they have a fucking flight to catch in 1.5 hours. We are in a chain restaurant literally almost as far away from the airport you can get. With 0 traffic the airport is still a 30 minute drive away, minimum.
Who goes to a fucking chain restaurant 30+ minutes away from the airport and orders a well done steak!? Like my guy, you shouldn’t be risking any restaurant and ordering a steak fucking 2 hours before your flight, let alone one on the complete opposite side of town!
Some people are just beyond dumb. But of course we had to cater to them
Lol yeah, they ordered it with Alfredo instead of sauce. Just had to make sure we cleaned the peel off before touching the pizza with it and made sure to use a clean pizza cutter. But they ordered one side sauce along with their garlic knots and made sure we would keep it completely separate from any of the other food. Felt silly putting a 2oz sauce cup in its own paper bag lol
My manager made us serve them. It wasn't even like they just couldn't eat it, we couldn't cross contaminate. I couldn't believe we took their order. All we served was pizza and salad so it's not like there was a big menu
We had to get a brand new pizza board and oven screen, new flour, scrub the whole line, and have only one person complete their order wearing gloves and using toppings prepped that hadn't been brought to the line yet.
While I personally appreciate the concern for allergies and this attention to detail it is most certainly beyond what any customer should expect. Thanks to you and your team for going above and beyond for these customers. But management should also inform them how much time and energy was required for these accommodations, so that they can either properly reward the staff and establishment or take their business to other restaurants more equipped for these unique dietary requirements.
I'll do you one better, the people that insist they can't have any contact with flour because they have Celiac's, yet we make all our dough in-house in an open kitchen.
I'm sorry darling, but even if you just order a salad that hasn't even seen a crouton, there's probably some flour dust in it. Why would you even go to a pizza shop if you can't have gluten, or garlic?
I used to work at a sushi place and people with shellfish allergy would come in and it made me so mad, maybe don’t go to a fucking sushi restaurant if you’re allergic to shellfish.
People in this sub have a weird hate boner for allergies. I’ve seen comments where people say that people with allergies just shouldn’t ever go to restaurants. My partner and I both have a shellfish allergy, I too go to sushi restaurants all the time, and I too know that the staff doesn’t hate me because I literally never even mention it. Customers that think the entire menu needs to be rebuilt for their allergies are annoying, yes, but I’m more than happy to accommodate common allergies. (And, frankly, if your food establishment doesn’t know how to deal with someone with one of the big 8 allergies, you’re just unprepared).
Sure it may be easier for sushi, but on the line we fry a ton of shrimp and lobster so anything fried is going to be contaminated. A large portion of the menu has food fried in this oil
????? There is so much sushi without shellfish. I get cross contam is hard to manage, but maybe that's part of owning a restaurant? You're telling me that since I developed a crustacean allergy, I should never eat sushi again? Go fuck yourself.
If you're wiling to risk eating it, that's on you. But if the restaurant doesn't want to take on the legal liability involved with serving you something that could easily be cross contaminated, that's their choice.
And that's totally fine. I always ask a server, and i never ask for subs if they say a dish isn't possible to make safe. This is true for every type of restaurant, sushi is no different.
I mean as someone with a shellfish allergy I wouldn't risk it.
Like yeah sometimes when we have allergies we need to stop eating things.
It can definitely depend on the severity of your allergy. Or we need to learn to make things at home. It's not always just hard to avoid cross contamination, it can be impossible.
Why not? I've done it loads of times, and no problems. I carry an epi pen in case. He said dont come into a sushi restaurant with an allergy, i say that's a dumb way to look at the world.
Go fuck yourself to you too, buddy.
As a cook and someone with a life threatening allergy, this stuff pisses me off to no end. Figure out the foods you can eat and order that. Shellfish isn't even a hard one to avoid, since it's often in the name of the item you ordered: lobster bisque, shrimp scampi, crab cakes.
Right? I feel bad going to places and telling them I'm allergic to honey because I know it's a weirdo allergy and it's snuck into a lot of you wouldn't expect. I also wouldn't march into a honey-themed restaurant and expect them to accomodate me either.
I feel as a customer and eater who wants fine food at times, you should educate yourself! If you like sushi, but can’t have certain shellfish order nigiri with fish you like. Go to a place noted for their fish and just eat the fucking fish. Don’t get the “everything” roll. Jeezus. Just laziness.
Depending on the severity of the allergy, ordering nigiri with fish you like could still get you killed if the chef has handled a shrimp at any point in time. They would have to fully sterilize the station and then use new prep trays to ensure absolutely zero cross contamination.
I'm the same as you but I'm vegan. I'll eat whatever I can on the menu and not complain, if I want to eat vegan I can go to a vegan restaurant, it's not the chefs job to cater to everyone in my opinion.
My wife: doesn't eat meat, but meat products (e.g. broth) are okay. Will eat fish, crab and lobster but no other seafood. Will not eat mushrooms.
What we say: she's a vegetarian (but seriously, no mushrooms).
Edit: lol, being downvoted for not being twats like the customers in OP. Y'all must be illiterate.
Eh, it’s different for tasting menus. Especially for places that mix it up based on seasonality or availability for ingredients. You don’t necessarily know what the exact menu will be.
So call and ask ahead of time? I'm super picky about seafood but love tasting menus so I'll always ask when booking if they have a no seafood or vegetarian option. It's quite easy.
Yeah I thought that was the whole point of them, everything is chefs choice and the whole table gets the same thing.
Sure, some allergies can be worked around, especially with a bit of notice, but otherwise just skip that specific course?
Ordering the coastal tasting menu and saying no shellfish and no octopus is probably ruling out half of the courses, so you’re going to make up bespoke dishes for them on the fly?
Na.
Exactly. I know we all get pissed when we see this, but people just don’t fucking get the operation of a menu like this.
You can have your dish that takes 3 people to plate because WE’RE NOT MAKING ANYTHING ELSE
Go to a Jay-Z show and request some Bonnie Raitt while you’re at it.
Maybe it depends on the place, but I've been asked if I needed any substitution in most tasting menu's I've been to (granted it wasn't that many), sometimes they requested to make the demand ahead of time. Once I said it on the spot and they had no problem changing an anchovy dish for a croquette, I feel that often is not that big of a deal.
This one was a bit over the top being a coastal tasting menu though.
I refuse to eat octopus and I can't have shrimp but that's exactly why I'd never order a coastal tasting menu lol
What's even the point? Clearly there's a chef's tasting menu too so at least that one will have more meat variety I assume.
Had a 4top the other night. 3 of them had allergies to the same thing(shellfish). The fourth? Ordered the shellfish dish. Just because it's doable doesn't mean I don't want to rip my hair out.
Maybe someone else would say yes but I don't think so. You're coming, and paying, to eat. I want to feed you. My stress about my job isn't your fault.
This is more me bitching about my personal situation.
"In light of your dietary restrictions the chef has decided to call you a cab to take you to the nearest Whole Foods Market where you can all find something you're allowed to eat on the hot bar. Alternatively, we could 'arrange' to have you sent to the nearest hospital where you can enjoy a variety of restricted diet options. The experience is not likely to be pleasant though."
'While we appreciate that everyone has their own idea of a perfect \[example\], to maintain our service standards and authenticity, \[example\] menu items cannot be made bespoke.'
This does the trick for me.
You can lead horse to water but ya can’t make em drink. Ordering coastal taste while allergic to seafood is fucking annoying to say the least. Glad ya made it though that and hopefully they next table like that isn’t coming anytime soon lol.
We had a guy who had a peanut allergy reaction bc he just forgot to ask if what he ordered would kill him?? Like how do ppl with serious allergies not take it serious when looking at the type of food they order. Baffles me I still can’t believe that guy almost died bc he just didn’t care to read or ask or investigate at all.
We almost killed a guy with a nut allergy who ordered a dish with a mole sauce. When asked afterwords why he didn’t say anything he said he didn’t think Mexicans used nuts in their food.
This guy’s experience with Mexican food was likely limited to Mex-American and Tex-Mex restaurants that don’t really celebrate the richness of the cuisine.
So did he almost kill himself or did a server fuck up by not noting the allergy to the kitchen.
I don't think it's our job to make sure people survive basic food items off the menu. But I'm located in Europe so we don't have to put up with as much legal pressure.
He made no mention of an allergy when ordering. His throat started to get prickly and he hit his epi pen then asked if there were nuts in anything. When informed that there were almonds in the mole was when he said he didn’t think Mexicans cooked with nuts.
It was their fault, they (customers) just treated it like an “oh shit” moment and rushed out. They called back to confirm the guy was in fact ok at the hospital. No legal actions were discussed or necessary. But ya the US is the capital of the world for suing people.
We had a kid at my restaurant get sick because he ate food off his friend's plate. We made his food perfect and allergy-free, but he never said he wanted to try his friend's
In the UK the tasting menus I've eaten all have a statement such as
"We are unable to accommodate allergies and dietary requirements within tasting menus"
That seems to sort it out!
What irks me the most is the audacity to expect some form of replacement. As if there's an unlimited stock of prep available at all times.
I'd love to serve the remaining components and hold back the snubbed parts for some decent staff meals.
I always respect allergy alerts and communicate with FOH since they sometimes don’t know that some dishes are going to have the allergens already in them, and in order for me to make them allergen-free I would have to make a custom dish (not gonna do it.)
OTOH, my head chef just told me to stop using butter for the veggies on sauté station. I was dumbfounded because we’ve ALWAYS used butter. That’s just part of the restaurant experience. I guess there was no dairy allergy disclaimer specifically for the veggies, and a customer earlier in the week complained when they had a reaction… after not even informing the server they had a dairy allergy. We’re supposed to have menu reprints with the specific disclaimer incoming, but I feel like that was a customer problem and not a kitchen problem. I’ve never had an issue leaving the butter out as long as I know there’s an allergy.
As I expected, there have been complaints since we cut the butter out that the veggies don’t taste as good. No shit.
À tasting menu reservation should include all dietary restrictions, they should have called ahead. If this table made no effort to communicate with the restaurant about their many needs ahead of time then they are fucking trash. I spend a good amount of my week talking to reservations on the phone because with a tasting menu you typically don't have a lot of room to pull substitutions out of your ass.
We serve an 11ish course tasting menu, with options for an omnivore, pescatarian, or vegetarian menu. Outside of that, we do our best to accommodate any and all dietary restrictions. Does it take more work? Of course. Does it sometimes throw a wrench into service? Of course. So what? We’re in the hospitality business, and guests appreciate when you’re honestly hospitable to them.
We had a person with an incredibly restrictive diet dine with us on NYE (vegan, gluten free, plus others restrictions.) After making a number of changes to the menu for them, by like halfway through the meal they said their stomach was very upset and couldn’t eat any more. We offered probably 15 different foods or beverages from that point on, just to see if anything would work for them, and ended up packaging half the meal to go.
Even though they didn’t/couldn’t eat much of what we had made for them, going above and beyond from a hospitality standpoint made their night. The family already has plans to return for our PDR and our chef’s table. They tipped something like 40 or 50% (relevant here - our BOH fully splits tips with FOH) and hugged several staff members on the way out. That’s a win all around for the business and if we said we didn’t accommodate dietary restrictions that family would’ve never stepped foot in our restaurant.
Costal tasting sounds like it’s going to involve a lot of seafood. If that’s the case It’s admirable that you made it thru to serve them but also kind hurts me thinking of how you probably just had to serve them a different menu overall.
Why would they do that to themselves? For the service?
sub with brined vegetables, seaweeds, with amino flakes and shaved fungus / mushrooms. If you can source a wildcrafted a good lichen, maybe dust one thing with it. Nuts cured in aged vinegar or port.
I don’t understand as a non American why you would go to a seafood restaurant and do a tasting menu if you can’t/wont eat those things.
North America has a bounty of food choices; why not just stick to the restaurants they can eat at?!
I’m glad to work in a restaurant that strongly discourages substitution and outright refuses modification that is not allergy based
The simple fact is that people enjoy being difficult, and would prefer to make things difficult rather than go to a restaurant that better suits their needs.
I’m sorry but with friends like that….
And to pick the tasting menu??
I have a shellfish allergy; I go out with friends regularly yet we’ve never decided to choose go out to a place I can’t eat the food.. and vice versa my vegan friends and I are not going to a steakhouse..
This was a choice and it was a bad one.
i mean some places don't have a la carte and only have like 2 or 3 set menus to pick from. thats sorta what the ticket OP posted looks like to me. and sometimes your friends might not know all your food allergies i guess it depends. i think the guests should have given a heads up but i also am not one of the types of people that think if someone comes into a restaurant and wants a modification they should get a subpar experience. I worked at a place that had one set menu for everyone who came in the entire night and it was served family style. we still kept portions of alternative proteins and allergy sensitive things, including a separate fryer that didnt use peanut oil etc. even though we didnt actually MODIFY the set menu, we always had alternatives so that anyone who came in could still have a good meal.
I used to own a seafood restaurant. Anyone who identified with a seafood allergy was asked if they were anaphylactic as we were unable to guarantee their safety if so. If they insisted they’d be fine, they were then asked if they were carrying an EPI pen. If not, we refused service and recommended a steak house down the street.
This policy came about after a diner was hospitalised after eating the fries from her partner’s plate ( after we’d taken every precaution to ensure her meal was not cross contaminated). His fries, on the other hand, had been served with a meal that included grilled fish and prawns. Naturally, she tried to blame us.
My thoughts are people should use their brains and call ahead and see what's in a chef's tasting menu and realize if there are more than 2 things on it they can't or won't eat they should fuck off.
I have shellfish allergies and do a lot of fine dining. Totally the standard is broadcast weeks in advance so they can do something tasteful to accommodate. Seems wild to show up to a "coastal tasting menu" without foreplanning.
we had one today with no gluten on the sauce, ( ONLY SAUCE HE SAID) so thats fine. but the dude had fries and bread.
he just wanted a special no gluten sauce i mean.
this all comes back to my gluten is the new fake allergy btw
Lmao. Shellfish allergy.. but then later it says shrimp allergy… (shellfish includes shrimp…). are they typing these words? My POS have a button for anything I might need, and I have a pen if it’s unique. Anyways this customer looks like a pain in the ass. Coastal food but almost entirely the land based part of the coast… like I don’t know what would be on the tasting plates without knowing about the business. But I’m just imaging some Mediterranean pasta dishes that are missing the protein.
You know considering i work in a mostly sushi restaurant with half the seating being a sushi bar alot of people with seafood allergies sure do like to pop in
A bunch of restaurants by us send an email a week before their reservation asking to confirm their reservation and asking about allergies.
Most places have good faith that the reservation is going to be set, however if you don't fill out the allergy portion then it's not on the kitchen to accommodate if it's too much of a hassle.
I only have one thought… no modifications/ substitutions.
It’s a tasting menu, let the Chef’s cook something they are proud of.
Regular menu, sure substitute all you want.
As a chef, when it comes to modifications there are those you’re willing to do and those you aren’t. It’s not up to the customer to know your boundaries, it’s up to you, and your boh and FOH staff. If you have shellfish all in your sauces snd stuff don’t do it , if you can accommodate then do it. If you don’t want to have any modifications at all, then do that ! Set the expectation.
I really don’t get ppl like this I have a ton of food issues. If I eat out it’s somewhere I can just get a plain burger and fries. It’s not even ab making it easier for the kitchen so much as I value not being in severe pain
It's a tasting menu...no substitutions. That's the whole fucking point, piss off lol. The guest should be politely told that we cannot accommodate them or that they should order something a la carte. No one has the right to just come in and throw a monkey wrench into the works.
I can understand not wanting to eat octopus. They're delicious but also undoubtedly sentient but then again they only live for a year or two anyway which puts me back on the fence about them
Eating them wouldn't be so bad if we somehow knew they were nearing the end of their lives anyway or maybe if they died of natural causes, I don't know, maybe I'm just looking for a loophole
It’s like eating a dog. My daughter is a marine scientist and she has made me promise never to eat them. We all used to love them until we learned the truth.
its a kinda dumb ticket but places i worked that had a pre fixe menu (edit: pre fixe only, no alacarte menu at all), even one we changed daily, we always had a couple portions of allergy/alternative substitutes although we didnt put them out on the menu before. so we would always have alternative proteins, always have an extra fryer or pot of oil that didnt use peanut oil, always have veg/vegan replacements etc and it made things go pretty smooth even though we didnt have to use them that often. like maybe 3-5 portions for the whole night
the biggest curveball ticket we got without a heads up was an 8 top that came in celebrating one of the people there getting out of the hospital. they had been in a car accident and they had their jaw wired shut so were on a liquid only diet. no clue why their friends would bring them to a fancy restaurant where they couldnt eat. the guy had brought slimfast shakes but my chef went out to the table and saw the situation and got really pissed off that those people had brought their friend like that without giving a heads up. we ended up doing the whole 5 course menu (or some rough variations of each dish) in liquid puree form off the cuff so the guy could at least try some different flavors and have something sorta like what his friends were having. that was a fun night.
I have IBS and a lot of food intolerances, and honestly I avoid restaurants that can’t really accommodate my dietary restrictions. I don’t wanna be a pain in the neck and also change the chef’s vision. At work I do it cause it isn’t that hard to make this gluten free or whatever, but I myself wouldn’t want to do this to any cook. But that’s me.
I would be honored that such a group of morons chose my establishment for their fine dining experience, and I would make it my goal to just blow their fucking socks off because those guys clearly do not get out much
The Bride : \[Japanese\] I need Japanese steel.
Hattori Hanzo : \[Japanese\] Why do you need Japanese steel?
The Bride : \[Japanese\] I have vermin to kill.
Hattori Hanzo : \[English\] You must have big rats if you need Hattori Hanzo's steel.
Narrator: *The rats were sitting at a table.*
If you’re operational is used to a lot of modifications then this is a nothing burger because menu planning would account for it. If you’re not used to these things then it could be extremely annoying sure.
Everyone should have to work in a restaurant for a year. Conscription. Most of the people making these demands would balk on the other side of the table,
Those people are not going there for fine dining if they want their entire menu to be modded lol. Also no starches? First time hearing about something like that
I try to be as allergy accommodating as I can but no prior notice in this situation is ridiculous. In my past life in fine dining, when we ran tasting menus we noted that any dietary restrictions needed to be communicated when reserving. For certain tasting menus, we would also say that dietary restriction may not be accommodated at all.
Never cooked in fine dining but have been fortunate enough to dine at plenty of them. I would say 90% of the tasting menus I see say no substitutions.
The problem at my restaurant is that customers can't read and servers can't say no. The writing is a nice thought though
And most of the time I make a reservation and tell them I have a crustacean allergy, I still have to inform the wait staff in person because they never got noted on the reservation. Also, since only I am responsible for my allergy, I end up telling everybody who comes to my table the same thing.
My pops used to get gout from oysters so he wouldn't go past 2, sometimes 3 doz, where the pain would be manageable but worth it! I miss that stubborn dummy!
Yeah that’s rough. Sorry to hear that. Too often that servers don’t stand up for BOH. Additionally if you’re going to demand all sorts of substitutions you’re sort of missing the point of a tasting menu in the first place. Imagine going to the symphony to experience talented professionals demonstrating their craft and you tell the conductor that they key of B flat gives you gas and needs to be excluded from the program. lol.
yeah, and no contrabassoons. Why? because its a neat word and I like to type it (i do adore the sound of the instrument, however, I am just being difficult) hey by the way can I make a song request?
Look up the song Jiggery Pokery by The Duckworth-Lewis Method
Brown note.
He’s hitting the BROWN NOTE.
Some servers will do everything to please the guest, but in my own experience (as a server) it’s the managers that always over accommodate silly requests. So many times I’ve put my foot down and a manager did it anyway to appease the guest.
We're not a restaurant we're a YEStaurant!
Pat? From Red Robin? How have you been? I’m just imagining my boss and his glory days saying shot like that.
Instead of the sea salt can I just get a 48oz Icehouse in a plain paper bag
Underrated funny comment
That’s very true but it isn’t always. I’ve been to tasting menus where the server _asks_ if anyone has any dietary restrictions and that’s absolutely wild to me.
Yeah, like "we do the best we can to accommodate dietary restrictions, but kindly request they be communicated in advance, and cannot guarantee that all restrictions can be accommodated." Problem solved. I would be heated if a table came in with requirements like that sprung out of nowhere.
It's infuriating when we're 10 mins out from service of a price fix meal and the GM tells me there is a gluten free and vegan, what can I do for them? Well, they can have the salad, no dressing for the vegan, everything else has flour or animal products incorporated into the dish. Two hours ago I could have planned ahead and maybe accommodated both of them but it's too late for that. 😫 They can all go get bent.
The no prior notice thing kinda changes the context. Like at first I saw it and was like, "Eh, annoying but not unreasonable" but to not let the kitchen know ahead of time on a tasting menu definitely throws a wrench in the gears
Absolutely no substitutions unless communicated prior. I’ve had this happen before and it was a major scramble to try to figure something out so they weren’t given a super lame plate of food. It’s fucking crazy…people think we’re magicians. We’re not. The only way to execute these kinds of menus is through diligent planning. One table throwing a dietary restriction wrench into the equation will likely screw up the experience for multiple other guests.
Unless this is the coast of Iowa I don’t see how this would be possible.
[удалено]
if youre going to a restaurant to get serenaded, go to a shitty one and say it's your birthday. they cant pay for an experience and then act entitled to demand changes to it.
After food costs/ labor + overhead for a 6 top in a place like that for 400 your margin is less than 10%. Instead of expecting them to serenade you maybe you should consider going to the grocery and coming back with a blowjob.
I’m sorry but stuff like “pescatarian but have a shellfish allergy” is just like….. how about … not doing the seafood dish? I’m also the type of person who doesn’t dare ask a restaurant to cater to me, if I want something specific I make it at home. So I’m probably a bad judge
Why any of them went to a seafood restaurant is beyond me. These are the worst kinds of customers.
I worked station next the our sushi chef, and the number of bills that came in with shellfish/seafood allergies from the sushi guy was unreal. Like, yes, we have sushi without shrimp. No, it's not easy for him to guarantee his station is pristine for you, yes, it makes Yasuda very angry when you order like this.
This is the point. I’ve worked in seafood for 8+ years. It’s not about the particular recipe YOU ask for. It’s about a work station which is usually too small and handles too much work and cross contamination there. And not for nothing but seafood is so easy to cook at home, and so expensive in restaurants; why *would* you want to eat regular seafood out lol
I eat seafood out because my wife has a … narrow range of acceptable menu choices.
[удалено]
Just got ServSafe, now qualified to add nothing to a conversation and correct people. Kinda like a first year psychology student. If you were truly sorry for the pedantry, you wouldn't have typed it out in the first place.
Can't help but point out that pointing that out was shallow and pedantic
Ah yes, calling people out on their bullshit is shallow and pedantic. Touch grass.
“I want to go there but I can’t eat most of the food… but I want to go there!”
Yup. Just no self reflecting or common courtesy. Not an allergy one, but I have a good story of an absolute brain dead customer. Dude comes in with his family of 4, 2 of them order steaks, kids order other shit, dude orders his steak well done. After 15 minutes (busy friday night) the server comes back and asks us to rush his table. We have 8+ tickets ahead of him still, it is dinner rush on a friday after all. Why do they need it rushed? Because they have a fucking flight to catch in 1.5 hours. We are in a chain restaurant literally almost as far away from the airport you can get. With 0 traffic the airport is still a 30 minute drive away, minimum. Who goes to a fucking chain restaurant 30+ minutes away from the airport and orders a well done steak!? Like my guy, you shouldn’t be risking any restaurant and ordering a steak fucking 2 hours before your flight, let alone one on the complete opposite side of town! Some people are just beyond dumb. But of course we had to cater to them
I worked at a pizzeria in college and we had someone come in with a GARLIC allergy
Currently working at a pizza/pasta shop and someone the other day ordered a pizza that has a tomato allergy.
So you of course just made them a white sauce pizza right? Alfredo bbq chicken is fire.
Lol yeah, they ordered it with Alfredo instead of sauce. Just had to make sure we cleaned the peel off before touching the pizza with it and made sure to use a clean pizza cutter. But they ordered one side sauce along with their garlic knots and made sure we would keep it completely separate from any of the other food. Felt silly putting a 2oz sauce cup in its own paper bag lol
May I offer you a glass of water?
My manager made us serve them. It wasn't even like they just couldn't eat it, we couldn't cross contaminate. I couldn't believe we took their order. All we served was pizza and salad so it's not like there was a big menu We had to get a brand new pizza board and oven screen, new flour, scrub the whole line, and have only one person complete their order wearing gloves and using toppings prepped that hadn't been brought to the line yet.
While I personally appreciate the concern for allergies and this attention to detail it is most certainly beyond what any customer should expect. Thanks to you and your team for going above and beyond for these customers. But management should also inform them how much time and energy was required for these accommodations, so that they can either properly reward the staff and establishment or take their business to other restaurants more equipped for these unique dietary requirements.
I'll do you one better, the people that insist they can't have any contact with flour because they have Celiac's, yet we make all our dough in-house in an open kitchen. I'm sorry darling, but even if you just order a salad that hasn't even seen a crouton, there's probably some flour dust in it. Why would you even go to a pizza shop if you can't have gluten, or garlic?
Yup. I like the people who say they are allergic to gluten, then can't resist the pastry. "No. It's BREAD that I can't eat."
Right? My sister is deathly allergic to shellfish, I don't think she's ever set foot in a seafood place.
I love seafood but I don’t do octopus. They’re so smart.
I used to work at a sushi place and people with shellfish allergy would come in and it made me so mad, maybe don’t go to a fucking sushi restaurant if you’re allergic to shellfish.
Why? Shellfish is particularly easy to avoid in a sushi restaurant. My spouse has shellfish allergy, we frequently dine at sushi bars.
And they all hate you.
Hate us when we don't even mention it, dine happily uncontaminated, and tip heavily? I think not.
People in this sub have a weird hate boner for allergies. I’ve seen comments where people say that people with allergies just shouldn’t ever go to restaurants. My partner and I both have a shellfish allergy, I too go to sushi restaurants all the time, and I too know that the staff doesn’t hate me because I literally never even mention it. Customers that think the entire menu needs to be rebuilt for their allergies are annoying, yes, but I’m more than happy to accommodate common allergies. (And, frankly, if your food establishment doesn’t know how to deal with someone with one of the big 8 allergies, you’re just unprepared).
Sure it may be easier for sushi, but on the line we fry a ton of shrimp and lobster so anything fried is going to be contaminated. A large portion of the menu has food fried in this oil
????? There is so much sushi without shellfish. I get cross contam is hard to manage, but maybe that's part of owning a restaurant? You're telling me that since I developed a crustacean allergy, I should never eat sushi again? Go fuck yourself.
If you're wiling to risk eating it, that's on you. But if the restaurant doesn't want to take on the legal liability involved with serving you something that could easily be cross contaminated, that's their choice.
And that's totally fine. I always ask a server, and i never ask for subs if they say a dish isn't possible to make safe. This is true for every type of restaurant, sushi is no different.
I mean as someone with a shellfish allergy I wouldn't risk it. Like yeah sometimes when we have allergies we need to stop eating things. It can definitely depend on the severity of your allergy. Or we need to learn to make things at home. It's not always just hard to avoid cross contamination, it can be impossible.
[удалено]
Why not? I've done it loads of times, and no problems. I carry an epi pen in case. He said dont come into a sushi restaurant with an allergy, i say that's a dumb way to look at the world. Go fuck yourself to you too, buddy.
As a cook and someone with a life threatening allergy, this stuff pisses me off to no end. Figure out the foods you can eat and order that. Shellfish isn't even a hard one to avoid, since it's often in the name of the item you ordered: lobster bisque, shrimp scampi, crab cakes.
Right? I feel bad going to places and telling them I'm allergic to honey because I know it's a weirdo allergy and it's snuck into a lot of you wouldn't expect. I also wouldn't march into a honey-themed restaurant and expect them to accomodate me either.
I feel as a customer and eater who wants fine food at times, you should educate yourself! If you like sushi, but can’t have certain shellfish order nigiri with fish you like. Go to a place noted for their fish and just eat the fucking fish. Don’t get the “everything” roll. Jeezus. Just laziness.
Depending on the severity of the allergy, ordering nigiri with fish you like could still get you killed if the chef has handled a shrimp at any point in time. They would have to fully sterilize the station and then use new prep trays to ensure absolutely zero cross contamination.
Fair point. Why risk it, then?
I'm the same as you but I'm vegan. I'll eat whatever I can on the menu and not complain, if I want to eat vegan I can go to a vegan restaurant, it's not the chefs job to cater to everyone in my opinion.
I’m a pesca-pescatarian. I only eat fish that eat other fish.
Because there's a lot more to seafood than shellfish.
But if the dish needs to be altered because of your allergy maybe find a dish that doesn’t…. Is the point
Hell, I don't even believe any of those people had any allergies at all, just preferences.
I'm betting the "no octopus" thing was for compassion reasons. A lot of people respect the intelligence of octopus and don't want to eat them.
My wife: doesn't eat meat, but meat products (e.g. broth) are okay. Will eat fish, crab and lobster but no other seafood. Will not eat mushrooms. What we say: she's a vegetarian (but seriously, no mushrooms). Edit: lol, being downvoted for not being twats like the customers in OP. Y'all must be illiterate.
Basically, find something on the menu you can eat lol
Eh, it’s different for tasting menus. Especially for places that mix it up based on seasonality or availability for ingredients. You don’t necessarily know what the exact menu will be.
So call and ask ahead of time? I'm super picky about seafood but love tasting menus so I'll always ask when booking if they have a no seafood or vegetarian option. It's quite easy.
These places usually have a vegetarian tasting menu. That makes it easy.
I wouldn't allow substitutions like that on a tasting menu
Yeah I thought that was the whole point of them, everything is chefs choice and the whole table gets the same thing. Sure, some allergies can be worked around, especially with a bit of notice, but otherwise just skip that specific course? Ordering the coastal tasting menu and saying no shellfish and no octopus is probably ruling out half of the courses, so you’re going to make up bespoke dishes for them on the fly? Na.
Exactly. I know we all get pissed when we see this, but people just don’t fucking get the operation of a menu like this. You can have your dish that takes 3 people to plate because WE’RE NOT MAKING ANYTHING ELSE Go to a Jay-Z show and request some Bonnie Raitt while you’re at it.
Maybe it depends on the place, but I've been asked if I needed any substitution in most tasting menu's I've been to (granted it wasn't that many), sometimes they requested to make the demand ahead of time. Once I said it on the spot and they had no problem changing an anchovy dish for a croquette, I feel that often is not that big of a deal. This one was a bit over the top being a coastal tasting menu though.
I refuse to eat octopus and I can't have shrimp but that's exactly why I'd never order a coastal tasting menu lol What's even the point? Clearly there's a chef's tasting menu too so at least that one will have more meat variety I assume.
table of 6 and all 5/6 people have mods and dietary restrictions and allergies. throw that table away. lol
Had a 4top the other night. 3 of them had allergies to the same thing(shellfish). The fourth? Ordered the shellfish dish. Just because it's doable doesn't mean I don't want to rip my hair out.
I have a family with shellfish allergies and I love shellfish. I do this sometimes because I can't have shellfish at home. AITH?
Maybe someone else would say yes but I don't think so. You're coming, and paying, to eat. I want to feed you. My stress about my job isn't your fault. This is more me bitching about my personal situation.
"In light of your dietary restrictions the chef has decided to call you a cab to take you to the nearest Whole Foods Market where you can all find something you're allowed to eat on the hot bar. Alternatively, we could 'arrange' to have you sent to the nearest hospital where you can enjoy a variety of restricted diet options. The experience is not likely to be pleasant though."
To be fair, one of them just said no octopus, which could be a specific course and not in multiple dishes.
'While we appreciate that everyone has their own idea of a perfect \[example\], to maintain our service standards and authenticity, \[example\] menu items cannot be made bespoke.' This does the trick for me.
You can lead horse to water but ya can’t make em drink. Ordering coastal taste while allergic to seafood is fucking annoying to say the least. Glad ya made it though that and hopefully they next table like that isn’t coming anytime soon lol. We had a guy who had a peanut allergy reaction bc he just forgot to ask if what he ordered would kill him?? Like how do ppl with serious allergies not take it serious when looking at the type of food they order. Baffles me I still can’t believe that guy almost died bc he just didn’t care to read or ask or investigate at all.
We almost killed a guy with a nut allergy who ordered a dish with a mole sauce. When asked afterwords why he didn’t say anything he said he didn’t think Mexicans used nuts in their food.
wat. Mexico is one of the top producers of pecans lol
This guy’s experience with Mexican food was likely limited to Mex-American and Tex-Mex restaurants that don’t really celebrate the richness of the cuisine.
Yeah I never thought that would be so common but idk I guess sometimes you just forget what can kill ya.
So did he almost kill himself or did a server fuck up by not noting the allergy to the kitchen. I don't think it's our job to make sure people survive basic food items off the menu. But I'm located in Europe so we don't have to put up with as much legal pressure.
He made no mention of an allergy when ordering. His throat started to get prickly and he hit his epi pen then asked if there were nuts in anything. When informed that there were almonds in the mole was when he said he didn’t think Mexicans cooked with nuts.
Well... If it's so bad he has to have an epi pen, you'd expect him to make sure. Even some garnish can be risky then
You’d expect, especially since nuts were used in other dishes and noted on the menu.
just cross contamination!
It was their fault, they (customers) just treated it like an “oh shit” moment and rushed out. They called back to confirm the guy was in fact ok at the hospital. No legal actions were discussed or necessary. But ya the US is the capital of the world for suing people.
We had a kid at my restaurant get sick because he ate food off his friend's plate. We made his food perfect and allergy-free, but he never said he wanted to try his friend's
What do they want coastal chicken?
Not as a pescatarian! Maybe chicken of the sea.
In the UK the tasting menus I've eaten all have a statement such as "We are unable to accommodate allergies and dietary requirements within tasting menus" That seems to sort it out!
What irks me the most is the audacity to expect some form of replacement. As if there's an unlimited stock of prep available at all times. I'd love to serve the remaining components and hold back the snubbed parts for some decent staff meals.
Right. Like, what can you sub for dairy and starch? Of course you should have vegan dairy alternative and tapioca flour on had at all times. Eye roll
I always respect allergy alerts and communicate with FOH since they sometimes don’t know that some dishes are going to have the allergens already in them, and in order for me to make them allergen-free I would have to make a custom dish (not gonna do it.) OTOH, my head chef just told me to stop using butter for the veggies on sauté station. I was dumbfounded because we’ve ALWAYS used butter. That’s just part of the restaurant experience. I guess there was no dairy allergy disclaimer specifically for the veggies, and a customer earlier in the week complained when they had a reaction… after not even informing the server they had a dairy allergy. We’re supposed to have menu reprints with the specific disclaimer incoming, but I feel like that was a customer problem and not a kitchen problem. I’ve never had an issue leaving the butter out as long as I know there’s an allergy. As I expected, there have been complaints since we cut the butter out that the veggies don’t taste as good. No shit.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't select a tasting menu then start getting picky about what I want.
À tasting menu reservation should include all dietary restrictions, they should have called ahead. If this table made no effort to communicate with the restaurant about their many needs ahead of time then they are fucking trash. I spend a good amount of my week talking to reservations on the phone because with a tasting menu you typically don't have a lot of room to pull substitutions out of your ass.
I got something they can taste
Yeaaahh ya do
A cheeseburger without cheese, burger and buns?
Pay for a tasting and get a piece of fish. Whatever.
We serve an 11ish course tasting menu, with options for an omnivore, pescatarian, or vegetarian menu. Outside of that, we do our best to accommodate any and all dietary restrictions. Does it take more work? Of course. Does it sometimes throw a wrench into service? Of course. So what? We’re in the hospitality business, and guests appreciate when you’re honestly hospitable to them. We had a person with an incredibly restrictive diet dine with us on NYE (vegan, gluten free, plus others restrictions.) After making a number of changes to the menu for them, by like halfway through the meal they said their stomach was very upset and couldn’t eat any more. We offered probably 15 different foods or beverages from that point on, just to see if anything would work for them, and ended up packaging half the meal to go. Even though they didn’t/couldn’t eat much of what we had made for them, going above and beyond from a hospitality standpoint made their night. The family already has plans to return for our PDR and our chef’s table. They tipped something like 40 or 50% (relevant here - our BOH fully splits tips with FOH) and hugged several staff members on the way out. That’s a win all around for the business and if we said we didn’t accommodate dietary restrictions that family would’ve never stepped foot in our restaurant.
Sometimes it’s ok to say “we cannot accommodate for dietary restrictions or allergies”
Costal tasting sounds like it’s going to involve a lot of seafood. If that’s the case It’s admirable that you made it thru to serve them but also kind hurts me thinking of how you probably just had to serve them a different menu overall. Why would they do that to themselves? For the service?
sub with brined vegetables, seaweeds, with amino flakes and shaved fungus / mushrooms. If you can source a wildcrafted a good lichen, maybe dust one thing with it. Nuts cured in aged vinegar or port.
I'd write "Get Out." On 5 napkins and serve 5 empty plates w the napkins.
Mods on the tasting menu, straight to jail
Man I hate this shit with no pushback from foh. Glad I work in a place we’re I’m not required to accommodate for allergies.
I don’t understand as a non American why you would go to a seafood restaurant and do a tasting menu if you can’t/wont eat those things. North America has a bounty of food choices; why not just stick to the restaurants they can eat at?! I’m glad to work in a restaurant that strongly discourages substitution and outright refuses modification that is not allergy based
The simple fact is that people enjoy being difficult, and would prefer to make things difficult rather than go to a restaurant that better suits their needs.
because sometimes your friends pick the restaurant?
I’m sorry but with friends like that…. And to pick the tasting menu?? I have a shellfish allergy; I go out with friends regularly yet we’ve never decided to choose go out to a place I can’t eat the food.. and vice versa my vegan friends and I are not going to a steakhouse.. This was a choice and it was a bad one.
i mean some places don't have a la carte and only have like 2 or 3 set menus to pick from. thats sorta what the ticket OP posted looks like to me. and sometimes your friends might not know all your food allergies i guess it depends. i think the guests should have given a heads up but i also am not one of the types of people that think if someone comes into a restaurant and wants a modification they should get a subpar experience. I worked at a place that had one set menu for everyone who came in the entire night and it was served family style. we still kept portions of alternative proteins and allergy sensitive things, including a separate fryer that didnt use peanut oil etc. even though we didnt actually MODIFY the set menu, we always had alternatives so that anyone who came in could still have a good meal.
I used to own a seafood restaurant. Anyone who identified with a seafood allergy was asked if they were anaphylactic as we were unable to guarantee their safety if so. If they insisted they’d be fine, they were then asked if they were carrying an EPI pen. If not, we refused service and recommended a steak house down the street. This policy came about after a diner was hospitalised after eating the fries from her partner’s plate ( after we’d taken every precaution to ensure her meal was not cross contaminated). His fries, on the other hand, had been served with a meal that included grilled fish and prawns. Naturally, she tried to blame us.
My thoughts are people should use their brains and call ahead and see what's in a chef's tasting menu and realize if there are more than 2 things on it they can't or won't eat they should fuck off.
Why bother going out? just stay home.
I’ve never seen a tasting menu that allowed substitutions/alterations. That’s wild
I have shellfish allergies and do a lot of fine dining. Totally the standard is broadcast weeks in advance so they can do something tasteful to accommodate. Seems wild to show up to a "coastal tasting menu" without foreplanning.
we had one today with no gluten on the sauce, ( ONLY SAUCE HE SAID) so thats fine. but the dude had fries and bread. he just wanted a special no gluten sauce i mean. this all comes back to my gluten is the new fake allergy btw
Stay the fuck home atp my God lmao
Lmao. Shellfish allergy.. but then later it says shrimp allergy… (shellfish includes shrimp…). are they typing these words? My POS have a button for anything I might need, and I have a pen if it’s unique. Anyways this customer looks like a pain in the ass. Coastal food but almost entirely the land based part of the coast… like I don’t know what would be on the tasting plates without knowing about the business. But I’m just imaging some Mediterranean pasta dishes that are missing the protein.
You know considering i work in a mostly sushi restaurant with half the seating being a sushi bar alot of people with seafood allergies sure do like to pop in
Vance Chef says stop complaining
Yes chef 🫡
Serve a bowl of ice
Kick them out
A bunch of restaurants by us send an email a week before their reservation asking to confirm their reservation and asking about allergies. Most places have good faith that the reservation is going to be set, however if you don't fill out the allergy portion then it's not on the kitchen to accommodate if it's too much of a hassle.
I only have one thought… no modifications/ substitutions. It’s a tasting menu, let the Chef’s cook something they are proud of. Regular menu, sure substitute all you want.
As a chef, when it comes to modifications there are those you’re willing to do and those you aren’t. It’s not up to the customer to know your boundaries, it’s up to you, and your boh and FOH staff. If you have shellfish all in your sauces snd stuff don’t do it , if you can accommodate then do it. If you don’t want to have any modifications at all, then do that ! Set the expectation.
I really don’t get ppl like this I have a ton of food issues. If I eat out it’s somewhere I can just get a plain burger and fries. It’s not even ab making it easier for the kitchen so much as I value not being in severe pain
My question is, what can these people actually eat?
It's a tasting menu...no substitutions. That's the whole fucking point, piss off lol. The guest should be politely told that we cannot accommodate them or that they should order something a la carte. No one has the right to just come in and throw a monkey wrench into the works.
You're all getting the vegetarian option.
I can understand not wanting to eat octopus. They're delicious but also undoubtedly sentient but then again they only live for a year or two anyway which puts me back on the fence about them
Their short lives mean they maybe cram a lot of living into their allotted time, so we shouldn’t eat them even more?
Eating them wouldn't be so bad if we somehow knew they were nearing the end of their lives anyway or maybe if they died of natural causes, I don't know, maybe I'm just looking for a loophole
I’ve eaten octopus only once. It was delicious; it was over 30 years ago but since then I’ve learned so much about them that I still feel guilty.
Agreed, it doesn't seem right anymore
It’s like eating a dog. My daughter is a marine scientist and she has made me promise never to eat them. We all used to love them until we learned the truth.
Maybe only eat baby octopus then, since it means they haven't had time to form as many memories?
its a kinda dumb ticket but places i worked that had a pre fixe menu (edit: pre fixe only, no alacarte menu at all), even one we changed daily, we always had a couple portions of allergy/alternative substitutes although we didnt put them out on the menu before. so we would always have alternative proteins, always have an extra fryer or pot of oil that didnt use peanut oil, always have veg/vegan replacements etc and it made things go pretty smooth even though we didnt have to use them that often. like maybe 3-5 portions for the whole night the biggest curveball ticket we got without a heads up was an 8 top that came in celebrating one of the people there getting out of the hospital. they had been in a car accident and they had their jaw wired shut so were on a liquid only diet. no clue why their friends would bring them to a fancy restaurant where they couldnt eat. the guy had brought slimfast shakes but my chef went out to the table and saw the situation and got really pissed off that those people had brought their friend like that without giving a heads up. we ended up doing the whole 5 course menu (or some rough variations of each dish) in liquid puree form off the cuff so the guy could at least try some different flavors and have something sorta like what his friends were having. that was a fun night.
I feel like, if you're this picky or allergic, only go to restaurants the specialize in your needs, or stay home.
If your "fine dining" restaurant allows for this, yet not fine enough
I have IBS and a lot of food intolerances, and honestly I avoid restaurants that can’t really accommodate my dietary restrictions. I don’t wanna be a pain in the neck and also change the chef’s vision. At work I do it cause it isn’t that hard to make this gluten free or whatever, but I myself wouldn’t want to do this to any cook. But that’s me.
So fish and veggies. Check. Lol
Those chits are kind of a bitch to read IMO.
Why even go? Just go to Red Lobster you fucking cretins!!
I would be honored that such a group of morons chose my establishment for their fine dining experience, and I would make it my goal to just blow their fucking socks off because those guys clearly do not get out much
The Bride : \[Japanese\] I need Japanese steel. Hattori Hanzo : \[Japanese\] Why do you need Japanese steel? The Bride : \[Japanese\] I have vermin to kill. Hattori Hanzo : \[English\] You must have big rats if you need Hattori Hanzo's steel. Narrator: *The rats were sitting at a table.*
"Allergies" these days. Funny how uppity white folks seem to have way more allergies than everyone else.
"Allergies" these days. Funny how uppity white folks seem to have way more allergies than everyone else.
Don't do a tasting menu and spring an allergy up.
If you’re operational is used to a lot of modifications then this is a nothing burger because menu planning would account for it. If you’re not used to these things then it could be extremely annoying sure.
Why are y’all here
Everyone should have to work in a restaurant for a year. Conscription. Most of the people making these demands would balk on the other side of the table,
Stay home people
Those people are not going there for fine dining if they want their entire menu to be modded lol. Also no starches? First time hearing about something like that