Tasting Menu
A tasting menu is a fixed multi-course meal composed by the chef, where every table eats the same progression rather than ordering from a list. Courses are small and numerous, wine pairings are often offered alongside, and the price is set per person before anyone sits down.
A tasting menu inverts the usual order of a meal. The kitchen decides the sequence, so service becomes a timing exercise: many small courses, every table on its own clock, and a pass keeping several progressions moving at once. A table that lingers over course three pushes everything behind it.
The other consequence is that dietary information stops being a preference and becomes a production constraint. A kitchen building a ten-course menu prepares its substitutions in advance, so an allergy discovered at the table means improvising mid-service. Restaurants running tasting menus therefore collect that information at booking, and the note has to survive the trip from the reservation to the kitchen without anyone retyping it.
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