Is the Tasting Menu Going the Way of the Dinosaur?
Little Mad is crowded. Lined up against its gray concrete walls are tables of people chatting, wine glasses resting gently next to them — people on dates, friends laughing together, a table of five in the corner and a man sitting alone. Varying numbers of plates fill their tables. Less than two months ago, the New American restaurant with Korean and French flair — named one of America’s Best Restaurants by The New Yorker, one of the Top 50 Best Restaurants by The New York Times and one of the 23 Best Places to Go in the U.S. by Conde Nast Traveler — transitioned from its tasting menu to an a la carte menu.
“The reason we changed was to give everyone equal opportunity to come eat and dine out at Little Mad without breaking the bank,” says executive chef and owner Sol Han. “This is going to get a lot more butts in the seats. Especially in this time, the economy is not doing very well, and I feel like people realize more than ever how things are so expensive in New York. So we’re trying to give people a bang for the buck.”
He took a gamble: if the menu went a la carte, the check totals might be lower but maybe more people would come in. With the a la carte menu, the server suggests I get four courses, and the cost per person could be between $60 and $80, more if you choose upscale add-ons like uni, truffle, kaluga caviar or their signature Mad Toast with Korean egg salad, beef tartare, truffle and caviar on brioche.
According to Suzy Badaracco, president of food forecasting think tank Culinary Tides and a chef herself, Han’s decision is right on schedule. A traditional tasting menu, she says, is not something consumers want right now. Rather, they want the opposite: total control. “Everything else is out of control right now,” she says. “They’re dealing with inflation. There’s an election year coming. They got through COVID a couple of years ago.”
So consumers want hyper-personalized experiences, and they want to choose how to spend their money, especially in a time of economic distress. Badaracco believes traditional tasting menus need to evolve the way the rest of the industry has, adding opportunities for consumers to make decisions, especially at higher price points. If they don’t change, they could become a thing of the past.
