Style over Substance? Restaurant wooden plates, my old Archenemy returns.

Many years ago working at one of the restaurants of the Gleaneagles hotel, the manager asked me to take care of the table of the Japanese ambassador because he thought they would be in safe hands.

Now in the whole menu the one item I hated the most was the duck served in a wooden slab and cast iron plate.  It was so heavy and the chefs, who liked torturing waiters,  ensured there was so much sauce that even the sightliest tilt would guarantee a mini sauce waterfall.  Of course Murphys Law ensures that the ambassador had to order the duck and  I became the proud creator of a mini sauce waterfall that landed on the back of the ambassador...

Fast forward today and the wooden plates/slabs are making such a big comeback that it feels that everyone is using them for every imaginable menu item.  My last experience was taking my family of four to a restaurant where the wooden tables that could sit four, could NOT accommodate four of those wooden plates with the best will in the world.

But what prompted this post is a recent experience shared by a colleague where their lamb chops were delivered in those flat wooden slabs with a little gravy dish on the side.  Gravy waterfall anyone?

I like style as much as the next person but not when the attempt for authenticity becomes nothing more than a problematic superficiality.  As a restaurateur you are unlikely to give steak knife to the customer that ordered fish, (unless you are Basil Fawlty) why should wooden slabs be treated differently?  And if you are still an unconvinced restaurateur  then I dare you to serve soup in those wooden slabs to your customers, I am certain they will appreciate it immensely!


PS. A special thank you to Petra for sharing her experiences and taking me back the memory lane to my waiter misadventures at the Gleneagles.