Walking into a restaurant feels like stepping into a world of possibility. The smell of sizzling garlic, the gentle clink of wine glasses, the promise of a meal someone else will cook and clean up after. It’s magical, really.
Yet behind the swinging kitchen doors, the people creating that magic often know something diners don’t. There are certain dishes they’d never touch when eating out themselves. It’s not paranoia or snobbery. It’s just the reality of working in kitchens long enough to see where corners get cut, where inventory gets old, and where margin pressures override common sense.
Daily Specials That Never Change
Executive chef Alberto Morreale from San Diego’s Farmer’s Bottega never orders specials at restaurants because some establishments use them to move ingredients that are about to expire or items they’re trying to get rid of quickly. The thing is, a true special reflects what arrived fresh that morning or what the chef genuinely got excited about. When you see the exact same truffle risotto labeled as a special week after week, that’s not special anymore, it’s just inventory management disguised as inspiration.
Think about it for a second. A special should be spontaneous, seasonal, a reflection of what’s available right now. According to chef Michael DeLone from New Jersey, ordering soup of the day is code in the hospitality industry for the kitchen trying to clear out walk-in inventory from the weekend before new vendor deliveries arrive. Not exactly the fresh culinary moment we’re hoping for when we shell out for a nice meal, right?
Chicken Breast Dishes at Most Places
Ryan Ososky, executive chef of The Church Key in West Hollywood, admits he’ll order almost anything when dining out except chicken because it tends to be overcooked at most restaurants. It’s honestly one of the saddest things on a plate when you think about it. Dry, flavorless, cooked within an inch of its life because restaurants fear lawsuits more than they fear serving boring food.
Chef Luke Shaffer notes that chicken breast at restaurants often comes out dry, and most establishments have far more interesting proteins to offer, so you can save the bland chicken for home cooking. According to the Food Network, chefs avoid ordering chicken in restaurants for many reasons, including overinflated prices and lack of originality. If you’re craving poultry, many chefs suggest going for thigh meat instead, which has more fat and flavor, making it harder to ruin completely.
Eggs Benedict and Brunch Items Generally
Let’s be real, brunch has a dark side that most of us don’t want to acknowledge. Chef Clifton Dickerson from the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts explains that hollandaise sauce is temperamental, especially during busy brunch rushes, and if it’s not made to order or held properly, you can end up with a broken sauce or something that’s been sitting too long. Worse yet, hollandaise contains raw egg yolks, which can harbor salmonella if left at improper temperatures.
Anthony Bourdain warned that brunch items like hollandaise are seldom made to order, and brunch shifts often get assigned to newer chefs, the so-called B-Team, working with leftover items from previous days rather than fresh ingredients. Nobody working the line actually wants to be there Sunday morning, hungover and slinging reheated odds and ends onto plates. The enthusiasm just isn’t there, and honestly, you can taste it.
Fish Specials on Mondays
Most fish markets don’t deliver on weekends, so the debate about not eating fish on Mondays continues among chefs, though some are comfortable ordering fish if the restaurant has a coastal location or is known for seafood. It sounds like one of those old wives’ tales until you realize the logic is pretty sound. If fresh deliveries come Tuesday through Friday, and you’re ordering grilled salmon on Monday night, that fish has been sitting around since last week.
Chef Eric Duchene from the JW Marriott Scottsdale Camelback Inn Resort warns that raw fish should not be ordered on Sunday nights because restaurants don’t receive deliveries on Sundays, so you won’t get the freshest products. Chef Mark Nichols, who owns JC’s Catering, won’t go near raw oysters if they were harvested more than 100 miles from the restaurant, explaining that if handled or stored incorrectly, raw oysters can kill you. That’s a sobering thought when you’re scanning the raw bar menu.
Well-Done Steak Orders
According to Anthony Bourdain’s 1999 article in The New Yorker, chefs have a tradition called save for well-done, where meat they would otherwise throw out is saved for customers who order cuts well-done, since overcooking can disguise toughness, bad smells, or other unsavory elements. It’s a harsh reality, something most diners would rather not know. The beautiful marbled ribeye you were imagining? That’s going to someone who ordered medium-rare.
Gordon Ramsay told Town & Country that overcooking meats diminishes the flavor and incredible texture, so he recommends listening to the chef’s advice or sticking to medium at most. Many chefs advise against ordering steak well-done not just for taste reasons, as hectic kitchens may reserve the thickest or oldest cuts for customers wanting their meat cooked through, since long cooking can hide some texture issues. If you genuinely can’t stand pink meat, consider braised dishes like short ribs or beef stew instead.
Overly Complex Pasta or Dishes Drowning in Sauce
Chef Brian Motyka from Chicago’s Longman & Eagle says he never orders risotto at restaurants because most of the time they’re pre-cooked, reheated, finished with cream, and overcooked beyond the proper al dente texture. Real risotto requires constant attention and precise timing, something that’s nearly impossible during a dinner rush. When a kitchen tries to shortcut it, you end up with gummy rice swimming in heavy cream, a sad imitation of what the dish should be.
Executive chef Eric Duchene warns against fish specials with bacon, noting that bacon is used to cover up the smell of old fish. Heavy sauces, excessive cheese, mountains of bacon, these aren’t always signs of generosity. Sometimes they’re red flags that something underneath isn’t quite right. Pastry chef Saura Kline from Denver advises never ordering anything with the word truffle in it unless you’re at a high-class fine-dining restaurant, as truffle oil is rarely made with actual truffles and tends to be used aggressively to immediately increase prices regardless of actual quality.
Here’s the thing. None of this means you should never enjoy these dishes again. It just means understanding the trade-offs. Maybe skip the Monday fish special but order it with confidence on Thursday. Pass on the elaborate sauce-heavy pasta and choose something simpler that lets the ingredients speak for themselves. Ask your server what they’re genuinely proud of today, what just came in, what the kitchen team is excited about making.
Because dining out should be a joy, not a gamble. The more you know about what’s happening behind those kitchen doors, the better choices you can make. So what do you think, will you reconsider your usual order next time?
