By now, we’ve all heard the speech in a hundred restaurants.
“Our concept is small, shareable plates,” the server says. “We recommend ordering several dishes and passing them around.”
The message is so common, that anybody who insists on ordering an old-fashioned main course and eating it by themselves must feel uncool. Large plates, not meant to be shared? That’s so 1995.
But look beyond appearances, and there’s another story to be told here: Mains aren’t just out of fashion. They’re also falling behind on innovation and creativity. The main course has a full-blown identity crisis.
I’ve talked about the “main course problem” with a number of chefs around town. Sensibly, nobody wants to be quoted, lest they accidentally insult their colleagues or themselves. But many cooks, food writers and other insiders agree that sharing a series of appetizers and sides is their preferred way to dine.
It’s my preference, too. Appetizers have gotten more creative during this gourmet era, driven by ultra-seasonal produce, trendy items like charcuterie, and a global supply chain that makes it possible for, say, landlocked cities like Dallas to serve fresh, raw seafood. Small plates have become outlets for imaginative ideas and flavors so bold that they’d be overwhelming in a larger portion.
Just look at all the clever, original starters around Dallas: the varied mezze at Encina and Sachet, Rye’s Icelandic hot dog, always-changing tacos de tacha at José, nopales salad at Modest Rogers, Elm & Good’s vegetarian sunchoke pâté, fried shrimp and grits at Roots Southern Table. Salads can be spectacular at Roots, Homewood, Loro and Partenope. Khao Noodle Shop’s small bowls encourage sampling more, and Petra and the Beast doesn’t serve “mains” at all.
I could keep listing favorites, but if I did, we’d never get back to the point.
Main courses, by contrast, remain a bastion of culinary conservatism. There will probably be a big chunk of meat with a couple of vegetables on the side. You’ll choose from beef, pork, chicken or fish. The fish will usually be salmon. In the words of Saturday Night Live motivational speaker Matt Foley: Well, la-de-frickin’-da.
There are several reasons for this state of affairs. The simplest is that lots of people still want to eat a big piece of meat. For Dallas kitchens, a good cheeseburger is almost as mandatory as a health inspection. The meat-and-two-veg template is so deeply ingrained in American culture that we export it to other parts of the world.
There are other reasons, besides customer demand, that old-fashioned main courses persist. They’re easier to explain on the menu. They can be an evening’s spectacular centerpiece. Texas has some of the nation’s best local beef and pork producers. And figuring out how many “sharing plates” to order requires some guesswork.
Finally, some people just don’t like sharing their food. Try not to make friends with them.
We can still do our best to promote more inventive, diverse main courses. For every possible drawback, there’s a possible solution, like consumer education, slick marketing, creative formats and the addition of vegetable-forward options.
The rise of small plates is already a triumph of consumer education. But many menus leave branding opportunities hanging, with bone-dry descriptions that simply list out ingredient names like culinary bingo cards.
A well-written menu can sell a creative dish. In Houston, 93 Til entices diners to the veggie section with “Movie Theater Cauliflower.” In Austin, Suerte serves a selection of “Snackcidents.” Chinese cuisine has long known the power of evocative names like biang biang noodles (named for the sound of dough slapping the counter), century eggs, beggar’s chicken, and hotpot.
Last year, Homewood debuted a spaghetti dish with high-quality ingredients that weren’t household names; sales lagged. Then the restaurant reprinted the menu, giving the dish the absurd name “Really Really Really Good Spaghetti,” banishing the actual description to fine print. Yes, it became a top seller, chef Matt McCallister tells us.
Some Dallas restaurants use creative dining formats to make exciting main courses. Meridian serves family-style whole-table dishes, like its attention-grabbing grilled octopus. The fried chicken at Roots comes with a collection of little side dishes and garnishes, like a Southern version of banchan.
It’s surprising to encounter restaurants in 2022 where every single option revolves around a chunk of meat. Vegetarians and vegans are a rising population, and there’s strong evidence that the world would improve if we all ate less red meat. Even if you disagree, you’ll concede that there are loads of delicious meals in which meat is a supporting actor, not the star.
Some Dallas restaurants are, happily, thinking beyond steak by using cuts other kitchens might discard (like Petra and the Beast) or building main courses around vegetables (like Roots, Sachet, and Elm & Good). Meridian serves a brilliant modernized version of moqueca, the Brazilian seafood stew. The Charles makes a trendy feature of pot pies.
If you like a good pork chop, that’s great; so do we. But if you’d like to see more outside-the-box, outside-the-beef big plates at top restaurants, vote with your wallet and encourage our chefs’ bolder ideas.
Novel formats, vegetarian options, less-common cuts, and clever marketing could help bring the main course out of its ultra-traditional, meat-and-potatoes funk. But many foodies will still live over in the appetizer section of the menu. Small plates will never concede their primary advantage over big ones: They’re smaller. You get to taste more flavors and order more things.
And, at a great restaurant, I want to try as many things as I can.
