I know Food Network’s Alex Guarnaschelli from watching Chopped’s early seasons from about 10-15 years ago. She has a blunt, gruff personality and RBF. I say this as a fellow RBF-sufferer and curmudgeon, so it takes one to know one. Alex is featured in a Food Network Instagram Reel answering the question “how bad does food have to be before you send it back?” Alex makes it clear that she would never, ever send food back in any circumstance. Given Alex’s personality, this surprised me a little, but she surely knows things that I do not. Here’s what she said [via People] and that video is below.
“I am a Chopped judge of 16 years,” responded Guarnaschelli, who currently serves as a judge on 100 Cooks. “I would never send food back, no matter what. Zero chance. There’s no chance. None, zero, absolutely nothing.”
“It would have to — I don’t know. I don’t know. There’s nothing. I’d just stand there and smile,” she added.
People compiled some of the top comments and they’re mostly about sending food back if it’s undercooked or raw. I agree that you should do this. The last time I sent something back was at one of those brick oven pizza restaurants where they cook it in front of you. The dough in my pizza was still gooey. They didn’t have to remake it and I saw them put it in the big oven. Alex has worked at restaurants in France, New York and Los Angeles. She’s also dealt with a lot of undercooked food on Chopped. I’ve seen her refuse to eat undercooked food for good reason.
One time a Chopped contestant placed cooked food on a cutting board where she’d cut raw chicken. (This was Season 6, Episode 11.) No one ate the dish and she got eliminated. On Chopped you can see all the mistakes people make during preparation. At a restaurant you only see the glaring mistakes that make it onto the plate. Considering all the things that have to go wrong before a customer is given a noticeably bad dish, do you really trust the kitchen to fix it without messing something else up? This isn’t even considering someone in the back being vindictive with your food.
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I have never sent food back. Once my MIL (who was a server for years so is very easygoing at restaurants) had a bad incident at one of our local favorites – she ordered a chicken sandwich or something and the chicken was raw. Like not undercooked, but raw. She was polite but pointed it out to the waitress and they brought her something else and gave her a gift certificate for a future visit (which was very nice of them.)
But I’ve heard stories about people who send food back because they just don’t like it. If I ordered something, and it comes out the way I ordered it, that’s just my bad luck that either I dont like it or its not good.
(all of this excludes allergy reasons of course.)
The only time I ever sent food back, it was a ‘cooked’ fish dish that was still partially frozen. I told the server it was frozen. The server asked me how I’d like it. Can’t believe I had to explain to someone that a cooked fish dish shouldn’t be frozen raw. While she pretended she was doing me a great favor by asking me how I’d like it cooked. Uh, done?
I would LOVE other opinions on this. I also never send food back because I don’t want spit or crop dusting in my food. (I knew a guy who delighted in abusing waitstaff and I just cringed at all the nastiness he’s probably consumed as a result.)
Well. I do not doubt that staff retaliate, especially with the off the wall nuts who intentionally make their lives difficult with insane orders and demanding behavior. I will send food back, but only if an egregious mistake, like raw chicken or blue cheese anywhere on my plate, was made. I am also not mean to wait staff and behave myself like a proper human. At this point the food supply had been contaminated with @#$% because of magat incompetence, greed and idiocy. You may as well have food prepared to your satisfaction if you are already risking illness everytime you consume food or use any medication, hygeine product or supplement because magat idiots have gutted regulations and safeguards meant to keep the public safe so cons like muskrat can grift.
I will never send back a dish because I don’t like it, but I will send back a dish if it’s the wrong dish.
I do try very hard not to, though. I can count the number of times I’ve done it opne one hand and I’m in my late 30’s. It takes a lot for me to send anything back tbh.
I’ve sent food back if it wasn’t cooked properly, but never if I didn’t like the way that it tasted. I just wouldn’t finish it. And if the server asked why, I would tell them.
I ate half a salad one time and realized halfway through it was crawling with tiny spiders on the watercress. It was crazy. I quietly informed the waitress and she freaked out and took the plate. They didn’t comp us at all and this is a very high end restaurant near us. I got so sick that night.
I definitely inform the wait staff if the dish is completely wrong and not what was ordered. I don’t say you need to take this back, I tell them it is not what was ordered and let them handle it.
I have had completely raw chicken and it wasn’t taken back or corrected even after I informed the wait staff. I generally just don’t eat it if it is undercooked or not good.
I have ordered virgin drinks for my kids and they have come with alcohol and I send those back and usually won’t order another virgin (if it is a resort etc)
Wait, you had to pay for the spider salad!?!?!!? That’s insane!!!
And yeah if a dish is completely wrong (like if I ordered carbonara and they brought me bolognese) I’ll tell them and I guess that’s “sending it back.” But I view that as a genuine mistake on their part, not mine.
This will sound so pretentious, but I once sent back escargot because they were crispy. Like hard burned edges. The waitress came back to me and said, “the chef says this is how they come”, and didn’t even offer me something else, or to re-do the dish. Snails are born soft. They were definitely burned. I was so disappointed. This was at my favorite, stalwart Greenwich Village tiny French bistro that’s been there for about 30 years. The incident was about 20 years ago, but I haven’t been back since.
I have returned food once – and that was because they included something I cannot eat that I had requested be removed.
I sent food back once for being raw. It was at a popular fish restaurant that I’d eaten at many times without problems and when I told the waitress my fish wasn’t cooked she tried to argue with me. Said it’s all cooked for a certain amount of time, blah, blah, blah to ensure it’s done. I held the plate up to her face (not IN her face) and asked what she saw. She was embarrassed and flabbergasted, like she honestly thought their cooking method was fool proof. She brought out another plate with fully cooked fish. I still eat there, it’s really good, but I do check my fish before it eat it.
Oh, me either. I have eaten burned food, food that hadn’t been fully cooked through & was still frozen in the middle (for the record, I don’t return to restaurants that serve me frozen meals! I can get that at home), food I hadn’t actually ordered, etc.
I believe many years ago (okay, decades) I sent food back because there was a bug in it. It was so long ago I barely have any recollection of it. And as a general rule, you don’t want the cooks/chefs in the kitchen, whom you cannot see, to “retaliate” for a perceived insult or because their pay is so low they don’t give a shit if they lose their job (not that they would, necessarily). My assistant principal once relayed an incident that at a restaurant they all went to (I didn’t join the staff until later), one of the staff had to be transported to the hospital because there was bleach in his water glass. No idea of the outcome or why it might have occurred, but I do remember the story.
What’s wrong with all you sheeple…?
Stop eating burnt bad frozen food, you’re paying for this.
Not sending food back is not a hill I’m willing to die on. I get it, in principle, but in reality, I’m paying for food and service, and I would like to get what I pay for. And it’s not something I do often, but I’m not going to say never.
Usually I have a decision point – if I can live with it, I don’t say anything. But if I know it’s going to annoy me later, I say something. I’m never rude or curt about it, and I treat staff well, etc.
The last thing I returned was quesobirria tacos, probably a year or so ago. They were so soggy that they disintegrated on picking them up. Must have been sitting under the heat lamp for a while or something. I dunno, the place wasn’t busy. Anyway, they remade them, and I don’t regret saying something.
I don’t send food back because I am a very, very picky eater. It’s to hard to please me with food so I’m the problem! If I don’t like it, I don’t eat it but take it to go. My husband loves everything and it will not go to waste.