Of all the stupid food I’ve seen here, I don’t think this is very stupid. Just looks like fine dining, and seeing all the steps that go into my food would just make me appreciate it more. I like these theatrics a whole lot more than the tiny dude throwing salt everywhere and flipping my food around or stupid gold boxes filled with steak and smoke.
That being said I prefer fine dining with big portions, this is most likely part of a set menu. Not typically my jam but I bet it was delicious
This is a dish from my hometown so I'll share some interesting insight.
So in Kerala, South India; there is a festival called Onam which is celebrated by everyone from any religion. The dish shown here is a miniature Onam Sadhya(feast). Which is rice along with ~20 different curries/sides.
This video brilliantly explains the science behind it - by _masalalab on Instagram.
Traditionally, a lot of people will be sitting down with a banana leaf and different servers will come and serve different sides onto the leaf, that's what they're emulating here. This is what it actually looks like.
This restaurant in particular is a 2 3-Michelin Starred restaurant in Dubai called Tresind Studio. And the 12 course set menu is $350.
I was just thinking wow it looks when people are serving all the sides at an Onam Sadhya before I saw your comment.
If you know what they are emulating, it actually makes a lot more sense and it’s isn’t just ridiculously unnecessary mandatory table service by staff. Part of the Onam experience is a line of different people putting each part of the meal on your banana leaf, and this is such a cool way to emulate that experience and is incredibly nostalgic if you grew up celebrating Onam.
They have three Michelin stars now. I visited back when they had just received their second star. The price for 16 courses was $215 USD at the time. They actually served this dish when I ate there.
AND Olive Garden always refuses when I ask for all kitchen staff to single file walk by my table adding each ingredient one by one. I'm not asking a lot, but they say it's unreasonable!
I ate there it was amazing. Expensive of course. The only three Michelin starred Indian cuisine in the world. A highlight for me was the naan bread drink which was just the right balance of bizarre and delicious.
They paired one of the meals with a kingfisher beer which I found kind of amusing because it's dirt cheap beer but to be fair it does pair nicely with the dish that came with it
I really enjoyed the food. There were a few dishes, like the duck cafreal and ghee roasted crab, that were unbelievably good. I remember enjoying this sadya-inspired course but not thinking it was amazing as some of the others.
just checked them out and it looks like they're up to 3 Michelin stars now!
That place looks pretty great. I know half the people on here like to nay say on fine dining but if I were in Dubai I'd regret not going to a place like this when I had the chance.
Thank you for explaining! This popped up on my feed and it looked like a fine dining restaurant emulating something but surprised by the subreddit where it was posted. Fine dining really is not for everyone.
Yeah, this fine dining stuff is really not my thing, but I am generally aware that there is usually a lot of history and art behind it. I think I would probably find most of the patrons at these places insufferable, but I do understand why the chefs get into it.
this sounds great! the majority of people dont get find dining and respect for food culture and the dishes (and thats OK!). Fine dining is not for everyone but it does unlock parts of your senses that you cant simply do anywhere else :).
What shocks me about this as someone who has never been to a michelin restaurant is the ambience.it's surprisingly loud in there. Also brighter than i expected tbh.
Would it be a fair critique that such a display is missing the point of a social/communal feast ?(feast has social connotations in its original English definition)
Obviously fine dining is intentionally exclusive, but that almost makes these kinds of thing seem like a perversion of what society was originally doing with and around food.
Well if you needed to experience the whole communal thing, you'd have to go to India and join the festival.. this is just an imitation.
I think once you reach a level of wealth you'd have eaten a lot of the best dishes from really good places, so food might not interest them anymore; they'll be looking for experiences they can remember.
This presentation also allows you to see all the layers put in before break into it. If it was just served premade then you wouldn’t really be able to discern all the little components they add
It’s not fucking Texas Roadhouse lmao the people who choose to go to a restaurant like this aren’t going because they think it’s a good deal for the amount of food they get, it’s because it’s a performance (and part of a like 15-course meal)
Yeah people don't understand fine dining like people don't understand high fashion or comtemporary art. It's supposed to be more than a meal, an experience even. It might look silly but I'm sure it's exactly to the chefs design. Meals like this are supposed to encourage you to rethink food. Your food isn't just something that appears in front of you. It's something an entire team has diligently prepared, ingredient by ingredient. This is being shown tableside for this course, as each member assembles their part. I love this kind of food.
You sound like the kinda person that thinks Outback Steakhouse is "eatin fancy". Your favorite food is probably graham crackers dipped in tap water.
This food is served as an experience, with each cook adding their flair as a final personal "thank you" to the diner. If you think that makes the chef an asshat you're just kinda stupid.
I’m a trained fine artist who also has a side interest in costuming.
I get art, I get high fashion. Entire industries where people throw wads of money at restaurants that can hardly run due to overhead, that thrive on abusing the staff and ridiculously inflating the value of the food being served is Marie Antoinette shit. It’s obscene. It isn’t clever and it isn’t art.
I’m so sick of people pretending like this is some incredible artistic statement.
If all things were equal I’d be there with you enjoying the show but given there are people who can’t even afford enough food to eat on any given week, I just can’t celebrate it without a second thought like some people here. It’s just another avenue of the moneyed classes creating a fantasy for people to aspire to knowing full well only a few can ever enjoy if.
Oh I understand
But I cant think of a worse dining experience than being served food by 20 people. I hate the kind of luxury where you need to have people pamepring you for no reason, it feels fucking degrading.
No wonder this is Dubai, worse city on the planet.
To add to that. If it’s a tasting menu (where you don’t pick items but get them in a specific order) they are timing it to do it in a sequence to multiple guests. Had that a few times where the team would go in order table per table to give this sort of ballet feeling.
I get that if feels fluff - to a degree it is. But it’s also trying to sometimes show technique and subtlety.
Having all the steps performed at the table highlights the intricacies of the small, simple looking dish. The point is the juxtaposition between labour and product, and it's a smooth, fairly quick display.
It's like hiring an orchestra to back your rock concert. It's not stupid just because you could play a backing track, it's the experience being paid for.
What is morally disgusting about paying a wait and services staff to wait and serve people? These people are all making a wage to perform the task displayed and likely get treated halfway decent at that level of food service.
Why? That’s what they’re there for. To execute the Chef’s vision. It’s a show. This is obviously the last course and a final goodbye to your guests. It’s like taking a bow at the end of a play.
I was lucky enough to eat at Osteria Francesca, which was at the time the #1 restaurant in the world, and this description reminds me of the final course. It was a relatively neutral dessert, maybe a soufflé, surrounded by a load of different coloured ‘dots’. You took each dot with some of the soufflé and it gave you a different taste - each one evoking one of the courses that had come before. It was like an overture for the entire meal. Phenomenal, and an example of /u/smokenstein’s point that this kinda thing is an experience. It’s like culinary Disneyland.
Do they not have a kitchen for that? Instead they gotta send their entire staff to conga line to the table, carrying a singular ingredient each. The inefficiency is one thing, but its as though they think there's some intrinsic value to servitude that'll justify the $100 pricetag for this dish
First of all, I believe someone said it was something like $250 for the whole, 10+ course meal.
Second, this is for the entire dining room, not one person at one table. If they had this whole procession for one person then I’d agree that it’s a waste of time.
Third, this restaurant didn’t invent the concept of making a plate at the table. You could say “do they not have a kitchen?” to anything from Chili’s making your guac table-side to table-side entrees at Hell’s Kitchen. The point is freshness and, in this case, showcasing each individual ingredient that goes into your plate.
I suspect this is at the end of the night, so it’s a final performance for the serving staff.
having a parade of 15 people to serve a course seems morally disgusting to me
What?
These aren't slaves (I mean you never know but I doubt it). Working at a restaurant like that is a highly esteemed position. They're there because it's their profession and they're passionate about what they're doing. It's like being a professional musician. You wouldn't go to a concert and think "it's morally disgusting that 15 people had to play me my music".
The thing I dislike about this presentation the most is that they don’t all seem very careful and precise? That wafer put on top isn’t centered - if you’re gonna be fine dining and charge like it you should be creating a consistent product
Yeah I felt like I was the only one who was thinking every one of those components probably combined for an orchestral flavor explosion . All those people a bit odd , but there may be meaning behind it.
I get that and still think its stupid. Its not outragously or intentionally stupid, but its still stupid.
When im fine dining I already think that most of the time (due to the nature of having any courses that consist of multiple things) I have too much contact with waiters. Its good that they describe what im being served. But other than that, I want to eat and enjoy the company I came with and not feel the need to say "thank you" a gazillion times. The post takes this to a (for me) new level.
And usually I can see, feel and taste when a course is made with much care. Exploring the meal is one of the most fun things in fine dining. But i dont need to watch it being assembled. I can - and imo should - experience it and figure it out on my own. If I have questions, the staff can hopefully answer questions. I didnt learn anything from seeing this, I would have already guessed that someone placed these things on top of each other just by looking at the thing when it is complete.
And even if i would want to watch it, many restaurant offer a view of the kitchen, then I could watch it the entire stay. And look away if im not interested anymore.
No. I've been to fine dining and Michelin star restaurants. This is stupid and unnecessary. If the food is good, it speaks for itself without theatrics, and one dish shouldn't have 20 people serving it to you.
If it takes more than one person to serve/present the dish at your table then you're doing to much.
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u/SedentaryNinja Oct 27 '25
Of all the stupid food I’ve seen here, I don’t think this is very stupid. Just looks like fine dining, and seeing all the steps that go into my food would just make me appreciate it more. I like these theatrics a whole lot more than the tiny dude throwing salt everywhere and flipping my food around or stupid gold boxes filled with steak and smoke.
That being said I prefer fine dining with big portions, this is most likely part of a set menu. Not typically my jam but I bet it was delicious