6 Restaurant Dishes Chefs Admit They’d Never Order
Ever wonder what professional chefs skip when they’re dining out? The people who spend their lives perfecting restaurant food have surprisingly strong opinions about what NOT to order. Their insider knowledge reveals which menu items involve shortcuts, aging ingredients, or simply don’t deliver value for your money. Let’s explore the dishes that make experienced chefs think twice before placing an order.
Daily Specials That Aren’t So Special
Executive chef Alberto Morreale from Farmer’s Bottega in San Diego admits he never orders the specials, explaining that some restaurants create their daily features based on what’s about to expire or what they need to move quickly. Here’s the thing: when servers enthusiastically push that special of the day, it’s not always about showcasing fresh ingredients. If a restaurant lists more than a couple of specials, that’s a major red flag indicating a scattergun approach to their menu, and specials that always seem permanently available aren’t special at all. Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay shares similar concerns about soup du jour, recommending diners ask what yesterday’s soup was to gauge how fresh the daily special really is. The reality? What seems like an exciting limited-time offer might just be the kitchen’s clever way of clearing out inventory before the next delivery truck arrives.
Chicken Dishes Bound to Disappoint
Chef Ryan Ososky of The Church Key in West Hollywood confesses he’ll order almost anything when dining out but never chicken because it tends to be overcooked at most restaurants. This isn’t an isolated opinion among culinary professionals. Most of the time diners end up with protein that’s dry, handled poorly, totally tasteless, and plain boring, with Anthony Bourdain famously stating in a 1999 New Yorker article that chicken is simply a chore for cooks to make. According to the Food Network’s website, chefs avoid ordering chicken in restaurants for many reasons, including overinflated price and lack of originality. Restaurants often overcook their chicken in an effort to eliminate any salmonella risk, sacrificing flavor and texture in the process. The result? You’re paying premium prices for what amounts to the most boring protein on your plate.
Eggs Benedict and the Hollandaise Hazard
Chef Clifton Dickerson of the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts never orders eggs Benedict when dining out, noting that hollandaise sauce is temperamental, especially during busy brunch rush, and can end up as a broken sauce or something that’s been sitting too long. Honestly, this one surprised me at first. Hollandaise is one of the unhealthiest menu items at some restaurants not only due to excess calories but also because it comes with certain health risks, as raw egg yolks left at incorrect temperatures can go bad and potentially result in salmonella-related food poisoning. Popular brunch items like hollandaise sauce are seldom made to order and are playgrounds for bacteria, with Bourdain noting that brunch is when the lesser group of cooks tend to get scheduled, including newer chefs or the “B-Team”. That picture-perfect Benedict on your Instagram feed might not be worth the potential stomach troubles later.
Well-Done Steaks and Questionable Cuts
According to a 1999 article in The New Yorker written by Anthony Bourdain, 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, as overcooking meat can disguise toughness, bad smells, or otherwise unsavory elements. This practice remains widespread in the industry today. Many chefs advise against ordering steak well done not only for taste reasons but because in hectic kitchens, the thickest or oldest cuts may be reserved for customers who want their meat cooked through, as long cooking can hide some texture issues from a purely economic view. Beyond doneness, chefs warn that curiously cheap steaks are often lower USDA-grade meat, as Grant Morgan, executive concept chef of Hotel Drover, explains that while some restaurants have buying power to offset costs, most of the time a cheap steak means lower quality. The bottom line? If you’re ordering a steak well-done at a mid-tier restaurant, you’re probably not getting the best cut in the house.
Leafy Greens That Aren’t as Safe as They Seem
Lettuce and other leafy greens now cause far more outbreaks than hamburgers, largely because they’re grown near cattle operations, can be contaminated by irrigation water, and are eaten raw with no cooking steps to kill pathogens. Let’s be real: this one challenges what most of us assume about healthy eating. Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who has litigated some of the country’s worst foodborne illness outbreaks, no longer touches bagged salads, fruit cups or trays, deli meats, ready-to-eat meals and raw sprouts, as these items have been repeatedly tied to cross-contamination and major Listeria, E. coli and Salmonella outbreaks. After stricter burger regulations and major safety improvements, illnesses linked to burgers dropped sharply, but today the danger has flipped according to Jason Reese, an Indiana-based food safety expert and personal injury attorney. The irony? That virtuous salad you ordered might be riskier than the burger you passed up.
Mussels and Shellfish at the Wrong Places
Chefs usually avoid ordering mussels in places that are not known for seafood or that seem quiet, as shellfish needs steady demand to justify frequent fresh deliveries, and a half-used sack of mussels can linger longer than it should. Food safety was Bourdain’s main reason for staying away from mussels, stating that the shelled delicacy is often prepared and kept improperly, noting that “most cooks are less than scrupulous in their handling of them”. Chef Michael Correll, Executive Chef of Ruse, explains it’s good to remember where in the world you are, stating he wouldn’t go to a diner in Nebraska and order the crab cake, noting that while you can get good seafood in middle America, it does have its limitations. The freshness of seafood depends entirely on turnover rates and delivery schedules, making that mussel appetizer at a landlocked steakhouse a risky bet.
What do you think about these revelations? Would you still order your favorite dish knowing what chefs know? Sometimes the truth about restaurant kitchens changes how we look at our go-to orders.
