Is Fine Dining Dead?

Iphone-friendly Dishes and Low-budget Meals Are Putting a Nail in the Coffin of Degustation, Formal Dining, and White-glove Service
 

- Peter Pysk

What is fine dining?

Traditionally it would be defined as a restaurant that has a formal atmosphere, is almost always a sit-down restaurant with a well-trained service staff, crisp white tablecloths, and a menu that focuses on technique using the best produce one can find. You will find crystal glasses and five sets of impeccably polished cutlery on the table. These are restaurants that keep curated wine lists— and sometimes, even sommeliers. They have a strict dress code and typically have words such as escargot, carpaccio, foie gras, truffles, and lobster on the menu.

If we use this traditional definition, then we will find that Manila has been limited in its offerings. We have not really had many independent fine-dining establishments in this country. I have been traveling to Manila for the past 16 years, and finding a “fine dining” establishment has been very difficult and limited to five-star international hotels. Even then, many of those establishments have been well below par when it comes to the rest of the world.