I’ve spent a pretty ridiculous amount of my adult life chasing memorable meals.
In my late 20s and early 30s, fine dining became inseparable from travel for me. Copenhagen, Spain, Japan, Peru, Mexico, across the US… some of my best memories from traveling came from restaurants. Sitting at a bar solo, talking to locals, getting handed a scribbled list of neighborhood spots at the end of the meal, learning something about a place through its ingredients and weird little rituals. I loved all of it.
Last year, now living in LA, I finally went to Somni.
And to get this out of the way: it was excellent. Truly. The food was beautiful, meticulous, technically stunning, and absolutely worthy of the praise. Service was outstanding. The room was special without being stiff. Every person involved seemed deeply committed to making it feel magical.
But somewhere in hour three, I had a realization: I think I’m done with this. Not because Somni failed. Almost the opposite. It may have been the perfect final boss.
There were so many courses, so many textures, so many “wait, how did they do that?” moments, that by the end I felt less like I was enjoying dinner and more like I was trying to finish a very elegant marathon. I was still admiring every bite, but admiration and appetite had fully split up by that point.
And I noticed I wasn’t alone. A few other diners around us had that same look too: the thousand-yard stare of people on course 17 being gently encouraged by the staff like fighters in their corner. You can do this. Big round coming up. Deep breaths. One more beautiful bite.
That’s the thing I can’t stop thinking about. At what point did dinner become an endurance event?
Again, I don’t mean that as a takedown. I understand why people love places like this. I used to be one of them, fully. And honestly, part of me still is. There is real art here. Real discipline. Real imagination.
But I think something in me has changed.
Maybe it’s age. Maybe it’s having two kids and now operating like a small farm animal that wants to be asleep by 9:45. Maybe after enough great meals, the thing I crave most is no longer cleverness, or precision, or twelve consecutive revelations. Maybe now I just want one perfect plate of something simple in a place with good lighting and no narrative arc.
These days I find myself more excited by an unassuming place that does one or two things unbelievably well than by another four-hour procession of brilliance. The allure of being dazzled has faded a bit. Or maybe I’ve just been dazzled enough.
I’m curious if anyone else here relates.
Not in a “fine dining is overrated” way. I don’t believe that. And definitely not in a “Somni wasn’t worth it” way, because it was an extraordinary meal.
More like: have any of you hit a point where you still deeply respect this world, still enjoy reading about it, maybe still book it occasionally… but no longer feel that same hunger to pursue it?
by chuckisinluck
25 Comments
It sounds like what you’re describing is burnout.
Finally someone relates 😇 it will all be ok 👍
Don’t think anything wrong with what you’re saying. People’s priorities change.
Bourdain called it “fine dining fatigue”
Sounds like you should do shorter coursed out meals than 17. Problem solved.
Also, those pics are insane. Everything looks incredible.
I feel this in my soul. I hit my limit after an extraordinary meal at Guy Savoy in Paris. Absolutely nothing bad to say about any moment of that meal. I just felt like Forrest Gump when he suddenly stops running. He didn’t explain why just that he was “pretty tired now”. Can’t explain why I just don’t have the *want* to do the 27 courses anymore. And I’m not denigrating if someone does! I just don’t want to.
I’ve had the same “too many, too much” thing happen to me, and to one of my dining compatriots. Now I want a few courses, perfectly prepared – home cooking at an elevated level.
I left Copenhagen on a food trip that I didn’t believe could ever be topped. Lots of epic meals at all the usual names.
I took a break for a while. My next food trip was an Austin BBQ trip with zero fine dining spots on the itinerary. And it helped.
Its okay to pursue different ideas of what amazing food is.
I listen to all different types of music depending on my mood. Sometimes I just don’t want to listen to classical or jazz, even if I deeply enjoy them when I do.
Maybe you just don’t want that to be the main kind of experience to which you dedicate your time anymore. Doesn’t mean it’s all over. There are so many ways to explore food, that’s the whole fun of it.
It’s insane to me that people claim to leave fine dining experiences feeling hungry. I can’t make it through most of them
Brother maybe it’s time to start going to Applebees to bring yourself back to earth
First world problems, for sure but I get it. I’d love a well edited three or four course meal. Tasting menus are a huge challenge! My wife can’t make it beyond the sixth or seventh course before she’s full and unable to finish.
You’re not alone. There has been a noticeable shift in the fine dining scene, especially among newer chefs, to smaller menus and appropriate portion sizes instead of the marathons. It’s very welcome and seems to be starting to be recognized by critics and guides. The experience of going to one of the classic famous restaurants that hasn’t adapted is very jarring, I haven’t been to Somni (east coast based) but it sounds like they don’t have their finger on the pulse. 17 courses is overkill, appropriate restraint is an art in itself.
I’ve been done with tasting menus for a while, and I’m a chef. Eaten them, prepared them, served them, travelled for them.
I had a moment a while back where I looked into the kitchen at the restaurant we were dining at and it was all so uniform. Kind of like being on a conveyerbelt of dining.
Give me a good old ala carte or a ‘neighbourhood’ restaurant or somewhere trying to get that first star and I’m more than happy nowadays.
>And I noticed I wasn’t alone. A few other diners around us had that same look too: the thousand-yard stare of people on course 17 being gently encouraged by the staff like fighters in their corner. You can do this. Big round coming up. Deep breaths. One more beautiful bite.
Based on your description, you have been to more fine dining spots than I have, and yet I believe even I would also feel this way. There is a reason I veer more towards ‘shorter’ tasting menus (6-10 courses, including amuse bouche and petit fours) as I fear I’d grow sick of 15+ courses.
Your review reminded me of Alexander the Guest’s experience at Disfrutar; loads of technical brilliance, mostly delicious dishes, but about 80% of the way in you’re ready to get up and leave.
Could not agree more. Hit that point. Now I just want to eat amazing food without feeling like I have to push through.
It sounds like you’re over tasting menus rather than fine dining. My favourite meal recently was at Paul Bocuse. 3 courses, à la carte. An amazing starter, an amazing main (chicken, morels, and a divine sauce), and a desert from the cart. I wouldn’t say it was simple and it was certainly still fine dining (very fine!). But it was quite a refreshing experience to have a proper portion of 2 star food!
Plenty of fine dining restaurants that don’t involve 37 course tasting menus my man, no need to give up on something you’re clearly passionate about
Take a break, go try some hole in the walls before getting back on the horse. Good food is good food no matter whether a tire company tells you it’s good or not
It seems like you used chatgpt to write this (but the photos are yours, so not a bot?), so I’m just going to address the core: having an excellent and filling experience at the right time is very different from this, and there are many steps between that and this.
This seems like hell for eating, to me, and a lot of these places don’t treat their staff like family either, etc. I don’t understand why you thought you’d like this?
Marco Pierre White has been saying this for decades now. He wants to have a delicious main and have a large portion of that. He believes in 3 to maybe 5 courses and have them all be solid dishes.
The big tasting menus are for people that make it an event that they look forward to once maybe twice a year. Not for people that are going to experience these events multiple times a year.
“Maybe now I just want one perfect plate of something simple in a place with good lighting and no narrative arc.”
You’re not alone. Have you read *A Clean Well Lighted Place* by Ernest Hemingway?
For me the main problem is that when a meal has so many dishes, it all sort of blurs together, and then it becomes indistinguishable from similar previous experiences. For instance if someone asks me whether I enjoyed Spectrum in Amsterdam, I will say that it was outstanding. If they then ask me which dishes at Spectrum I liked the most, I’d have to say I can’t remember. The entire meal has now blurred together with all the other tasting menus I’ve had in my life – a few amuses, then a few veggie dishes, then some seafood dishes, then some red meat dishes, then some desserts. Unless they really do something unusual, like Alinea with their edible helium balloon, I forget all the dishes.
At that point you have to ask yourself if it’s worth spending hundreds of dollars on that sort of meal, even if you can afford it (and for me it is definitely a splurge). Like I’ve had many tasting menus, so am I *really* going to enjoy this three-hour meal hundreds of dollars more than some local specialty, which will only take an hour? The answer is usually no.
I still sometimes do tasting menus when I go overseas, because as a whole I find that the variety increases by country – a tasting menu in Japan is going to be very different from a tasting menu in Mexico or France. But I live in SF and still have never been to Atelier Crenn or SingleThread – not because I think it’s going to suck, but because I feel like I already know what to expect.
I hit what I call the “end of my eating phase” recently too. It’s not that the food isn’t good anymore, just that I’ve gone past the point of diminishing returns with each of these meals. Nothing seems to stand out anymore, not their fault, but xertainly, it was sad to acknowledge that you no longer enjoy these meals as much as you remember them to have brought you.
Came to a point where I started enjoying homecooked meals more than any star could bring me. I see my foodie friends still in their eating phase and sometimes, I am envious of their… Rigor? Resilience? I’m not sure.
Also applies somewhat to wines because fine dining and wines go hand in hand to me.
I hate that this is written by AI. I don’t even know why you bothered honestly. You’re talking about something human beings do out of passion, at the height of their craft and you’re having a machine write it for you because you can’t even be bothered to do it yourself? Gtfo
Writing in your own voice with AI is gross