[armchairhacker]

Lately I’ve been finding most restaurant dishes “low quality”: in particular, less meat and tastes overcooked compared to what I make at home, though grains and vegetables are also blander.

I suspect this is more me being a harsher critic than restaurants enshittifying. I’ve been improving my cooking. I do get premium ingredients, that sometimes cost much more than the cheapest alternative, but still always much less than even low-end restaurants.

So my conclusion is, if you like good food you should cook yourself. Maybe if you’re rich enough to always eat at especially expensive restaurants, but even then I think you’d prefer a private chef.

[meheleventyone]

If you like food you should do both! There are plenty of things it's hard to cook at home or impractical to keep all the different things you need. A good example is ironically a really simple food. Pizza needs temperatures most domestic ovens aren't nearly hot enough to provide in order to make a quality result.

Restaurants also provide an opportunity to eat foods you've never experienced before which really helps cooking similar things at home as you have some idea of what the end result should be like. And the beauty is that this often doesn't have to be expensive to be good.

It's like any creative hobby you need to develop both craft and taste.

[manarth]

    > "Pizza needs temperatures most domestic ovens aren't nearly hot enough to provide"

This is where the hobby-cook market has started to be addressed; e.g. Ooni Pizza Ovens aren't cheap, but they also aren't a suitable commercial oven, so very much aimed at the home hobbyist/enthusiast.

[armchairhacker]

You’re right on both points.

I’d say restaurants are great occasionally. It’s generally bad to go more than occasionally.

I don’t get why there are so many though, especially generic ones.

[pards]

> I’ve been finding most restaurant dishes “low quality”

Many restaurants use pre-made components like sauces bought from restaurant wholesalers which explains a lot of the sameness across establishments.

Hollandaise from a bag? No thanks.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

Restaurants are enshittifying, in the US this is largely the Sysco effect where more dishes come pre-prepared to the restaurant from mass production lines. They range from bad to peak mediocrity.

[armchairhacker]

In Europe?

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

I don't know if Europe is seeing similar.

[jareklupinski]

my theory is that restaurants used to just close when the owner / chef / patrons ran out of steam to keep an excellent place afloat

it seems to be more popular now to buy a struggling business that seemed highend, give it a new coat of paint, swap the menu for something from a university cafeteria, and keep it making money for a couple decades

because that was the point... i guess...

[6510]

The point is to get nutrients into the labor force.

[jareklupinski]

Labor Force sounds cooler capitalized like Justice League or The Avengers