I generally agree with you - too often it is formulaic and too much. If it is done right, it can be another adventure, but it is rare that it is the part of the meal that I remember most. Perhaps the (only?) exception to this for me is El Cellar de Can Roca, where the dessert / sweet program is on a different level to any other restaurant at which I have ever eaten.
I’d happily skip the main course for the desserts. The perfect tasting menu would be all of the appetizer courses, cheese, and all of the dessert courses.
One of my favorite dessert courses - they brought a plate of different apple sorbets - you pick the ones you like, then they craft the dessert from the one you pick.
But that bread cart 
2 Likes
All of this yes. Nodding like crazy 
Well that’s certainly an incentive for me to visit Spain! ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
That’s actually a really cool way to get in more than one dessert in a tasting menu. If you think about it, you’ve really had a dessert serving with each sorbet sample. Love it.
I love when there’s more than one dessert course in a tasting menu but I am always aware of portion size. Especially since as wine lovers, most of us here are also having a sweet wine and/or Champagne or other sparkling wine to go with it which of course is an additional sweet indulgence as well.
In fact, often when dining out with friends at a standard restaurant and ordering a la carte, we’ll often order different desserts and share amongst everyone so that we are in fact getting a “tasting menu” of different desserts as it were but nobody is overstuffed because you essentially are only having a total of one normal dessert portion assuming everyone indulges equally.
Damn. Now I want to go to Vienna.
1 Like
My husband really appreciates, even loves, having multiple sweet courses
I think the fundamental issue is with tasting menus. I’d love for them to be more the exception than the rule in fine dining. Epicure in Paris is really good a la carte, as mentioned previously, and so is l’Ambroisie, which is so old school it has no truck with the tasting menu concept at all. It helps a lot that both places are easy about letting you split one entree into two servings
Mai thank you for recommending Steirereck - I’ll add it to my list
What do you do, if presented with fifteen different desserts, at a cruise-line Midnight Tasting Menu (a.k.a. “Chez Boofay”)?
I would personally just ease off, when staring across twenty amuse-bouche items at the first steam table.