i can't eat this this stuff is too tired i can't get full of this mess have you ever been
to a fancy restaurant and sought the plate though beautiful and incredibly delicious was a bit small
for the amount of cash you had to pay well here are 10 reasons why fancy restaurants serve such
tiny portions you're not the only one paying if you're not paying i'm not paying food costs money
but not just money from your own pocket sometimes it seems like we forget that restaurants actually
have to pay for the ingredients they put on our plates while sometimes restaurants can get a lower
price for certain ingredients by buying in bulk that's not exactly the case for many higher-end
restaurants with pricey ingredients many times the freshness of the ingredients put onto your
plate is just as important as its cost an example of this is maintaining fresh seafood for daily use
this is understandably more expensive than buying hundreds of frozen filets to make a profit
restaurants have to charge more for a plate than they spend making it but it's it's too expensive
as a 30 markup is standard for a single plate of food if the portions of fancy food were larger
the hole in your pocket would be too the price on your menu is a reflection of the money that
the restaurant has put into the freshness and quality of the ingredients as well as the mastery
of the chef and staff preparing it so while the food portions may be a tad smaller than usual
especially for the money you're shelling out for it it'll be worth it once you have that
sensational bite of food in your mouth amuse your bush it's a moose boosh for the table from fancy
dinner parties to top of the line restaurants the french word amuse-bouche is often used and easily
recognized but did you know that those pesky little appetizers inspired the now standard seven
course meals that make the price of these restaurants so high starting in the 1970s
french chefs began to serve small appetizers along the course of their customers dinners
so that they would get a sense of the chef's personal style these small bites quickly became
a staple of high-end cuisine the customers liked the idea of surprise chef-curated dishes so much
that many restaurants began serving only the chef's selection which turned into the typical
seven-course meal many use today hors d'oeuvre soup appetizer salad main course dessert and
mignates a bite-sized dessert dessert is served to fit all of these different dishes into their
patrons stomachs without increasing their waistlines each course was only a couple of
bites in size this trend made its way over to the rest of the world and became the standard size for
high-end plates everywhere instagram ready on a timer this one's going straight to instagram ever
seen one of those plates of food that just looks so beautiful you'd rather take a picture of it
than eat it well that's exactly one of the reasons the portion is small enough to get that close-up
shot when you go to a higher-end restaurant there are certain things that are consistent everyone's
sporting fancy clothes the chef is probably gonna be renowned the food is a delectable assortment
of expensive ingredients you can probably barely pronounce and the plate always looks amazing why
well it's actually proven that we eat with our eyes first if a beautiful plate with bright colors
and amazing smells is placed in front of you you can't help but think it's got to be delicious
before even taking a bite i can taste it already when you're going to a higher end restaurant
the chefs preparing your meal are culinary artists they work with a color palette for
each plate they decide how much sauce to put on it and how and often even use tweezers to carefully
place golden flakes flowers or other edible garnishes to make that plate a once-in-a-lifetime
experience if you're thinking that sounds time consuming you'd be right in order to not make
every customer wait forever to get a single one of their typical seven courses the portions are made
smaller to allow a speedier delivery without sacrificing absolutely any of the aesthetic
feeding the trash can less why waste food waste in the food industry is a definite concern and well
not everyone loves trash as much as oscar the grouch and with good reason an average restaurant
loses about 10 percent of their food supply daily to the trash can but did you know that it was
closer to 30 percent in our more upper class establishments we've already talked about the
ingredients for your higher end plate costing more but it's that freshness we talked about
that is the reason for such a high percentage of daily food waste most of us will wait until things
go bad before throwing it out some of us might even eat things past their best before date if
it looks and smells fine but you can't sell expired food restaurants do neither while a
regular restaurant's main concern when throwing away food is a possible lawsuit this actually
allows them to keep more of their ingredients per day but luxury style restaurants are so intent on
keeping their ingredients fresh due to the high price tag you're paying that they often throw
out barrels of perfectly fine food simply because it doesn't meet their standards for the next day
if they advertise fresh fish caught every morning then they'll throw out that day's fish at night
and replace it with fresh fillets by the morning ensuring that every bite still has that salty
taste of having been in the water only hours prior to waste less food restaurants obviously
try to buy just what they need for the day and portion it out accordingly making your portions
just a tad smaller than you might like good things come in small packages the smaller the better
whoever said that bigger is better was just plain wrong the notion that good things come in small
packages is actually backed up by science due to common experiences like trying to buy saffron
at costco or buying that diamond ring psychology says that our brains have actually tricked us into
thinking that expensive buys are more justified when whatever we buy is smaller worth it totally
worth it since so many expensive and high quality things are out of most of our price ranges we tend
to buy ourselves such things as a sort of reward because of this whatever we buy tends to be small
but worth it like a special ring that survives three generations expensive restaurants serve up
these small plates to appeal to that little voice in our heads that tells us the plate of food is
our reward they leave you wanting more now i want more fancy restaurants don't just make a name for
themselves by serving a customer once in fact their tiny portions have a very specific purpose
they leave you wanting more we can dig it from the restaurant owner to the chef the line chef
and the waiter the menu is specially made to leave whoever's tasting it wanting more of whatever it
was while each new course should complement the last and the next they're so small that
when we find that dish that makes us go wow it's immediately gone and replaced with another gone
it's all gone the restaurant actually depends on one or two dishes making such a lasting impression
with such small portions the delicious taste leaves almost as soon as it appears and with
the rest of the courses strutting their stuff in after it the human body tends to crave more
of that one dish instead of moving on to another but of course to taste that special dish again
you'll have to dish out another stack of cash though the menus in these restaurants tend to
rotate pretty often they're actually hinging on that initial wow factor and the small portions
so you keep making reservations taste bud boredom food looks boring the waiter's ugly
there's more science behind why fancy restaurants serve such small portions this time both
biochemistry and human physiology have entered the chat according to science our taste buds are lazy
as such they can get bored if we bother them for too long ever noticed how you get tired of certain
foods if you eat them over and over again well that's taste bud boredom then it's what fancy
restaurants have learned to avoid with their small portion trick it only takes four to five bites of
food for our tongues to get bored of a taste and taste bud apathy does not bring back customers or
invite them to shell out extreme amounts of money for food well i won't pay that instead of letting
our taste buds lounge back on their little couches during a meal expensive restaurants keep them on
their toes by providing four to five bites of a single dish this way every bite of the dish
feels new and exciting and the taste doesn't suffer from that pesky science everyone knows
though that four or five bites isn't a lot of food hence why the small portions of higher end
food exist so if you've got to blame someone don't blame the restaurants blame your tongue
the subtlety of flavor yeah it's very smooth good flavor flavor is also one of the main reasons why
expensive restaurants serve such small portions of their dishes on most food network shows you'll
see hundreds of renowned chefs taking bites from dishes and letting the food sit on their tongue
suddenly they'll start to list off different spices and herbs and oddly named potatoes that you
definitely didn't even know existed some of these flavors are ridiculously subtle but when they're
combined with the rest of the ingredients in the dish they can really make it or break it perfect
flavor the chefs at these high-end restaurants carefully structured the dish so that every one of
the four to five bites that we talked about before tastes exactly the same every flavor they've put
into this dish has to fit into a single bite that can be replicated over and over again
preparing four or five perfect bites is one thing but curating 200 feels absolutely impossible while
there may not be much quantity the small portions serve to you assure that every bite you take
is well worth the money you've paid for the plate the psychology of stereotypes eat a steak
either crazy big or crazy small whichever is more expensive by now we're all aware of the stereotype
that the more expensive the meal the tinier your plate is going to be but did you know that this
stereotype is one of the biggest reasons why these same restaurants don't serve bigger portions from
comedy skits to your dad complaining at dinner the small portions served at high-end restaurants
have been the butt of food-related jokes for decades it's such a stereotype that we've now
come to associate small portions with high-end restaurants and higher quality food than its
larger portioned counterparts fancy restaurants know that they come with a high price tag but
one of the biggest reasons for a restaurant's success is a good reputation being passed around
we have a reputation to uphold since people already think that fancy restaurants serve smaller
portions of high quality food these restaurants actually use psychology to their advantage by
serving up smaller plates your brain automatically makes a speedy connection that the food must be
high quality and good for a limited time only it's for a limited time only kind of situation
lazy taste buds and stereotypes aren't the only part of psychology responsible for the small
portions restaurants serve up we can actually partly blame our capitalist ways for this one too
after spending so much money on essentials like soap and water and even electricity you would
think that people would want to spend the least money possible on an essential like food right
well you're right but this actually still benefits expensive restaurants and still make a small
profit have you ever seen something on sale and just had to buy it even if you didn't specifically
need it well that's because we see the on sale item as something that won't come around
twice in this lifetime just like that sweater you never wear that you bought for half off
or that limited edition sports card you spent a month's rent on because you thought you'd never
see it again the small portions at these fancy restaurants work in a similar way by serving up
such a small portion these restaurants trick your brain into feeling like the plate is rare you sort
of talk yourself into justifying the purchase because there's less of it and it's expensive
so it has to be worth it our brains are wildly tricky that's for sure order up more great videos
just tap or click and hit that subscribe button and ring that bell to join our notification squad