by Gail Kerry

Created on: April 20, 2010

While sanitation is the first thing that comes to mind when eating at restaurants, there are relatively unknown facts about restaurant food quality one should also consider.  Most diners who have never been in a commercial restaurant kitchen assume that the Chef is in the kitchen supervising the preparation of food from scratch.  In most commercial restaurant kitchens, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

The fact is that much of the food supplied to commercial restaurants via large commercial food suppliers is processed and contains many highly questionable ingredients.  It may come as a shock to many diners that the “soup du jour” could be prepared by adding water to a packet which is full of preservatives, chemicals and salt.  Food preparation steps have been over-simplified in many large restaurant kitchens so that someone with relatively no cooking skills is able to produce a meal.  Although the end result certainly tastes better than many pre-prepared foods offered to shoppers at grocery stores, don’t be misled into thinking that there is someone back in the kitchen dipping those fries into a home made batter before frying them.

Restaurants utilize many tricks of the trade in making food appear to be freshly made when it is actually prepared at a factory and frozen.  Even fresh oysters are now shucked and flash frozen so that restaurant staff can simply thaw out their anticipated usage each morning.  Entrees such as veal parmesan and cordon bleu are prepared in a factory and kept in a freezer until a customer places an order and then baked or pan fried.  Desserts such as cheesecake and chocolate cake are supplied to the restaurant in extra large refrigerated packages and sliced or sometimes garnished on-site.    

What can a diner do to ensure that the food is fresh and not processed?  Ask someone that you trust.  Many servers are short term employees and simply don’t care about the consequences of lying to a customer.  If you really want to know something about the food you’re being served, ask an owner or manager which foods are fully prepared on-site.

Along with food quality, sanitation is of utmost importance.  Many diners frequently become ill 24 to 48 hours after a meal and have no idea that the origin of their illness may have been the result of contaminated food. 

The good news is that many of the same large chain establishments that serve much of the over processed foods typically follow strict sanitation guidelines and the kitchen is usually clean and in good order.  Because very few items are actually made on premises, cleanliness is not as much of a problem as in smaller, locally owned restaurants.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that because a restaurant has a high rating and is pricey that their kitchen is clean.  I have personally inspected dozens of highly acclaimed restaurants in my career that were full of rodents and did not practice good sanitation.

Having owned a restaurant myself I can honestly tell you that if a kitchen is clean and in good condition, a restaurant owner or manager will not have any qualms about letting you take a peek at the kitchen before you place an order.    Proprietors will also come clean if asked about which foods are freshly prepared.  My best advice when dining out is to frequent neighborhood establishments that will permit you in their kitchen, if requested and develop a relationship with the proprietor.

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