Infuriating: restaurants that serve food on wooden boards
We get it, you want to be a little hip as a restaurant. Industrial interior, Edison bulbs on the ceiling, staff in a butcher look and then… serving food on a wooden board. Because it looks so rustic. But honestly? We’ve had enough. What once started as a fun food trend has now grown into a hygiene disaster. Literally.
The (dirty) truth about wooden boards
Years ago, a steakhouse in England was fined no less than £50,000 after fourteen guests suffered food poisoning. The reason? The food was served on wooden boards. And no, they weren’t cleaned properly. During an inspection, there were unidentifiable pink and black stains on them. Not from the food, but from… well, bacteria and mold? Yuck.
The British food authority was clear: wooden boards are difficult to clean properly, especially when they have cracks, scratches or gaps. And when you put a juicy burger on one? You’re literally being served a bacteria buffet.
Cleaning a cutting board
If you still like working with wooden cutting boards at home: pay attention to hygiene. Yvette van Boven previously shared how to clean wooden cutting boards properly.
Wood belongs in the fireplace, not on the table
But anyway, plates weren’t invented for nothing. You can put them in the dishwasher. They’re smooth, hygienic and, above all: reliable. No soggy baguette dripping through a gap in the board and no frustration when cutting your meat on a wobbly wooden surface.
And we haven’t even mentioned what happens when you serve a dish with sauce or gravy on a board. Spoiler: half of it ends up on the table, your lap or, worse, your clothes. The word ‘plate’ exists for a reason, people.
We Want Plates
Fortunately, we’re not the only ones waging this crusade. The painfully hilarious website WeWantPlates has been campaigning for the return of the plate for years. With photos of food being served in ridiculous ways. What should you imagine? Well, ice cream in a flip-flop, for example. Bitterballen in a sneaker (?!), in urinals (?!!) and, yes, on boards, the site shows just how bizarre the ‘no-plates’ trend has become.
Why this idiotic tableware? Convenience, hygiene and the enjoyment of the food should surely outweigh the ‘fun’ photos on Instagram.
Give us back our plates!
It’s time to phase out this wooden nightmare. Give us porcelain, ceramic, even a deep plate or a bowl, as long as it isn’t one of those irritating wooden boards. We want to be able to scoop up our sauce without using a napkin as a drip tray. We want bread that stays crispy and no meat juices turning our fries into a mud bath.
We want plates. Cheese may be served on a wooden board—that’s where we draw the line. But please keep our steak and burger with fries off them.
It’s 2025. We have smartphones with AI, electric cars that park themselves and you can get sushi delivered by a robot. So why are we still eating steak off a piece of wood? Get rid of those dirty, impractical boards. Just give us a plate. Period.
Read also:
- Restaurant TOZI in Amsterdam has a new chef and his pasta is amazing
- Restaurant Spectrum** by Sidney Schutte introduces a compact menu: fine dining without spending hours at the table
- Review: the new French restaurant Veneur in Amsterdam
