Professional chefs spend their lives around food, working in kitchens that operate on razor-thin margins and tight schedules. Their inside knowledge of restaurant operations creates a fascinating perspective on dining out. When these culinary experts choose where to spend their own money, they often avoid dishes that everyday diners eagerly order.
What makes a chef cringe when scanning a menu isn’t always obvious to the casual diner. Sometimes it’s about food safety, other times it’s pure economics or simply knowing that certain dishes rarely live up to their potential when prepared in high-volume commercial kitchens. So let’s dive in and discover what the pros really think about these popular menu items.
The Daily Special That Never Changes
The soup of the day is one of the menu items you’ll never see Gordon Ramsay ordering at a restaurant, either, with the celebrity chef citing similar reasons. The concept sounds appealing enough – a fresh soup crafted specifically for today’s menu. Yet industry veterans know the reality can be quite different.
Ramsay has reportedly advised asking about how long specials have been on the menu. “It may be the case that it’s the soup du month.” This means that a restaurant may make a huge batch of soup that it serves over the course of several days to save money on ingredients. Unless you get there on the day the soup is made, you may end up eating something less than fresh that was made a while ago.
If the specials were items like roast chicken and veg, and now the soup of the day is a chicken vegetable soup, that’s a big red flag that the kitchen is using older, leftover ingredients to make the soup, instead of preparing something worthy in its own right. The economics of waste reduction often trumps freshness when restaurants need to use up ingredients before they spoil.
This is demonstrated in an episode of Kitchen Nightmares, when a waitress admits to Ramsay that jalapeño corn chowder has been the soup of the day all week. Professional chefs understand these kitchen realities and choose to spend their dining dollars elsewhere.
Hollandaise and the Eggs Benedict Gamble
When Chef Clifton Dickerson of the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts admitted that he never orders eggs Benedict when dining out, it came as no surprise. Many chefs have spoken out against the ills of an hollandaise sauce, including Anthony Bourdain. Dickerson clarified, “Don’t get me wrong – I love a good Benedict – but hollandaise sauce is temperamental, especially during a busy brunch rush. If it’s not made to order or held just right, you can end up with a broken sauce or something that’s been sitting too long.”
Popular brunch items such as hollandaise sauce are also, according to Bourdain, seldom made to order and are playgrounds for bacteria. The rich sauce requires precise temperature control and timing that busy restaurant kitchens often struggle to maintain during peak hours.
If the hollandaise is left at the incorrect temperature, the raw egg yolks contained within can go bad, potentially resulting in a bad case of salmonella-related food poisoning. Most professional chefs would rather avoid this risk entirely when dining out.
Brunch is also when the lesser group of cooks tend to get scheduled, such as newer chefs or what Bourdain calls the “B-Team.” No one likes being on brunch duty. You’re working with a lot of items from days past, so there’s less room for creativity. It often feels like you’re there to help the head chef and restaurant owner use up what they couldn’t sell.
The Chicken Conundrum
Many chefs, including those at upscale establishments, reportedly avoid ordering chicken at restaurants because it tends to be overcooked. Ososky is not alone in his no-to-chicken stance. According to the Food Network’s website, chefs avoid ordering chicken in restaurants for many reasons, including overinflated price and lack of originality.
Bourdain was highly critical of chicken for a number of reasons. In his iconic The New Yorker article, he was quick to point out that while most people think pork is unclean, chickens are infinitely more unsanitary. Commercially-grown birds are crammed together in suffocating conditions where they are susceptible to injury and disease. He goes on to point out that chickens are also breeding grounds for salmonella and are often the culprits of foodborne illness outbreaks in commercial kitchens.
According to CDC data, salmonella is among the most common causes of foodborne illness, and chicken can represent a significant contamination risk in commercial food preparation.
Professional kitchens often struggle with proper chicken preparation due to volume demands and time constraints. The protein requires careful handling and precise cooking temperatures that busy line cooks sometimes rush through.
Fish on the Wrong Day
Ordering fish in a restaurant is always a gamble. If it’s freshly caught, it’s heavenly. If it’s been sitting in the freezer all week, not so much. It’s important to know where the fish comes from and when it was caught. For example, in Hawaii many of the fish markets are closed over the weekend, so if fish is on the menu on Monday, it’s probably not fresh.
In Anthony Bourdain’s essay “Don’t Eat Before Reading This” in The New Yorker, he lets readers in on a fishy little secret: Fish is freshest on Tuesdays and Fridays when it’s delivered. He recommends avoiding the fish altogether on Sundays and Mondays when it’s the end of the stock.
“Avoid ‘fish specials’ with bacon,” warns Eric Duchene, executive chef of the JW Marriott Scottsdale Camelback Inn Resort & Spa. “Bacon is used to cover up the smell of old fish.” Similarly, Duchene notes that raw fish should not be ordered on Sunday nights, because “restaurants don’t receive deliveries on Sunda
Chef William Eick of Matsu painted his avoidance of fish on restaurant menus in broader strokes, saying that he steers clear of all fish dishes unless the fish is locally sourced or the restaurant boasts a spotless reputation. The perishable nature of seafood makes timing everything in restaurant dining.
Too Many Specials Mean None Are Special
Chef Gordon Ramsay has reportedly cautioned that when restaurants list too many specials, none of them are truly special. This insight reveals a fundamental truth about restaurant economics that most diners never consider.
“When I go out to eat at other restaurants, I never order the specials,” says executive chef and owner Alberto Morreale of Farmer’s Bottega, in San Diego. “Some restaurants put together their specials for the day based on what’s about to expire or what they’re trying to get rid of faster.” Instead, he asks the server to recommend something made with local ingredients, or what arrived fresh that day.
The daily specials should never be ordered, and the same goes for the chef’s choice, because it’s almost always got components that are either about to expire, have been reheated multiple times, or they’re just trying to get rid of stuff that is rarely ordered and there’s usually a good reason why people don’t order it in the first place.
The problem with restaurant specials is that instead of being something creative or exceptional, they are often dishes made with ingredients that are leftover from previous days and need to be used up or they’ll go bad. Experienced chefs recognize these patterns and steer clear of dishes that might compromise their dining experience.
The Overpriced Comfort Food Trap
“An entrée I will not order while eating out is mac & cheese of any sort,” notes Yulissa Acosta, chef de cuisine of Hearth ’61 at Mountain Shadows resort in Paradise Valley, Arizona. While undeniably delicious, the chef says it distracts from enjoying other dishes the restaurant may have to offer. “The richness that comes from the amount of cream, cheese, and butter that is used is simply too much. Instead, ask about the restaurant’s specials or go for another pasta entrée that has seasonal vegetables and some protein.”
Spaghetti, fettuccine or penne is common on non-Italian restaurant menus, yet pasta dishes are often overpriced, especially if you calculate the cost of ingredients. Marcus Mooney, executive chef of Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating, has high standards for pasta and rarely orders it at restaurants. He once worked for an Italian restaurant group in Chicago and says, “They were charging $20 for a plate of rigatoni with marinara sauce, and the cost was $1. I can’t bring myself to pay that much knowing what’s involved and how it is prepared.” The only time he orders a pasta dish at a restaurant is if he knows they do it well, such as a lasagna or ravioli, or if they make a great carbonara.
“Finally, I never order anything that I can make at home,” says Neil. “I want to go out to eat to enjoy something special that I can’t get at home, and if I can make it myself, it’s worth spending the money on in my eyes.”
The Wedge Salad Waste of Money
Another item that is never worth ordering in restaurants is the wedge salad. Chefs don’t bother wasting a good night out ordering something they could easily prepare at home. “Don’t order the wedge salad,” Ariane Resnick, celebrity chef, author, and certified nutritionist, told me. “You’re literally paying over ten dollars for a chunk of iceberg lettuce, often with pre-fab commercial dressing.”
Los Angeles chef Kayson Chong explains to Reader’s Digest that he avoids ordering simple green salads in restaurants, but it’s not because of food safety; instead, it’s because green salads are boring. That’s not to say that chefs don’t eat salads; they just don’t order them in restaurants where salads are not the star of the show and consequently, don’t receive much attention.
“When I go to a restaurant and sit with a menu, I tend to stay away from the House Salad,” says Kayson Chong, Los Angeles-based executive chef of The Venue. “I prefer to have something special that a chef created with seasonal products and interesting combinations. I like experiencing new and exciting things to eat when I go to other restaurants, not something I can find easily anywhere.” Michelin-starred chef Suvir Saran tends to avoid the chef’s vegetarian plate even though he’s a lover of all things vegetable. “They are never true representations of what a chef would really be inspired to present to a guest,” he explains.
The Mysterious Beef Tips
You see this offering on a range of menus, but what really is a beef tip? It consists of small, nearly bite-sized bits of beef, sometimes served marinated and grilled, other times smothered in a gravy. While some cuts of meat are best for beef tips (a filet or tenderloin, for supreme tenderness), there’s no consensus on what part of the cow the beef tips should come from. This lack of clarity leads Chef Christopher Diehl of Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts to avoid this dish when dining out. “I would never order any dish made with ‘beef tips’ or any dish that has a component I can identify as leftovers,” he said. “I know that the place can use these dishes as an outlet for scraps, and as much as I would love to help with food cost, I’m going for a main entree that wasn’t an afterthought.”
In “Kitchen Confidential,” Anthony Bourdain also suggests that dishes with ground beef, such as shepherd’s pie and chili, may be heavily comprised of leftovers. Different foods can keep for different amounts of time, and it’s critical that they’re stored at proper temperatures. Even fine dining restaurants get so busy that safety efforts such as temperature checks get pushed back. But why are dishes with ground beef often just reworked leftovers? These menu items are usually very sauce-heavy or busy which, similar to the way that overcooking masks imperfections, disguises the look and taste of older meat. It’s also harder for customers to tell the age and quality of ground beef, as the grinding process can hide the meat’s quality. These details make it easy for chefs to use ground meat for a longer period of time, so menu items like chili come in handy when leftovers need to go.
Now you know what seasoned chefs look for when they dine out. Their choices aren’t just about taste preferences – they’re informed decisions based on years of kitchen experience and industry knowledge. The next time you’re scanning a menu, consider following their lead. Choose dishes that showcase fresh ingredients and careful preparation rather than those that might mask inferior components or outdated products.
What do you think about these professional insights? Will they change how you order at your next restaurant visit?
