Anthony Bourdain Said These Are The Best Days Of The Week To Eat Out
With higher menu prices, dining out is becoming a highly calculated art. Scouring every restaurant review site is not enough to commit to a reservation. With ingredient shortages and inflation, it's almost a miracle the plate makes it to your table. Yet, trust is placed in restaurants, new and old, to provide a stellar experience with even more phenomenal dishes no matter the situation beyond the kitchen.
This is one of the reasons why the work of the late food writer and culinary legend Anthony Bourdain is so coveted. While working as a chef in kitchens across New York City, Bourdain rose to fame with his honest, uncensored depictions of life in food service. His most notable article, "Don't Eat Before Reading This," ushered America into the consciousness of the kitchen. It is in this timeless piece that Bourdain shared a guaranteed way to ensure you're getting the best restaurant experience, relying on one of his best pieces of advice: which day to eat out.
When not to dine out
When visiting major cities during weekends, especially tourist destinations, it is natural to expect a sea of people flooding the best or trendiest restaurants around. Anthony Bourdain warned that "weekends are considered amateur nights — for tourists, rubes, and the well-done-ordering pretheatre hordes." He went on to explain that, "chefs prefer to cook for weekday customers rather than for weekenders." To that point, VICE notes the high probability that "your brunch server hates you."
During the average week, it's obvious why weekends should be avoided. For the same reasons, chefs like Gordon Ramsay also recommend avoiding dining out on major holidays like Valentine's Day because "busy kitchens with tons of diners means you don't get the true feeling of the restaurant." It's clear that a crowded restaurant can significantly change the dining experience, but Bourdain's ideal day to dine out relied on two other factors: when fresh ingredient deliveries arrive and what days of the week chefs typically have off.
Plan to dine out on Tuesdays
For the most ideal restaurant experience, Anthony Bourdain recommended dining out on Tuesdays, noting in The New Yorker that, "the good stuff comes in on Tuesday: the seafood is fresh, the supply of prepared food is new, and the chef, presumably, is relaxed after his day off. (Most chefs don't work on Monday.)" Because weekdays are slower for restaurants, there are more incentives to entice diners to come in, like menu specials or happy hours, which ultimately make it a cost-effective day to dine out, too.
Lifehacker points out that Kate Krader, food editor at Bloomberg, agrees, suggesting that on, "Tuesdays, they're starting fresh." While Tuesday might be an unconventional day to make dinner plans, it could be the decision that makes the night out worth your while. As noted by Bourdain, "the fish may be just as fresh on Friday, but it's on Tuesday that you've got the goodwill of the kitchen on your side."