Is the world getting bored of the three course meal? Judging by the boom in restaurants serving small plates over the past few years, you might think so. Throughout the world's major cities, restaurants specialising in little tasting portions have been popping up like mushrooms after rain, ranging from simple neighbourhood tapas bars to expensive titbit temples such as the global chain of elite establishments run by Joel Robuchon. Giving diners a chance to try a great variety dishes than they would normally be able to, these restaurants have proved to be more than just a passing vogue, with jaded diners apparently keen on the variety and relative informality these restaurants can offer.
But with a rash of indifferent places now using the trend to cover unreasonable markups and general culinary vacuousness, it seems that the small plate fad may have just reached its peak. So are restaurants serving small plates a great way to taste as many flavours as possible, or are they just overpriced posing palaces for people who don't really want to eat? Of course, calling eateries that dish up small portions a new thing may seem somewhat ludicrous to non-Anglo-Saxon readers. While they're a relatively new phenomenon in the Anglosphere, there are many parts of the world where such establishments have a long history.
The type of Japanese bar-cum-restaurants called izakayas have long dished up meals that straddle the fence between finger food and proper dining, serving nibbles such as crispy grilled chicken skin and tempura. Little dishes of mezze have long been one of the chief pleasures of dining out in both Turkey and Greece, while steamed and fried dim sum are one of the most popular features of Cantonese catering.
Best known of all, perhaps, are Spanish tapas. Tapas are now a worldwide phenomenon whose generally simple preparation chimes well with the current culinary emphasis on prime ingredients that haven't been overly messed about. But while all these specialities have been on offer in some places on the international dining scene for years, they have never before been so widespread or so popular. Top tapas bars like Barcelona's Cal Pep have become the subject of international pilgrimages by foodies, while at the top of the market, chefs such as Chicago's Grant Achatz and Britain's Heston Blumenthal have begun serving meals of many tiny courses (though still keeping their meals structured) as a way of better showcasing their virtuosity.
It's not hard to see why small plates have gone down well over the past few years. The novelty of eating so many little dishes in one sitting can certainly make dining more fun. With plenty of flavours to stick down your gullet, you're less likely to get as bored as you might chomping steadily through the soon-familiar tastes of a heftier portion. Sharing lots of small plates can also make a meal feel more matey, an all-in scrum of stabbing forks where the food acts as a conversation piece and game for all players around the table. And for those who enjoy eating out as a form of theatre, restaurants serving small plates achieve a natural bustle that makes them feel particularly lively. This could be one of the reasons that restaurants specialising in small plates often prove popular with younger diners. The nightclub-like feel of many of the pan-Asian fusion restaurants now found scattered across the world's major cities - which almost invariably serve up tiny portions - are certainly a world away from the starchy, sometimes intimidating atmosphere of many high-end restaurants.
When it comes to picking out a meal, small plates also free people up to be more daring. If you can try far more flavour combinations in a single sitting, with no onus on a single dish to satisfy all your needs, you can also feel freer to be more experimental, taking risks with unlikely choices in the knowledge that there will be something else to nibble on if it proves to be awful. Just the other month in Valencia, for example, I tucked into a little dish containing two of my least-favourite ingredients - oily bluefish and slimy banana. Had this been a main course, I would never have braved ordering something so apparently unpromising, but it turned out that, as they were very carefully cooked (the bluefish battered lightly, the banana crunchily caramelised), the combination did not taste like someone's bizarre pregnancy craving, but was actually appetising and unexpectedly effective.
So far so good - but while meals made up from small plates can be edgier and more varied, they can also be pretty rubbish. Perhaps the worst aspect of small plate restaurants is the all too common rip-off factor. Many restaurants profiteer shamelessly, charging substantial prices for tiny portions of food, which often turn out to be indifferent in quality. On first glance at the menu, the prices often seem reasonable enough, as they are usually cheaper than those of the average full main course - which makes it easy to descend into a sharklike feeding frenzy of over-ordering. When you realise, however, that what you've asked for can be finished off in three bites, it's easy to feel conned. Having ordered yet more dishes when you realise you're still hungry - all of them up-sold with a tastier profit margin than the average main - you can end up with a bill that far exceeds what you'd normally pay for the standard three courses.
The lack of structure to a meal of small plates can also be frustrating. Spaniards may enjoy lingering for hours over a few little dishes, but then they tend to treat tapas as a pick me up on a night out, or something to appease the appetite before going home to a proper dinner. If you're going for a full meal, sending out dishes in no particular order whenever they're ready seems more tailored to the needs of the kitchen than the punters. Too often, this creates a feast and famine cycle, where you wait ages for dishes to come then are overwhelmed with a whole cluster of plates which congeal or go cold before you can get to them. Still, a lot of diners don't seem overly bothered by these pitfalls - for the simple reason that many fans of small plate restaurants aren't attracted there by the food.
And here lies what might be the most heinous offence. While tapas can be excellent in capable hands, too many establishments dishing up midget portions seem more focused on styling and ambience than the actual grub itself. I visited an expensive, exceedingly slick spot selling small plates in New York recently and found myself surrounded by handsome, power-groomed women eating, well, practically nothing at all. The food was a dubious and insipid mismatch of dishes snatched promiscuously from around the Far East, but the diners seemed perfectly happy merely tweaking pointless little morsels around their plates, occasionally popping a scrap in their mouths with fussy lacquer chop sticks. Like so many fads, the food seemed to be a victory of style over substance, customers lured through the doors by a sleek decor resembling a James Bond villain's hideaway rather than by the promise of genuine gastronomy.
I rather doubt that flashy places like that one will be with us for long. A trend that started as an exciting way of injecting a bit of extra vigour into high end dining is now too often descending into caricature, with fussy but unsatisfying food served haphazardly in places where the only things offered in generous portions are the prices. With the oft-mentioned credit crunch upon us, value, not spectacle, is the current buzzword. Little plates of not very much may soon look as dated as that almost forgotten dinosaur, Nouvelle Cuisine, where gerbil-sized portions laid out as daintily as rocks in a Japanese garden were the order of the day. While the pleasures of, say, the best tapas are exquisite and will always find customers, the small plates trend as a general approach to dining out may just prove too tricksy to stay around much longer. So take these tiny dishes away, waiter, and make mine a large one.
