Over the past few years, an increasing number of restaurants have ditched the idea of plates in favor of serving their appetizers and entrees in annoying new configurations, whether that means your burger is balancing in a small cast iron skillet, your candied bacon starter is sticking out of a Mason jar, or your full English breakfast arrives on a shovel. At this point, if it's a noun, someone is probably trying to arrange your next meal in, on, or around it.But no, a new restaurant in Plymouth, England is not serving all of its food on the backs of diners' hands, despite what you might have read on the internet. Yes, the Brown & Bean, which was just opened by Michelin-starred chef (and Masterchef: The Professionals winner) Anton Piotrowski does have one starter that involves licking a burnt apple puree from your own fingers, but everything else on the nine-course tasting menu is served on—gasp!—a traditional plate or bowl."How everyone's described it is that basically all we're doing is serving on naked bodies and stuff," Piotrowski told MUNCHIES. "But that's not the case at all."All of those hysterical "MASTERCHEF WINNER SERVES FOOD ONTO CUSTOMER'S HANDS" headlines appear to have been spawned (and condensed) from Louise Daniel's review of the restaurant for the Plymouth Herald. "I don't think [the tabloids] got the right end of the story on that," Piotrowski said. "But that's The Sun. That's what you get when really bad journalism goes out."Daniel's reportage on her own experience does talk about this now-buzzy starter: The cover photo shows a savory-looking puree spread on the back of someone's hand, with the caption "At Brown & Bean, you eat off your hand." But that's far from being the whole story—or the whole meal.
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Piotrowski said that the dehydrated pork, apple puree, and pork gravy starter is meant to give guests a literal taste of what it's like to work in a busy kitchen. "The whole dish is an experience of how a chef would taste off his hand," he said. "When you're busy in service, and you have purees coming up, a chef will come up to you and say 'Is this ok?' and then put it on your hand. The dish is called How the Chef Tastes."
The apple puree is spread on the back of the diner's hand, so you can lick that—and the gravy—from your own fingers. ("Like you would at home, when you finish an amazing meal," he said.) He included it on the menu for that very reason: to make his customers feel comfortable and at home before they settled in for the other eight courses. "And underneath their hand is a plate," Piotrowski added with a laugh.The rest of Daniel's review was glowing, and she gave the one-week old restaurant a rating of 8 out of 10. "Barring the odd minor misstep, this is seriously good eating," she wrote. "Prepare to be taken on a culinary journey which evokes memories by turning classics combinations into smaller plates of hearty, well thought out food."See that? Plates. He's serving plates of food. Your move, breakfast-on-a-shovel chef.