The hill I’ll die on: ‘Small plates’ are fiddly and break the bank – ban them | Jonny Woo

It’s pretty going out for dinner in London. It’s a gastro capital with cuisines from all all over the world. One evening, Indian, French the following, Peruvian, Ethiopian. You’ll be able to journey the globe with out leaving Hackney.

This time of yr, I’m tremendous busy planning the un-Royal Selection present – a punk pastiche of the royal model – and so I can’t be bothered with meal prep and washing up, and discover myself consuming out an terrible lot. Most meals tendencies I can get behind (except for truffle – yuck!). However one pernicious eating development that refuses to go away and which I detest is “small plates”.

My coronary heart sinks and I develop into inwardly livid once I sit down and the waiter asks, “Have you ever been right here earlier than?”. “No, it’s our first time.” “Nicely, we do ‘small plates’ and we propose you order between three and 20 per particular person.”

It’s much more annoying than QR code menus. The very last thing you need to do whenever you sit down with an outdated buddy for a catch-up is straight away get your telephone out and begin loading web pages and inputting your financial institution particulars – it’s a leftover from Covid that ought to be abolished.

However again to small plates. Individuals suppose I’m a hipster, being an east London drag queen, however I’ve received nothing on the purveyors of “caulifower bites”. All of a sudden you’re hanging out a tenner right here, a tenner there, for tiny saucers of pomegranate seeds, issues sprinkled in petals and a random blow-torched lettuce leaf. Simply give me a bloody dinner!

After which your buddy inevitably says, “Let’s simply get a number of issues and share.” NOOO!!! Don’t make me share my dinner with you as if we’re a pack of untamed cats. I’ll gladly share lots of issues with strangers in a Berlin dungeon, however I completely refuse to share a chunk of pig’s cheek in Haggerston.

I’m 53. I grew up in Kent within the Seventies in a wonderfully regular working-class, borderline lower-middle-class family, the type so splendidly explored in Mike Leigh films. It was the type of dwelling the place the meals was dished from the pan on to the plate. After which the entire plate was plopped in entrance of you and also you had been advised to eat all of it up – otherwise you couldn’t go and watch Grange Hill.

In small-plates hell, you find yourself attempting to reconstruct a standard meal and paying twice the value for it. Dying to small plates – that’s the hill I’ll die on. Until you’re in Spain, in fact; I really like a spot of tapas, however that’s totally different. Andalucia – do your factor, honey. However Dalston: oh, develop up, and provides me a pie.

• Jonny Woo is a performer, drag artist, author, and co-owner of The Divine, he can be internet hosting his Un-Royal Selection at Soho Theatre Walthamstow 26-28 November 2026.