An orange infused dark chocolate brownie, raspberry coulis, with locally sourced vanilla ice cream and Terrys' Chocolate Orange garnish? Or is that ostentatious?
The rest of the menu is inherited from a very recently deceased woman and can't be changed, so it's Swiss Steak (brown sauce, not red) and Stuffed Chicken Breast. The only thing where I get to have the slightest amount of fun is dessert.
If dessert is being preceded by something as rich as steak with a brown sauce, I must recommend putting the raspberry element on/in the ice cream. When the main course is deep and rich like that, the contrasting light/acidic elements of the dessert will follow it up that much more effectively without compromising or needing to eliminate the dessert's own rich flavors. Dark chocolate after beef is wonderful, but it does need to be balanced out, and I'm glad to hear that you're using vanilla ice...
It's more pretentious than ostentatious. Just give me some chocolate ice cream and gourmet cookirs and sit the fuck down. I was raised in a very wealthy home and even I think this sounds gay. It reminds me of Marcelle from Top Chef going on and on about cooking with foam. Poor people will blow their paychecks on expensive crap like this yrt wonder how the wealthy remain wealthy eaty simple yet high quality food.
This whole post is so disconnected from the perspective of the chefs or cooks. It relies on nothing but a very misguided opinion.
There are some people with a giant chip on their shoulder, but at the end of the day, almost every chef wants to satisfy and impress their customers. It's a passion job, and the stakes feel more real than in most other jobs.
I am sure that they could cook you the best simple and accessible recipes if they wanted to. Then they would go on complete burnout out because of the volume it requires, and the soul it sucks out of you.
Nobody in the kitchen gives a fuck if you have money. They care that every single person there cared enough to spend money to come and eat there. And they care that they enjoy the experience. Nobody is throwing high fives because they made $20 on a plate.
I don't know a single cook who is not proud of what they do. I would not call them pretentious for doing sous-vide or molecular. If there is a point, there is a point.
