Dining out is one of life’s biggest joys, but sometimes certain dishes aren't worth the price tag. While there are lots of reputable restaurants that don't cut corners, some bigger chains will leave you short-changed. From the ingredients that are unlikely to be fresh to meals that could land you with a stomach bug, these are the dishes you should never order at a restaurant.
Ordering fish is always a gamble. A fresh catch is lovely, but old fish is thoroughly uninspiring. If you're ordering fish on Mondays, be particularly cautious as seafood markets aren’t open at the weekend. Monday’s fish special may be fresh from the freezer – or worse, it’s been hanging around in the fridge. Ask the waiter when it was sourced so you don’t end up with a dish that’s fishy (in a bad way).
Think freshly squeezed juice is healthier than pasteurised juice? Think again. Bacteria from the skin of the fruit can end up in the juice and multiply. Full of sugar, fresh juice is a breeding ground for bacteria when left out at warm temperatures. Unless you’re convinced it was prepared to order, you’re safer opting for something else. If fresh juice tastes fizzy, definitely leave it.
Even in top restaurants it’s unlikely they’re making hollandaise sauce to order. More likely it’s batch made in the morning, or even the day before, and reheated. What’s worse, bacteria love the dish – so remember this next time you’re eyeing up eggs Benedict on the menu.
No restaurant monitors children's wandering fingers at the salad bar, coughing and sneezing, or whether people use the right tongs in the right bowl, so there are plenty of opportunities for contamination. If you’re still tempted, make sure the salad is chilled and not warm.
Ordering oysters can be a risky business, especially in the warmer months. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 80,000 people suffer from infection caused by vibrio bacteria from the seafood every year. The safest bet is to avoid them altogether unless you’re at a coastal restaurant or somewhere highly reputable.
The unsuspecting health food often found in salads is an extremely risky ingredient. While they're packed with nutrients, the beans are sprouted in warm, humid conditions, which encourage bacteria to flourish. In the past, sprouts contaminated with E. coli have caused people to become sick. Enjoy them in your own home so you know you’re consuming the ready-to-eat kind, or that they’re cooked thoroughly.
If you order the second cheapest wine in a bid to not look miserly, restaurants are wise to your tricks. This is often the bottle restaurants pay the least for. They put the cheapest wholesale wine second on the menu to make more profit from it because people are more likely to order it. Stick with the house wine – it’s usually the best value.
Next time you’re ordering a drink at a restaurant, hold the ice. Many popular places, both low-end and high-end, have been found to clean their ice machines scarily infrequently. Waiters and kitchen staff have even admitted to seeing mould in machines. Getting sick from ice is rare, but that doesn’t make the thought any more appetising.
Restaurant specials are one-off dishes a chef has created just for an evening. They're usually a way of using up leftover ingredients or produce on the turn. While they can be a great (and delicious) way to avoid food waste, consider the offering. If it seems too eclectic or a random combination of flavours, definitely avoid. Sauce is a classic trick to hide bad food.
If dish names include adjectives such as 'famous' or 'world's best', run a mile. It'll come as no surprise that it probably isn't the world's best pizza or bruschetta – and that lasagne is famous according to who? If a restaurant has to get overly creative with a dish’s name to sell it, leave it alone.
If you thought that bread basket delivered to your table was prepared just for you, you're wrong. Anthony Bourdain once let slip that the practice of recycling – where bread baskets are circulated from table to table – does happen, potentially even in the most classy establishments. What you’re served could be your neighbour's leftovers, at best stale, and at worst covered in germs.
However hungry you’re feeling, do not touch the bar snacks. Bowls of peanuts and popcorn aren’t replaced between customers, so just think how many people’s hands have been in there. One bite will tell you they’re old and stale. Save your appetite for the main course.
Buffets are notoriously bad news. Throughout the course of an evening, think how many people have lifted the lid off dishes to have a peek. That’s a lot of opportunity for hair, dust and bacteria to get in. Food can also go cold or dry out. What’s worse, anything that’s not finished may be combined with a fresh batch and wheeled out again the next day.
At some restaurants, the ice cream will be a supermarket variety that you’re charged outrageously marked-up prices to enjoy. What’s the point in paying more when you can pick up a tub for a fraction of the price on the drive home? Unless a restaurant makes its ice cream in-house or offers a really unusual flavour, opt for something else.
Top chefs know to avoid ordering chicken when they’re out, as it's often overcooked and the most boring dish on the menu. In an effort to make sure guests don’t get food poisoning, restaurants err too far on the safe side and overcook it. Branch out and try something new instead.
No matter how tempting saucy, gooey, crispy chicken Parmesan sounds, hold off on ordering it unless you want to be disappointed. It’s one dish that’s more often cooked from frozen than fresh. At reputable Italian restaurants, it might not be; a good guide is how many items are on the menu. Too many to cook from scratch? If the answer is yes, order something else.
Real Kobe beef is a delicacy, and it’s expensive. If the price is too good to be true, you might not be getting the real deal. Sometimes Wagyu beef is labelled as Kobe. It’s also extremely fatty, and you’ll only receive a very small portion. If what you want is a good quality, tender and juicy chop, you might be better off ordering rib-eye.
People choose edamame as it’s a cheap and healthy starter, but it’s not worth what it costs. To steam and salt a bag of edamame costs very little, and it’s incredibly easy to do at home. It also won’t fill you up. Order the deep-fried tofu or the miso glazed aubergine, and save the edamame for later.
True, it’s more expensive to order bottled water, but do you want to consume tap water from a jug that’s been sitting out all day? Add to that unwashed lemon wedges and dirty ice cubes, and the fact they're topped up rather than rinsed and replaced throughout the day. It's not looking like an appealing choice now.
Eating out is an opportunity to try something new and be surprised. As more restaurants expand their horizons, conjuring up new dishes and recreating old ones, it’s fun and exciting to get involved. Step away from the chicken salad and opt for something completely different. There’s all to gain and nothing to lose.
Pizza is a big money maker for restaurants as ingredients cost very little and can be sold on at a high mark-up. If you’re at a speciality pizza restaurant that makes its own dough and offers artisan meats and cheeses, then great. However, if you’re at a pub and they want £15 for something frozen and of supermarket quality, don’t do it.
We get it. You’re after something hearty, and the 'home-style' meatloaf on the menu is calling your name. The problem with restaurant meatloaf is that it's often packed with filler, and scrimps on meat. The dish is then covered in rich, sugary tomato sauce so you don’t notice. If you really want it, check it’s actually homemade.
The wedge salad is a dish you could’ve easily prepared yourself at home. Made with iceberg lettuce, which can be marked up 20 times over, and often commercial salad dressing, it's not worth it. Plus, germs can hide in the crinkly leaf cracks, even after it’s washed.
When the bottled ketchup that lives on the table at your local burger joint runs out, don’t think the dregs go to waste. At the end of shifts, staff combine leftover sauce to make full bottles. Although it’s good to be thrifty, there’s no way of telling how long it's really been out. Stay safe and avoid communal ketchup, particularly if it tastes sour.
Moules frites (mussels and fries) is an incredibly popular dish, but reconsider your order if you’re not at a dedicated seafood restaurant. Mussels require meticulous care and storage. Restaurants rarely check through the mussels to make sure only the healthy ones are cooked, and a single bad mussel is enough to make you sick. Anthony Bourdain famously said that he only ordered mussels if he knew the chef personally.
White truffle and caviar are deliciously extravagant foods which, if you have a taste for them, you’re better off enjoying at home. The mark-up on these ingredients in a restaurant, compared to at wholesale, is astronomical and neither require much skill on the part of the chef.
A well-done steak can often make the meat tough, and can ruin the quality. Also, a little-known industry secret is that some restaurants save the worst and oldest cuts for cooking well-done because after they’re grilled to a crisp, customers are none the wiser.
Most truffle oils are not made with any truffle at all, but are created to taste like truffle, or only have a tiny bit of the real thing. It's why the flavour can be very overpowering. You'll end up paying more for something that doesn't taste anything like fresh truffle.
Just like the specials, the soup of the day is a nifty way for chefs to whizz up a profit from leftover ingredients before they go off. Also, double check whether yesterday’s soup du jour was the same as today's, says British chef Gordon Ramsay. If yesterday’s special was the same, it might be the case that you’re ordering soup of the month.
A house-made veggie burger would be a cracking order, but some pubs, diners and meat-focused restaurants order their veggie dishes – often frozen – from wholesale, rather than preparing them from scratch. A farm-to-table or vegetarian restaurant is your best bet if you're in the market for one of these.
Of course you’re tempted to order a Wagyu beef and venison burger with a truffle centre, topped with caviar and a duck egg – a fancy meal at a low price tag, you must be thinking. However, in reality there’s no need to pay a lot for a good burger. The best burgers are made with chuck, brisket or ribs. Grinding up expensive meat is a waste. Plus all those luxury toppings may come in very small quantities and not be of the quality you’re led to believe.