Question Of The Week: How Do You Define 'Fine Dining'?

Most people would label Aurora a fine dining restaurant. But what about a place like Suze? Or Bob's? The former is a small, neighborhood joint and the latter a massive steakhouse. So can we refer to a tiny, unpretentious joint serving great food as fine dining? Should we label all...

By Dave Faries

May 22, 2009

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Most people would label Aurora a fine dining restaurant. But what about a place like Suze? Or Bob's? The former is a small, neighborhood joint and the latter a massive steakhouse. So can we refer to a tiny, unpretentious joint serving great food as fine dining? Should we label all expensive restaurants as fine dining by default? Perhaps we should declare the term meaningless and drop it altogether...

Results from last week, in which we asked whether food, service or atmosphere matter more in determining a restaurant's popularity:

It seems as though many respondents are convinced a minority of guests run out to dinner based on the quality of food alone. Some will put up with slovenly service if the kitchen proves worthwhile, although Billusa99 sees a connection between the first two elements. "Service is equally as important as food and we gourmands won't go back to a place without a good portion of both," he writes. "If you have those 2, you will have atmosphere by default." According to luniz, about 25 percent are drawn by cooking. "Lots of people don't even take the time to taste what they're eating," he/she (we have no idea) points out.

We'll yield to TLS for the conclusion: "Even little kids know that atmosphere wins over food and service. Chuck E. Cheese anyone?"

Hard to argue that one.

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