Customer Faux Pas or Restaurant Bourgeoisie?

The following was written in response to a friend’s visit to a posh restaurant here in town.  A member of their dining party ordered one of the thick cut steaks on the menu and asked that it be cooked medium well.  The chef (as is his right) refused to serve the steak at the requested temperature.

High end restaurants spend a lot of money to get premium cuts of beef.  If you cook them past medium you have cooked out everything that makes them special, they taste just like the road kill at Applebee’s.  Also, the cuts at these restaurants tend to be really thick and often with a bone in them.  You cannot put out a good product because the way to get thick cuts cooked mid-well or well without drying them out or burning them is to cook them at a low temperature for a long period of time (1 to 1.5 hours).  It is simply not possible in a typical restaurant setting where the fast food nation expects their plate to arrive within 15 minutes.  Typically, these diners are also the least forgiving/most demanding customers and have little patience.

By ordering a cut like this mid-well or well you are forcing the chef to produce an inferior product.  Remember they are artists, it wounds their pride.  To the chef it is like telling Picasso he has to paint “Dogs Playing Poker” on black velvet.  Ordering like this sends a signal to the service staff and other diners that this person does not belong – they are out of their element.  I do not always subscribe to this school of thought but that is the social impact of it.  If it is a dinner where you want to appear sophisticated but just do not like red meat (which also includes tuna, salmon and duck all of which should be served either rare or mid-rare) it is better to go with white flesh seafood or poultry lest others wrongly judge you a bumpkin.
 
Remember, part of the high end restaurant’s goal is to exude class and sophistication – they are places for people who are looking to impress – it is as much about status as anything and to be successful to their core clientele it is sometimes necessary to offend someone who is a casual diner.  It’s the same reason they have dress codes – their reputation depends on it.  It is class snobbery.  I don’t care for it but there is a boat load of money to be made from catering to snobs.  To put it in fashion parlance it is like wearing overalls to the Oscars.  Also, if the menu states that they will not cook steaks past medium then it is just plain rude to ask them to do so.  Asking anyway is no different then belching or cursing loudly.  The same goes for asking for substitutions when the menu states “no substitutions.”  Substitutions or modifications of any kind, by the way, are also considered poor manners at high end restaurants.  The other element is that these places design their menus for “foodies,” people like myself who want to get the very best flavor.  We (foodies) do not see something as gross; to us it is rustic.

I have never met anyone who eats meat mid-well or well because it tastes better.  Most eat it that way because they can’t stomach the idea of eating all that blood.  This thought process is childish.  Others believe that it is healthier but they are wrong – one of the leading causes of colon cancer is well done red meat.  Medium rare is the healthiest temperature.  The lone exception is ground meats, because of the risk of outside contamination (like  E. coli) it is necessary to cook them medium well to insure that all pathogens are killed, but this is only a risk with ground meats (hamburger, sausage, etc.).
 
I’m not preaching, by the way, I would hate for someone to have an important job interview at a swanky Manhattan or LA restaurant and lose the gig because no one has taught them these goofy unwritten rules of so-called polite society.  If it were my restaurant I would simply have the server inform you that yes, we can cook that steak well done but the minimum cooking time is one hour.  If you are serious about having a well done steak that is worth the price you are paying for it then you will gladly wait the one hour.  If time is an issue then it gives you a chance to order something that better fits your time constraints.