fine dining – BonAppetour

Eating out has become a spectator sport: the buttoned-up chef has become the star, with patrons lining the halls in hopes of a table at this year’s hottest restaurant. While farm-to-table-molecular-gastronomy trends are tempting, the truth is that the best food is still usually found at home.

In fact, your next best meal is likely hidden away behind a simple front door. Here are 6 reasons why your next fine dining experience will most probably be at home.

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1. Rise of the pop-up dinner

With a focus on speed and precision, professional kitchens can feel more like well-oiled machines rather than centers of artistic freedom. Now, chefs are moving out of the fast paced environment in order to focus on quality rather than the number of meals they have to deliver in a single evening.

Hence the rise of the pop-up dinner, which is usually hosted at home. The temporary nature of pop-ups gives chefs the creative space to constantly re-invent menus without having to worry about covering the rent on a brick-and-mortar restaurant space.

This way, you know for sure that the food in front of you was borne from passion, rather than a paycheck.

2. When in Rome, eat with the Romans

When visiting a major city, it can be easy to get a bad meal. Even TripAdvisor sometimes gets it wrong. High turnover from tourists who come and go frequently can lead to lackluster offerings at local restaurants.

For this reason, you’ll have a far better chance of trying the best local foods in Rome if you actually eat with the Romans. In a Roman kitchen, you’ll not only be able to help prepare the meal, you’ll also have the benefit of dining without a tourist menu (or a tourist) in sight.

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3. No hidden ingredients

Between food blogs, cookbooks, and online instructions, all the information you need to construct a gourmet meal at home is literally at your fingertips. With sous-vides for sale on Amazon, even the most high-tech kitchen tools are within reach. The space between the professional kitchen and your own dining room table has shortened, meaning you no longer have to rely on cooks hidden out of view.

Choosing a home restaurant means you know exactly how much of what goes into your dish. Plus, you can leave with the recipe to recreate the meal any time – no dress code required.

4. Demystifying the plate

Not very confident in the kitchen? You can now take a class with an experienced home cook to beef up on your culinary skills (and eat it, too). Once you have chopped, sautéed, and served, you will find that meals are about more than just throwing ingredients together.

Taking the time to learn from a home chef and sit down to dinner with a local family is the best way to understand a new food culture.

5. Dinner parties without the artifice

Passing on the restaurant reservation is also a practice in ditching the pretense. Without Michelin stars, crisp white linens, or bow-tied waiters in the way, dining at home places the spotlight on the experience without sacrificing the menu.

Home restaurants concentrate on what matters – the food, and the company.

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6. The most exclusive reservation in town

That new restaurant everyone is trying to get in to? Well, literally everyone is going to be there. Why wait months for a meal that has been served to a thousand other instagramming patrons?

Unique dining experiences don’t happen en masse, they happen one-on-one (and preferably on private terraces).

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Ready to try out your first fine dining experience at a home restaurant? Find your city here to get started right away.

6 Ways to Indulge in Fine Dining without Breaking your Wallet

While fine dining could be an everyday option for some, for others, the idea of visiting an upscale, exquisite and posh restaurant could be daunting or simply, unnerving. The cause of this nightmare is none other than the hefty bill one has to fork out to enjoy a taste of the finest quality. Yet, it never stops us from indulging in our guilty pleasure once in a while, whether is it on a special occasion or just to pamper ourselves with a treat at the end of the week. Thankfully, taking a few steps will just do the trick in realising our dream of acquiring a fine dining experience without breaking the bank.

Here are the 6 ways:

1. Engage in social dining platform to experience fine dining with local hosts at their homes.

Fine dining and wallet friendly probably sounds paradoxical but this is precisely what social dining platform like BonAppetour specialises in, providing a fine dining gastronomical experience for you with local hosts without burning a hole in your pocket. Fret no more about reservations, simply search for a local host that has an opening for dinner, and you would find yourselves immersed in a local’s company for a gourmet fix for the night.

2. Maximise your dining experience at the off-peak hours

Ditch candlelit dinner for a daylight light-hearted meal that guarantees wallet-friendly bill. In general, lunchtime fine dining is priced lower and the best deals such as set lunches could easily be caught despite the smaller portion. Also, enhance your meal experience by dropping by on weekday nights like Tuesday and Wednesday to avoid scrambling against the crowd for a table, and needless to say, every waiter would probably be at your disposal.

3. Have your cake and eat it too

A meal just wouldn’t be complete without desserts, and they are probably ranked as essential for our sweet-toothed meal buddy. Tapping into our needs for instant gratification, the price of desserts in fine dining restaurants are strategically hiked up. Hence, a smarter way of consumption would probably be picking a nearby cafeteria for pastries and a cup of tea that costs you a quarter of your bill at the restaurant.

4. Abandon your ‘Top 10 restaurants to visit’ list and be your own list maker

Discard your list of must-go restaurants that have most likely made a name for themselves in the fine dining industry. Backed by popularity among the restaurant-goers, prices for cuisine in these established fine dining restaurants are off the roofs. Why not take a day off at be your own list maker? Be adventurous and unearth new restaurants in your neighbourhood. Who knows? A future Michelin restaurant could await to be discovered at the turn of the street.

5. Buy online discount vouchers

There are plenty of websites that facilitate consumers’ access to cheap deals and savings without forfeiting on the quality of the commodity. So why cut yourself short when you can enjoy both exquisite dining and massive cost savings through using platform like DealslandsUK where you can get exclusive deals and huge savings of up to 80% at restaurants by keeping a lookout for coupons or vouchers offered on the site.

6. Be the chef for the day

Who says that fine dining has to be provided or catered? Swap that business attire for an apron a day and be transform your house into a fine dining ambience for a heart-warming dining experience for your close friends and family. The upside for such venture is definitely the ability in serving customised food to your guests that have a dietary requirement. Did I mention that you will also get to sharpen your culinary skills and perhaps receive a bottle of wine from your grateful guests?

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Here’s Why Your Next Fine Dining Experience Will Probably Be At Home