How much? The hidden costs of restaurant dishes

simgt

I'm in-between two minds. On one end £9 of labour cost for a plate of asparagus seems deeply inefficient and unrealistic, particularly when the cost of ingredients that also include (hard) labour is £2. On the other, just a century ago being served quality food in a nicely decorated place was exclusively the privilege of aristocrats.

haritha-j

As a broke PhD student, my conclusion was that I just need to cook more. As pointed out in the article, the ingredients cost a small fraction of the price of the dish. Yes, its a bit time consuming but its also interesting to make different dishes, and many things like lasagna or biriyani can be batch cooked. There's a lot of really interesting dishes that don't take a whole lot of time per portion.

armchairhacker

Lately I’ve been finding most restaurant dishes “low quality”: in particular, less meat and tastes overcooked compared to what I make at home, though grains and vegetables are also blander. I suspect this is more me being a harsher critic than restaurants enshittifying. I’ve been improving my cooking. I do get premium ingredients, that sometimes cost much more than the cheapest alternative, but still always much less than even low-end restaurants. So my conclusion is, if you like good food you should cook yourself. Maybe if you’re rich enough to always eat at especially expensive restaurants, but even then I think you’d prefer a private chef.

yoshyosh

dishes and costs in asia and different venues would be solid here

comrade1234

I thought this was going to be about the actual dish-ware, not food. I remember one of the few newer fancy/expensive restaurants in San Francisco that survived the 2000 dot-com crash did so in part by dropping their custom-made (along with their restaurant logo) dishes/glasses for normal plain dish-ware. (They also simplified their menu - still very good, just a bit less exotic)

rjh29

Very much a UK problem. Almost 10 quid of labour to cook a simple asparagus dish? VAT exceeds price of ingredients. This is why going out to eat is a huge luxury here. Meanwhile in Asia you can get cooked meals for less than a dollar from a hawker stand or eat a beef bowl or ramen for like 5 dollars in Japan. Why is that?

simianwords

In the other thread about doorman fallacy, lots of folks were signalling that they do actually like waiters and other labour. This post puts the price to pay for the luxury in perspective

bomewish

Seriously ? These are not sympathetic! The first seems like a whole lot of pointless faff for nothing much at all — who needs an emulsion made out of salvaged organic chickpea bubbles — and the second complains about not being allowed to raise prices… yet she can! It’s just that you’d get fewer customers. Also - this is presumably profit after all the wages are taken out including for owners of the place? If so it kinda depends on what their wages are to know if this whole situation seems super unfair.