Frequency of menu change in restaurants

[tammylc]

While dining at a bistro in upstate New York on a business trip recently, my coworker D and I got to talking about what we look for in restaurants, and ye olde question of why there aren't any really good restaurants in our home town. I noted that a restaurant changing its menu regularly is one of the first things I look for in deciding where to eat. Red Newt Bistro, where we were having our conversation, changes their menu dramatically every 3 weeks. Most of the best restaurants I've been to are constantly modifying their menus. We couldn't come up with a single restaurant in Ann Arbor that made more than token occasional changes, with most of the menu remaining static.

I think there's a definite relationship between restaurant quality and menu rotation. A constantly changing menu means that a) the chef is taking advantage of seasonal availablity of foods and b) they're creative and inspired and enjoy trying new ideas.

What do you think?

[birder53]

A good basic menu supplemented with daily specials works for me. I'm not talking about upscale restaurants here, but not chains either. Innovative specials that capitalize on whatever is fresh and seasonal can be more fun than a total overhaul of the menu. Sometimes it's good to know that the old standbys are available in case the specials aren't what I'm interested in that day.

[jmsaul]

You probably want to define what you mean when you use terms like "really good" and "quality" here. You mean "American/Continental fine dining," because that's your personal preference. Ann Arbor has some "really good" restaurants that aren't in that category, and saying it doesn't because of the dearth of "fine dining" is kind of like going to a crowded mall and saying "nobody's here" because you don't see any of your friends... ;-)

Ethnic restaurants, which are providing a traditional menu without claiming to be cutting-edge innovators, can be very high quality without rapid menu rotation. A number of good-quality Chinese ones do run specials based on what's available (an example would be Great Lake in Ann Arbor, which I would class as "really good", and which has a white board with a lot of specials) but it isn't a requirement.

[tammylc]

jmsaul is right in describing my unstated bias. I was thinking of the category of interesting/ innovative upscale dining, which Ann Arbor is sorely lacking. We've got lots of great cheap and/or ethnic eats, but that's not what I'm talking about.

[docsconz]

This is an interesting question. I personally like restaurants that change/alter at least part of their menu frequently for the reason you mentioned, yet there are a number of restaurants at the very high end that apparently do not alter their menus very frequently at all, but appear not to suffer from that. The Fat Duck, although I have never been, is one that I hear hasn't changed its menu to any significant degree in some time. That would not be a problem for me since at best I would only be likely to get there very infrequently. It is a double-edge sword though. Some people like the comfort of always being able to order their favorite dishes, while others such as myself love exploring new creations.

[Chris Amirault]

Can't really do the local/seasonal thing without changing your menu pretty regularly, either.

[Rebo]

At the restaurant where I work, we try to balance seasonal with the old standbys tha guests demand. For example, we ALWAYS have salmon and crabcakes on the menu, but we'll change the sides and sauces that go with them to take advantage of what's fresh. Some guests, though, like it best when things don't change much.

[Sneakeater]

I don't see this as a controlling factor. I almost see it as independent of quality. Some good restaurants change their menus frequently -- almost daily -- and I like that. Some don't, and I like that, too. And some restaurants that aren't so good do both -- but them I'm not so fond of. I don't see it as having much bearing on the quality of the food. It's sort of a quality-neutral factor.

(To me, elevating factors like this to being quality-determinant is sort of like the Cult of the Coal Pizza Oven. As anyone who's eaten in DiFaro's or Nick's [those are just New York examples] or any of the other great steel-oven places can tell you, the greatest pizza doesn't necessarily come out of coal ovens. The skill and attentiveness of the chef and the quality of the ingredients trump that.)

Edited July 3, 2006 by Sneakeater (log)

[johnsmith45678]

I think it'd get mind-numbingly boring to be a chef at a place where the same thing was cooked day after day. But I think customers expect to see certain regular menu items that persist.

[Sneakeater]

Even places where the menu doesn't change daily often have specials.

[Devotay]

The clause on my menu that addresses this issue says it about as well as I can put it:

"We change the menu according to the seasons, the market, or Chef Kurt's whim."

This way we keep it interesting, fresh, and local.

Nearly everything rotates on and off my menu. The 2 items I can remove are the Paella (we're a tapas restaurant, after all) and the ensalata de pollo (chicken salad). If I removed the chicken salad I am convinced that the City Council would call a special session to address the situation.

[Sneakeater]

OK, I'm going to say something incendiary, and I apologize.

It seems to me that the people who are making the biggest deal about this live in secondary markets. Where maybe the kind of attention to fresh produce, and even to quality itself, that frequent menu changes evidences isn't something you necessarily take for granted. But if you live somewhere where you kind of take the availability of a lot of quality restaurants of various kinds for granted (and assume that any quality restaurant is going to use quality ingredients [at least insofar as its price range permits]), the constantly-changing menu becomes less important, certainly as in indicator of quality -- nothing more than a feature of certain restaurants, some of them much better than others (and some much worse).

Edited July 4, 2006 by Sneakeater (log)

[H. du Bois]

I don't think you're being incendiary. I think that you, as a New Yorker (or anyone who lives in a large city with great restaurants) have had a few decades more than the rest of the country of exposure to chefs who work with seasonal produce and artisanal products. I'm familiar with the area Tammy just visited, and until fairly recently, some of the restaurants she's described would have been unthinkable up there - god knows where they'd have found the ingredients once the farm stands had closed for the autumn. Outside of major urban centers, it can still be a struggle to find inspired food at a restaurant (my best bet for superb cuisine upstate is still at my sister's table). It would seem that the restaurants which are trying hard to provide inspired cooking in the rest of the country are presently marked by their attention to seasonality and change - hence, a lot of specials. Considering the entropy they're up against, it's probably a good thing.