YOU DON’T EAT PAINTINGS, SO A CHEF IS NOT AN ARTIST

Why restaurants need to get over themselves and accept substitutions

Every corner of this country has its go-to foods. New Brunswick has lobster, Quebec has poutine and Alberta has beef. Following this logic, I decided to order a hamburger for lunch on a recent visit to the mountainous province. Everything was as it should have been, except that I wanted my burger to come with salad instead of fries.

“Unfortunately,” the waitress began, drawing a tired inhale that seemed to indicate she had already explained the same point at least a dozen times that day. “We don’t take substitutions, so we can’t substitute the fries.”

“But you have salad,” I protested, pointing to the list of entrée salads on the menu. “I’ll pay extra for it.”

“Sorry, but you’re going to have to order a full entrée salad if you want salad, and the burger is still going to come with fries, even if you don’t want them,” she said.

I ordered the $18 burger and the $16 salad in an irate blur. By the time each entrée arrived at our table, the combination was a sloppy mockery of a meal. The burger, featuring a stale bun that had been died black with activated charcoal — a failed attempt to capitalize on the unending charcoal food trend — arrived long before the salad, which was presented like a disappointing lettuce dessert only after the burger had been cleared away.

It’s not news that restaurants offer a transactional experience. Nothing changes the fact that, as diners, our main role in a restaurant setting is to pay for our meals. But no one wants to feel like a walking wallet when they’re trying to enjoy a burger, which is how I was made to feel when the restaurant refused to entertain my simple salad request. It wasn’t the first time that a restaurant has refused a simple substitution. By now the annoying trend has escalated to a fullblown culinary endemic. As chefs continue their rise to global superstardom, many have forgotten what it means to prepare foods to please their guests.

In a somewhat reassuring revelation, it appears no one is immune to this brand of culinary snobbery. At Gjelina in Los Angeles, a pregnant Victoria Beckham was famously refused a request to remove the grapefruit, avocado and red onion toppings on a salad and to have the dressing served on the side. The news made international headlines when it happened in 2011, but when the Los Angeles Times reached out to Gjelina for a statement, the restaurant refused to apologize for its decision. Instead, they stated that the no substitutions policy was “clearly stated on the menu” and hung up.

It’s easy to understand why certain restaurants, especially those specializing in fast and casual service, might not want to accommodate complex substitutions. Having to create a customized off-menu meal option for individual guests can slow an entire kitchen down. What’s more difficult to understand, however, is why restaurants refuse to acknowledge that there is a difference between fussy diners and those asking for simple swaps or omissions – especially when the request is being made because of an allergy, special diet or religious belief.

There are only two possible reasons why someone might think that lumping all of these substitutions into the same broad category is a good idea. The first is that the rigid rules are a knee jerk overreaction to the endless dietary restrictions that we, as diners, have begun carrying to restaurants like the latest hot streetwear accessories.

Having worked in the service industry, I can’t fault restaurants for being a little mad about jumping through hoops to accommodate certain dietary restrictions. Recently, I watched a diner who claimed celiac disease at the start of a meal devour a gluten-laden olive oil cake for dessert after finishing several glasses of wine. There will always be guests who push the limits of a kitchen’s patience, but they should not ruin the experience for everyone else who comes in and asks for their meal to be gluten-free.

The second reason explains the increasingly popular “no saltshaker policy,” which is yet another symptom that has arisen from chefs being adored as artists and celebrities. Why entrust a customer to season food to their liking when the chef has already created a work of art? By propping chefs up as cultural icons, we give them permission to become too precious with their food. In many kitchens, the idea that the customer is always right has been completely abandoned. In its place is the ill-formed belief that to mess with a chef ’s work is to mess with artistry. The difference, of course, is that no one has ever had to eat a painting.When visiting restaurants, I have begun carrying a small tin of Maldon salt in my bag, and it has improved the food I’ve eaten. Unfortunately, not all substitutions are as easy to fix.

In her book Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichl describes an encounter with a disgruntled New York restaurateur:

“Do you know what a restaurant is?” he asked.

“A place where people pay to eat?”

“A war zone,” he replied. “Never forget that. They,” he pointed to the kitchen door, “are on one side. These people,” sweeping the dining room with his arms, “are on the other.”

The restaurateur’s proclamation may seem dramatic, but he’s mostly right. Accommodating simple substitutions is one of the most quintessential ways that a restaurant can show guests that their patronage is valued. It shouldn’t matter if that same guest goes on to stuff their face with cake after claiming gluten intolerance (even if it causes the entire kitchen to roll their eyes so viciously it shifts the room’s centre of gravity).

Restaurants will always offer a transactional relationship to their customers. That’s because a restaurant is a business. The business that a restaurant is in is serving people. When a restaurant runs its business correctly, however, the customer should never be made to feel that their experience was transactional, let alone that they just visited a war zone.