Coolinairy

Good news for the 3 people (optimistic estimate) that read my blog regularly: I am alive and so is my passion for food and writing! In all honesty, I let life get in the way the past couple of months: my call schedule in the hospital this summer was absolutely horrendous and a couple of weeks later I bought an apartment! I really underestimated how being an apartment owner is a part time job, but now that I’m all settled I’ve been missing to smash my keyboard to write nonsense. No food review since my phone went to smartphone heaven in the meantime. So I don’t have any recent restaurant pics. But I do have another bite-sized category where I discuss food trends and whatever is happening in the culinary scene: Food4Thought! Maybe a rant, maybe an observation: who knows? Still not pretentious, as it’s just a piece of my mind. Maybe a wish or maybe just being fed up? This time more of the latter: welcome to my obituary of the sharing plates.

Flashback to the first restaurant openings after COVID: I’m not gonna lie sharing plates/small plates were a fun expanded concept. A lot of middle eastern restaurants did sharing plates way before it was cool. It was however nice to enter the new and hip dining spots that allowed you to eat a variety of foods without stuffing yourself. It was the dawn of something new and exciting and for many restaurants it fit the brand. If you’re a restaurant owner at Châtelain: why would you not follow the trends to attract the flocks of hip eurocrats on your seats and tables?

But…

Unfortunately the faucet kept running and the bucket was filling up without any sign of the faucet slowing down the waterstream. The sharing plates concept became… invasive. Everybody and their mothers jumped on the sharing wagon especially in places where it didn’t make sense. Sharing plates at Zuid in Antwerp? Okay, predictable. But no, I don’t want to “share plates” in a village in Wallonia in a kitschy restaurant where I can awkwardly share a piece of beef with 6 people. The sharing plates experience turned into rationing. If only the bill could’ve followed suit. After the gazillionth time of hearing “Are you familiar with our concept?”, I realized how much I missed plates with a minimum diameter of 25 cm. I came back home hungry, frustrated and poorer than if I went to a regular restaurant. And for cultures where “sharing plates” has been going on for centuries, I can only imagine how all of their grandmothers are nodding in collective shame.

Yes, I do get riled up about it but…

Eventually the waterstream slowed down. The floor is still flooded, but the water finally seems to seep away. The portions were becoming generous again and the plates returned to their natural size. In a way, the parasitic restaurant scene became symbiotic again. I felt peace. Months came by and reminded us that there’s nothing that time can’t heal.

Or at least… that’s what I thought…

It was a pleasant summer day on the Flemish countryside. I was sipping some drinks with my boyfriend and mother-in-law on the terrace of a restaurant that has been on our radar for a while. There were some festivities in the city. The sun was smiling at us when– “Do you know the concept?”. It was the summer of 2025. That sentence, like a roach that moved one of its legs despite the fact that you sprayed it with Raid 5 times. A chill went down my spine. I checked the menu multiple times: I was 100% certain that they served normal plates. I realized I heard it correctly when my boyfriend and mother-in-law answered “no” simultaneously. Hélas, due to the city festivities, they switched their formula to sharing plates. I pleaded with no avail. Hélas, even in 2025, I fell into the sharing plates TRAP.

That was the last incident and now that I’m 6 months older and wiser since then, I’ve decided to write about it, to kind of put in perspective… or maybe manifesting? But most importantly as a warm wakeup call to all of you guys (my 3 regular readers): let’s all collectively hope for a sharing plate free 2026. Sharing is only caring for the restaurant owner who’s lining their pockets and you know you’re better than that! So with my final blog post of 2025: I wish you a beautiful 2026 (with regular plates, thank you)!