The Resurgence of the Tasting Menu

Eating out is all about a choice. People pick the places they visit to sample specific cuisines, to indulge in cultivated offerings pertaining to culture.

Consumers weigh up their options and decide on what to dazzle their tastebuds with based on this. Feeding a raft of choices to hungry customers has always stood caterers and eateries in advantageous ground, and this works regardless of how expansive or limited a main menu is.

But rather than just opting for a singular, sizeable dish, a real penchant grew in the public’s appetite for series of smaller dishes to sample a wider range of flavours and taste profiles. The tasting menus as they were aptly coined, became a popular portion for lots of eateries to offer. Shifting into the realm of fine dining, and growing to “marathon” proportions, tasting menus started to gain a tarnished reputation and lose popularity as the cost of them stretched, while the portion sizes shrank, resulting in quite a limited appeal.

However, in the current, and tiring, cost-of-living climate where caterers, whether mobile weekend units, or well-established bricks and mortar restaurants, have felt huge squeezes on their profits. Many factors have contributed to this, but the soaring costs of ingredients has hit like a hammer smashing through each plate laid out on tables for an evening service. The hospitality sector has always mustered a keen resilience and found found positive angles to pursue and methods to adapt to, in order to survive no end of the challenging circumstances it can often be faced with. Sometimes as well trends have their time, but remain primed for a resurgence later down the line – as it seems to be the case with tasting menus.

Offering a shorter selection at more affordable prices ticks boxes for cost in the customer’s point of view, and profitability for the business. Given that prices have risen across the board for pretty much any menu items now anyway, a tasting menu is a lot more palatable to market and to offer at a price that is a win-win for all involved.

Of course, as a concept this is more well-suited to some businesses than others, but it is open to individual approaches and the more personalised or specific to the business, perhaps the more attractive consumers will find it. This avenue could work well to allow chefs to experiment with dishes, that then could grow into fully fledged menu options of their own. Smaller plates; wider options.

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