This Menu Rule Is A Good Sign A Restaurant Is A Hidden Gem

Dining out is a decadently noble pursuit. Accordingly, it's also one that can be time consuming (particularly when you live in an area that requires tricks and tactics to nab reservations), expensive, and even risky. You do not want to allocate all those hours and dollars to somewhere that ends up so-so, if not worse. That's why you want to look out for restaurant red flags, such as empty dining rooms. But there are also green flags that signal when a place is probably pretty great.

"No substitutions" (not to be confused with allergies and dietary restrictions) is the two-word assertion that can send the worst person you know into an entitled spiral of highly specific lettuce preferences while also indicating an attentive kitchen. When a chef de cuisine, the person often responsible for authoring a menu, plans plates, they do so comprehensively. Every ingredient, seasoning, sauce, garnish, and proportion is intentional to create an ideal whole. This is a favor (well, one you pay for), not some dastardly plan to come between you and some frisée. Given that the professional responsible for building said dish has gathered hours and hours of training and experience to be able to do so, your meal is better for it.

The aforementioned allergies and dietary restrictions are compulsory for finding more flexible restaurants. An unexplained animus toward certain foodstuffs, even in scarcely detectable cases, such as mayo in grilled cheese, also just makes it advisable to visit unfussy spots. Diners, anywhere known to be kid friendly, and locales with encyclopedic menus featuring more cheese varieties, egg preparations, and potato types than you might have remembered existed are more likely to abide substitutions.

You can also usually check substitution policies in advance on a restaurant's website or by old-timey telephone. Enter with zero expectations, but, with enough notice and a kind and reasonable approach, some destinations might be able to acquiesce to a low-lift switcheroo in the event of preference (those other circumstances are harder to accommodate due to potential cross-contamination). You just don't want to spring a bunch of edits on the staff when you're already sat. Worst case scenario, you can always order something you don't feel compelled to sub. You might even find your next favorite thing to hate.