10 dishes chefs say you should never order at restaurants

The waiter is smiling a little too hard as he recommends the “famous house special.”
You’re hungry, the room smells incredible, and the menu is a little overwhelming. Your eyes bounce from the steak to the burger to that mysterious “chef’s inspiration” with a price that feels strangely vague for what it is.

We’ve all been there-that moment when you nod yes without really knowing what you’re agreeing to.

Later, a chef friend tells you quietly, over a beer, “That dish? I would never order that in a restaurant. Ever.”

Suddenly the menu looks different.
You start to wonder what chefs themselves refuse to touch when they’re the ones sitting at the table.

Some answers are surprising. Some are a little terrifying.

10 dishes chefs avoid: what they’ll never order when they eat out

Ask a professional chef what they avoid in restaurants and they don’t hesitate.
Certain dishes are huge red flags-not because they’re “unhealthy” or because chefs are snobs, but because these plates often hide shortcuts, old ingredients, or lazy cooking.

When you work behind the pass, you know which dishes stay on the menu forever, which ones sit too long under heat lamps, and which ones get reheated until they beg for mercy. You see where corners get cut.
Suddenly that creamy special of the day doesn’t look so romantic anymore.

Once you’ve heard chefs talk, you never quite read a menu the same way again.

One Paris-trained chef told me about a seafood restaurant that sold “fresh catch pasta” year-round, every single day.
He laughed and said, “The ocean isn’t a vending machine. If it’s always available, something’s off.” Turns out, the “fresh” seafood mix came in huge frozen bags, thawed and tossed with cream to cover any rubbery texture or dull flavor.

He also avoids chicken parmesan in big chains-not because it’s evil, but because it tends to be pre-breaded, pre-fried, and sitting around waiting to be reheated.
The same story repeats with bottomless shrimp, buffet sushi, and brunch scrambles for 200 people.
Once you know how restaurants work behind the scenes, those bargain dishes feel less like a deal and more like a lottery ticket.

Behind almost every “never order this” warning is the same logic: time, volume, and profit.
Dishes that are fried, sauced, or smothered in cheese are perfect for hiding cheap or tired ingredients. If something is on every menu in town and always “on promotion,” chefs get suspicious.

They’ll tell you they avoid:

• All-you-can-eat seafood
• Daily soups that never change
• Filet mignon drowned in sauce
• Overcomplicated salads with 15 toppings

These plates are built to use up inventory, please everyone, and protect the restaurant’s margins.
That doesn’t mean they’re always bad.
But chefs know the odds aren’t in your favor.

How chefs actually read a menu (and what that means for you)

Chefs scan a menu the way mechanics look at an engine. They don’t read it top to bottom.
Their eyes jump to the risky zones: “specials” boards, fancy burgers, and any dish that feels like it’s trying a little too hard.

They often go straight for the simplest plates: roast chicken, a seasonal fish, a small pasta with just three or four ingredients. These are hard to fake. You can’t hide low-quality chicken behind a lemon wedge.
You can’t pretend fish is fresh once it hits a hot pan.

When they see ten different sauces, ten different proteins, and a menu thicker than a magazine, they quietly close it a bit and start to worry about what’s actually fresh that day.

One Italian chef I met in London has a rule: he never orders “truffle” anything in mid-priced restaurants outside of truffle season.
“Most of the time,” he told me, “you’re paying extra for a chemical perfume in a bottle.” Those famous truffle fries? Often just frozen fries tossed in truffle-flavored oil that owes more to a lab than a forest in Umbria.

Another chef, who spent years working hotel brunches, avoids hollandaise sauce unless he deeply trusts the place. He’s seen it sit for hours at unsafe temperatures, curdle, and then get “fixed” with more butter and vigorous whisking.
Let’s be honest: almost nobody pulls this off every single day with textbook precision-especially during a slammed brunch shift.

These are the things you don’t see from your table, but they’re exactly what chefs think about when they order.

So why do they say there are dishes you should “never” order? It’s not moral panic. It’s pattern recognition.
Risky dishes tend to share a few traits: high volume, high margin, and low oversight. They’re built from components that can be prepped far in advance-often in huge batches-then assembled in seconds.

Think:

• Complex cocktails with dairy or egg whites in very busy bars
• “House” dressings that never run out
• Giant mixed seafood platters in landlocked cities

The longer the supply chain and the more complicated the dish, the more chances something goes wrong-texture, bacteria, flavor, you name it.
Chefs sweat over that stuff in their own kitchens. In other people’s kitchens, they protect themselves with one simple tactic: they order only what makes culinary sense in that specific place on that specific day.

So what should you actually do when you sit down?

The chefs I spoke with all suggested the same first move: look around before you look down at the menu.
What are other tables eating? Are the plates coming out hot, generous, and consistent-or do they look tired and identical, like they were portioned by a printer?

Next, check the menu size. A smaller menu with seasonal notes usually means the kitchen isn’t juggling 60 dishes at once. That boosts your chances that your food is actually cooked for you, not assembled from a freezer.
Then ask one disarming question: “What do you like to cook here?”

You’re not asking for the “most popular” or the “most expensive.”
You’re asking where the pride is.

A lot of us feel shy about this and default to the safe burger or the famous “signature” dish printed in huge letters.
The problem is that those plates are often designed by marketers, not cooks. They look good on Instagram, they travel well on delivery apps, and they use ingredients that can sit around.

One chef from New York told me she avoids “extreme” burgers with eight toppings and three sauces. “That’s not cooking,” she said, “that’s stacking.” Those burgers often hide average meat, stale buns, and sauces that all taste vaguely the same: sweet, smoky, salty.
If you love burgers, she suggests choosing the simple one with a clear description: good beef, good cheese, maybe one house sauce.

The more a dish screams for attention on the menu, the more she quietly backs away.

“People think chefs are picky,” one veteran cook told me. “We’re not. We just know which dishes were invented to use leftovers and which ones were invented because the chef actually loves to cook them.”

• All-you-can-eat shrimp and wings
  Often frozen, over-fried, and refried. Great for margins, bad for texture and flavor.
• Ultra-creative sushi rolls with 8 ingredients
  A playground for sauces and toppings that hide low-grade fish and heavy mayo.
• Out-of-season “fresh” berries or tomatoes
  Chefs know those flavors are flat and watery out of season, no matter how pretty the plate looks.
• Overcomplicated salads with sweet nuts, fruits, cheese, meats, and three dressings
  A way to dump lots of prepped items into one expensive bowl.
• Steak well-done in busy places
  Often the cut that can survive overcooking is the one the kitchen wants to get rid of.
• Daily soup that never seems to change
  A classic dumping ground for yesterday’s vegetables or meats.
• House special that’s vague on details
  If it just says “chef’s inspiration,” chefs quietly think, “Inspired by what, exactly?”

Eating out without paranoia: choose like a chef, enjoy like a normal person

There’s a risk, reading all this, of becoming the annoying friend who interrogates the server about the birth certificate of every shrimp. That’s not the goal.
Chefs go out to eat for enjoyment, not just inspection. They know restaurant life is messy, rushed, and imperfect, and they don’t demand Michelin-level precision from every neighborhood spot.

What they do is play the odds. They skip the dishes built for volume and showmanship, and lean toward the ones that fit the room: simple grilled fish at a busy coastal place, a slow-cooked braise in a small bistro, noodles at a spot that clearly lives and breathes noodles.
They look for signs of care: a short menu, seasonal notes, staff who know what they’re serving.

The funny thing is, once you start choosing this way, you usually spend the same money but walk away happier. Your food tastes more alive. Your stomach feels lighter. You feel more connected to the people actually cooking your meal.

You might still order the risky stuff sometimes, fully aware of what you’re doing. That’s fine. That’s part of the fun.
The quiet shift happens when you realize you’re no longer seduced only by the loudest dish on the page, but by the one that feels most honest-in that place, on that day.

Key point	Detail	Value for the reader
Spot red-flag dishes	Avoid high-volume, heavily sauced, always-on-special items	Lower risk of bland, reheated, or low-quality food
Read the room, not just the menu	Observe other tables, menu size, and seasonal cues	Quickly gauge how much the kitchen actually cooks vs. assembles
Ask one smart question	“What do you like to cook here?” instead of “What’s popular?”	Steer toward dishes the kitchen is proud of, not just the ones that sell

FAQ:

• Question 1 Which restaurant dishes do chefs most often warn against?
  
• Question 2 Is all-you-can-eat seafood always a bad idea?
  
• Question 3 How can I tell if a restaurant uses fresh ingredients?
  
• Question 4 Are “chef’s specials” usually safe to order?
  
• Question 5 What’s one simple habit to order smarter without overthinking?