Please can I have my own dinner?

Six reasons why I want to see the back of the Small Plates cult. Plus, how to prepare the most delicious, perfectly cooked, hearty and generous steak, as explained to me by experts.

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Small plates equals big bugbear. There, I’ve said it. As a like-minded pal put it recently, someone needs to mention the Emperor’s New Clothes. The dining concept that’s spread like scurrilous gossip across the restaurant world has had its time. Come on chefs. We’re ready for our own plates of food now.

We miss those crazy heady days when the ebb and flow of a meal obeyed a sweet and familiar three-course pattern. When menus made sense. When multiple plates weren’t crowded onto the table like a toddler’s buffet. When a group of friends didn’t have to share a thimbleful of food. When we never went home hungry.

I know margins are tight, that restaurateurs say they’re doing what’s needed to get through tough times, that they’re offering the chance to taste more of their menu in one sitting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no. 

Here are six reasons why I’d like my own dinner please.

1. Menus don’t make sense

Menus are now incomprehensible riddles. What’s the difference between ‘snacks‘ and ‘small plates’? How many ‘plates’ equal a meal? How many croquettes/savoury donuts/iberico pork skewers/garlic flatbreads are there per plate? Do we really need to order FIVE plates each? And if we don’t, will we look like tightwads? But wait. OMG, there are a few big plates on there, too. It’s all become so desperately hard to order a meal.

Given that menus are more like e.e cummings poems than useful meal descriptors these days, small plates just add an extra layer of hellishness to ordering. It shouldn’t be this way.

2. Small plates only work for two

Chefs: your single hand-dived scallop with carrot jus and tempura lattice is captivating but it’s for one mouth only. We’ve all been there: a group of pals cutting up a single morsel like a cell dividing in mitosis. Result? A car wreck of a plate of food and a Lilliputian bite each, too little to taste the ingredients or appreciate the dish, too scant for the brain to even register as food. 

Also, someone always misses out on a bit (usually the poor sod who wanted the dish in the first place), the last person to serve themselves gets the final disagreeable smear on the plate, and the number of ‘things’ never matches the number of people eating them. If small plates are ever acceptable, it’s for tables of two. Maximum.

3. No-one wants the last bit

English politesse demands that no-one ever takes the last bit, so small plate dining is infused with awkwardness, regret and waste. Most of the time the server whisks the last bit away when, secretly, you would have vaulted over the table to nab it. Because you’re starving.

4. A mishmash

You know when you eat at a buffet, and you gobble all the random dishes in no particular order and don’t even register what you’re eating? That’s small plates dining for me. 

The plates will come out in the order they’re ready schtick might make things easier in the kitchen, but it’s no way to treat good food. I don’t want to gobble down a hodgepodge of dishes all served at the same time (many of which have gone cold by the time you get to them). I want to appreciate the loveliness of each individual plate that, after all, the chef has worked hard to make balanced and delicious. 

5. Overcrowded tables

You cannot fit an elephant on a postage stamp. Those 20 dishes your server made you order, which arrive simultaneously, will not be accommodated on one table no matter how much you Kondo it by removing vases of flowers, salt and pepper pots rearrange candles, dispense with water glasses and hide mobile phones. 

And what happens when the over-laden tables are too close together, as they inevitably are? Well, you get your neighbour’s arse in your stracciatella as they squeeze past to go to the loo. It’s just not on.

6. Small plates, whopper bills

My pal tells tale of a recent meal where one slice of heritage tomato and a kiss of basil oil set her back in the order of £15. That was just one of a slew of shrunken portions that cost a fortune - and she and her husband still went home in need of a sandwich. A meal of small plates can add up to a shocklingly big bill.

It’s true, portion sizes in the world of small plates vary, with some much more generous than others. But you’ll never know until you get there and place an order (if you can manage it without an anxiety attack). Increasingly, I no longer have the appetite or will to risk it.

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Now, how about a hearty recipe? Where you get your own generous plate of food? Check out my guide below for cooking the perfect tender and juicy steak every time.