You sit down at a restaurant, scan the menu, and feel confident in your choices. But what if the people who actually spend their lives in professional kitchens would quietly pass on half of what you’re about to order? Chefs eat out too, but they don’t eat like the rest of us. They’ve seen behind the curtain, and that changes everything.
From freshness tricks to shocking markup secrets, there’s a whole other layer to reading a menu that most diners never access. These are the nine dishes that seasoned chefs skip without saying a word. Let’s find out why.
1. The Soup of the Day
It sounds wholesome, even comforting. But here’s the thing: professional chefs know exactly what “soup of the day” really means inside a busy kitchen. Ordering the “Soup of the Day” is essentially code in the hospitality industry for the back of the house trying to get rid of walk-in inventory from the weekend before vendor deliveries arrive for the following week.
The reality is that restaurants have a tendency to serve their soup of the day several days in a row. This is done to decrease food waste, but it can result in you ordering a fairly expensive dish that is neither special nor fresh. Honestly, you’re often paying a premium for yesterday’s leftovers dressed up in a bowl.
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. Ramsay even recommends asking your waiter what the soup du jour was yesterday, as their answer can clue you into how fresh and daily that soup special really is. If the server hesitates, you have your answer.
2. The Daily Specials
Servers push specials with infectious enthusiasm, and it’s easy to assume that means something exciting just arrived in the kitchen. Chefs know better. Executive chef and owner Alberto Morreale of Farmer’s Bottega in San Diego says he never orders the specials, because 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.
There are a few reasons why something might end up as a special. It could be because the chef is experimenting with a new dish, or because they wanted to make something seasonal. But in many cases, there is a pretty ordinary reason why something ends up as a special: the ingredients were approaching their use-by date.
If the restaurant you’re dining in has more than a couple of specials, this is also a major red flag, as it indicates a scattergun approach to output. Plus, be wary of specials that always seem to be a permanent fixture on a menu. By their very nature, specials are limited-edition items that are meant to be gone by the end of the night.
3. Raw Oysters
Oysters look elegant, feel luxurious, and carry that “I know food” energy. Chefs, however, treat them with serious caution. Chef Lyle McKnight has noted that oysters, while delicious, can be a real gamble, and they can definitely make you ill if not super fresh and stored properly, and can also carry norovirus.
While oysters are full of vitamins and minerals, they can also be dangerous, especially if they’re not prepared properly. When oysters are served raw, there is a risk of contracting a Vibrio infection. The most serious type, Vibrio vulnificus, can result in limb amputations and even death. That’s not a risk most chefs are willing to take casually.
Many people who have worked in the restaurant business don’t order oysters when they dine out, unless it is the restaurant’s specialty. Experienced oyster shuckers and chefs note that oyster expertise is not to be underestimated, as people who work with the shellfish every day will know the tell-tale signs of a bad one. In other words, unless the place lives and breathes oysters, step away from the shell.
4. Anything With Truffle Oil
Few menu words carry the prestige of “truffle.” It signals luxury, refinement, and a certain culinary seriousness. The problem is that in most restaurants, what you’re actually getting has almost nothing to do with real truffles. What started as a convenience has become an industry-wide practice, with roughly four out of five truffle oils relying on synthetic ingredients rather than actual fungi.
Many truffle oils are not made from truffles, but instead use manufactured aromatic compounds including 2,4-dithiapentane with an oil base. This chemical compound is the dirty little secret of the truffle oil industry. Most truffle oils do not contain any real truffles; instead, they are flavored with an aromatic petroleum-based chemical that perfumes the oil with its phony scent.
Chef William Eick of Mission Avenue Bar and Grill has said that these synthetic versions don’t have any relation to the actual taste of truffle, but are becoming more common because they are a cheaper option. They also give guests a false sense of flavor once they encounter true truffles. Martha Stewart and Anthony Bourdain have both publicly condemned truffle oil for years, and most serious chefs agree entirely.
5. The House Salad
Salads feel like the safe, sensible choice. They’re healthy, light, easy. Yet chefs tend to look right past them on the menu. Part of it is value. Executive chef Kayson Chong of The Venue in Los Angeles says he tends to stay away from the house salad because he prefers to have something special that a chef created with seasonal products and interesting combinations. Michelin-starred chef Suvir Saran also avoids the chef’s vegetarian plate because such dishes are never true representations of what a chef would really be inspired to present to a guest.
Even foods most Americans consider “healthy” can pose serious foodborne illness risks, and food safety experts warn that salads, sprouts and deli meats are among the everyday items they personally refuse to eat. Leafy greens now cause more outbreaks than hamburgers. That detail alone stopped a lot of chefs from casually throwing a side salad onto their orders.
From 1998 to 2008, most foodborne illness outbreaks were associated with leafy vegetables alone, more than any other food category. Between 2014 and 2021, 78 foodborne illness outbreaks were linked to leafy greens, primarily lettuce. It’s hard to look at a $16 restaurant salad quite the same way after you know that.
6. Well-Done Steak
Ordering a steak well-done is one of those choices that, behind the kitchen doors, quietly changes what ends up on your plate. According to Anthony Bourdain’s writing, chefs have a tradition called “save for well-done,” meaning meat that they would otherwise throw out is saved for customers who order a cut well-done. Overcooking meat can disguise toughness, bad smells, or otherwise unsavory elements, and it saves restaurants money by not throwing out undesirable meat.
Many chefs despair at customer requests for a well-done steak as it ruins the quality of meat. As a result, you may be served an inferior cut, as executive chef Dan Schroeder of Park Heights restaurant in Tupelo, Mississippi, has warned. The irony is that the customers who order it well-done are often the most price-conscious, and yet they’re the least likely to get good value.
Cooking steak until well done can dry out the meat and ruin its tender, juicy flavor. Because the meat needs to be heated so much longer for a well-done steak, the natural juices escape the beef, and the fibers can become unpleasantly chewy and tough. Because of its unappetizing results, many chefs consider well-done steak to be a waste of good meat. There’s no polite way to put it: it’s a lose-lose order.
7. Restaurant Chicken Dishes
Chicken feels like a completely safe, reliable restaurant order. Nothing adventurous, nothing risky. Chefs disagree. Executive chef Ryan Ososky of The Church Key in West Hollywood says he will order almost anything when he goes out, but never chicken because it tends to be overcooked at most restaurants. He is not alone in his stance, with Food Network reporting that chefs avoid ordering chicken in restaurants for many reasons, including overinflated price and lack of originality.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, salmonella kills 420 Americans each year and is behind 26,500 hospitalizations and 1.35 million infections annually. Chicken and turkey are responsible for roughly a quarter of these incidents. Pair that with the fact that chicken is one of the most mishandled proteins in busy restaurant kitchens, and you start to understand the hesitation.
Aside from cleanliness and health reasons, chefs like Anthony Bourdain mentioned that they tend to be bored by the meat. Chicken is a filler for many chefs, and it occupies its ubiquitous place on menus as an option for customers who can’t decide what they want to eat. Let’s be real: if even the chefs are bored by it, maybe there’s something better to order.
8. Mozzarella Sticks and Frozen Appetizers
They show up on nearly every casual dining menu. They look harmless, maybe even fun. The problem is that mozzarella sticks, and many similarly popular appetizers, almost never start from scratch in a real kitchen. Mozzarella sticks are one of those appetizers that are far easier to buy frozen than make from scratch, so most restaurants do just that. Not only does this mean that they’re not fresh, but it also means that you’re paying a lot of money for something that costs the restaurant very little.
Chef Mawa McQueen of Crepe Therapy Café says she never orders anything processed or pre-made because food should nourish you, not weigh you down. She stays away from anything that feels overly complicated or artificial, and if she sees a dish that screams “convenience” instead of “craft,” she passes. That is a standard a lot of chefs hold when they sit down to eat somewhere else.
Chef Dickerson has said that if a dish looks like it was made more for Instagram than for eating, it’s a hard pass. Similarly, Chef Jorge Dionicio of Kansha in Manhattan says he usually skips anything that feels overly processed or gimmicky, things that rely more on presentation than substance. He values food that’s rooted in intention, not trend, because he wants to taste the ingredient, not just the concept.
9. Seafood Early in the Week
This one is almost a universal rule among chefs, and it goes back to something surprisingly simple: delivery schedules. Since most fish markets don’t deliver on weekends, the debate over not eating fish on Monday continues to rage among freshness-loving chefs. Many avoid it like the plague, but others are comfortable ordering fish if the restaurant has a coastal location or is known for seafood.
If you see fish on the menu on a Monday, it might be best to avoid it. On Reddit, many chefs and servers recommend not ordering seafood early in the week at all, because it’s usually left over from the weekend. This isn’t paranoia. It’s a pattern that emerges when you understand how supply chains and kitchen inventory actually work week to week.
In his book “Kitchen Confidential,” Anthony Bourdain wrote that he never orders fish on Monday, unless eating at a four-star restaurant where he knows they are buying their fish directly from the source, because he knows how old most seafood is on Monday, about four to five days old. A Friday catch that sits through the weekend is a very different dish than what you imagine when you read “fresh fish” on a menu.
