What the pretentious descriptions on restaurant menus really mean

Menu illustration

I hadn’t used the word majuscule since my A-level English Language exams. But this recondite noun came to mind recently while reading a menu in a Manchester bistro which offered me (in varying font sizes), “mushrooms. avacado.toast.egg anyway”.

I think it translated as a veggie fry-up with eggs cooked to order but, what with the typo and erratic formatting, it was hard to be sure.

Majuscules, or capital letters, have gone the way of duck à l’orange on menus of late. So has punctuation, for that matter, while on some cartes dish descriptions can be ridiculously verbose – an unnecessary “essay” on the page, as Prue Leith recently grumbled.

Here’s the real meaning behind your menu.

‘Grouse, trimmings’

You know you’re in for a bad meal when the menu is more hostile than the staff. Terse doesn’t even begin to describe it.

But living in a British city this century means having to make a real effort to avoid this kind of dish description – and the type of post-industrial building that peddles it, where tungsten-faced waiters have asymmetrical facial hair, lumberjack shirts and collaged tattoos on their lower arms.

‘Yorkshire grouse, trimmings’ is how the Quality Chop House in London describes this dish. The food may be excellent, but the menu lacks flavour

Their menu reads like a Beckett novel, gravid with short sentences, limited punctuation and a feeling of impending, stentorian doom. At London’s Quality Chop House you may choose “Yorkshire grouse, trimmings”. But then again, does the option of “custard tart, blackberries” sound more friendly? No, it doesn’t.

‘Grilled sirloin sourced from our local suppliers’

Did you tell your colleagues, unsolicited, where you got the bread from for your packed-lunch sandwich? Of course you didn’t. Because you want to be liked. So quite why restaurants feel we’ll be more warmly disposed to them if they laboriously detail the exact farm (“Old Anthrax Manor, just a stone’s throw from here!”) that provided their Barnsley chop is baffling.

No good restaurant should have to convince their diners that not a single parsnip has fallen off the back of a lorry stashed with illegal perishables near Harwich docks. But perhaps their procurement information could be refreshing if honesty was enforceable. “Sausages (picked up from Tesco Metro in a panic last night) and mushrooms (girlfriend’s fridge) on toast (yellow-sticker loaf, Co-op)” wouldn’t put anyone off their next fry-up. Would it?

The dish description that’s too long to fit here

It doesn’t matter how hungry you are, all appetites evaporate when confronted with an embossed, A2-sized menu that starts with “carpaccio of Mauritian long-line caught mahi-mahi, nestled on an island of Michoacán-grown avocado topped with macadamia nuts with a tickle of Salvador lime and coriander, dusted with toasted flax seeds”.

After this pan-global lecture, you may ponder the reality that this carbon-shredding dish is currently being assembled by a 19-year-old under a strip light who hasn’t slept in two days and whose last meal was half an egg mayo sandwich and a vape on the kitchen steps.

The longer and more pretentious the dish description, the less likely it is to taste of anything and the more likely it is that the chef is a tyrannical egomaniac who simply cannot believe that he is working in a hotel restaurant in Chipping Norton in his 40s when he should be collecting Michelin stars at the same pace that he collects ex-wives.

Pudding ‘like Granny/Mum/Auntie Val etc used to make it’

The celebrated chef Tom Aikens is a master of the stove. But his prose writing on the tasting menu at his latest restaurant, Muse, in London, is as ill-fitting as Barbara Cartland at a Goth convention. Take this description of a recent dessert: “My grandfather was not a great home cook, but every winter he would bake cooking apples from his garden for breakfast. The sweet aroma of apple, butter and caramelised sugar would fill the house with the most amazing smell. The scent and taste of apple…” It goes on.

The dish title itself runs to – you guessed it – three words (“apple, caramel, cider”), but the essay beneath takes longer to read than the food takes to eat.

Aikens isn’t alone. There’s a trend for chefs to share their romanticised backstory on menus these days. But most diners would rather just have pudding than these trips down Amnesia Lane. Save it for the autobiography, Tom.

The ‘Kevin Bacon’ burger

Imagine calling your bacon-topped burger the “Kevin Bacon”. I know. If puns are the lowest form of humour, then the menu-based pun is the lowest form of menu composition.

The KB is available at Lucky Chip in north London, should you desire it, yet to be joined by a side of Brad Pitta bread and Keanu Leaves salad.

‘Deconstructed’ lasagne

Inverted commas are intended to show the diner that their chef is playful and innovative and cocks a snook at the toque-donning, Michelin-garlanded stove disciplinarians of yesteryear. They can’t help but extend their so-called “creativity” on to the menu. Step forward winter “salad” (translation: actually just roasted veg), the “not so full” English breakfast (less bacon) and, worst of all, the “deconstructed” apple pie/lasagne/Caesar salad they couldn’t be bothered to cook properly.

Deconstructed lasagne: otherwise known as bolognese

You wouldn’t want your plumber to do a “deconstructed” job on your boiler and leave all the parts in the hallway. So why should you tolerate this nonsense from chefs?

The indulgent chocolate mousse

It’s reasonable to assume most diners are aware of the calorific consequences when ordering a Wagamama smoked chocolate mousse, “layered with salted caramel, crushed biscuits, chocolate fudge brownie, chocolate ganache and vanilla ice cream”. So why prefix it with the adjective “indulgent” on the menu? Chain restaurants from Frankie & Benny’s to Harvester and Beefeater adore dousing their menus with such amplifiers. “Indulgent”, “delicious”, “tasty” and, Lord help us, “scrumptious” are liberally scattered through dish descriptions.

One can only imagine how hard the minimum-wage kitchen staff are laughing at the notion of an “ultimate” mixed grill as they defrost the menu in the microwave of a basement kitchen. Life’s tough. But not as tough as semi-thawed sausage mince.

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