“We have had someone that wanted coffee with no coffee,” says Gordon Macarthur, reminiscing on the years he spent working at Muthu Newton Hotel in Nairn.
He proceeded to display a look of confusion – and let out a slight chuckle.
But this isn’t the only bizarre order that has been sent his way.
Gordon, who has been in the cooking industry for around a decade, has also been asked for toast but only toasted on one side, an eggless omelette, and a smoked salmon parcel without the salmon.
Generation Z
“If I’m being honest I laughed and was confused when someone asked for only half their toast to be toasted,” says Gordon, from Nairn, who is a great sport when it comes to the out-of-the-ordinary requests.
“I followed through with only toasting one side of the bread by placing it in the grill instead of putting it in a toaster.
“I love some of the requests just to see how people’s minds work when it comes to whether they can have a salmon parcel with the salmon.”
Gordon is now a kitchen supervisor at Revolution Inverness.
He says the age range of people that tend to order the most bizarre food and drink items is those roughly between the ages of 20 and 36.
“They just try and act like they know what can and can’t be done,” Gordon added.
The chef is not alone in thinking this as Jim Anderson believes it is very much “Gen zers” (Generation Z) who currently request the most unusual items and dishes.
“They want our vegan dishes made with real cheese,” says the chef, who has run Fortrose hotel The Anderson for more than 20 years.
“From 2003 to 2008, it was mostly seniors ordering sirloin steaks very well done, with pepper sauce on the side.
“This notion of dehydration and re-hydration was novel to us, and really cheesed me off at first, especially considering the quality of beef we have up here.
“Then people stopped splashing out for steaks once the financial crisis hit (and the ‘oldies’ stopped dining out) and we entered the gluten-free era.
“This was dominated by middle-agers, very few of whom had a medical condition to warrant it, but maybe had read on Facebook about how much better you’d feel by cutting down on gluten.
“Like everything else, food has its fashion movements, and chefs who choose to ignore them are taking an unnecessary risk in my opinion.”
‘As unavoidable as gravity’
Jim takes these strange requests as a challenge to his skill and imagination.
Once a private chef for someone under psychiatric care, “whose doctor manipulated the man’s diet to satisfy indications that were manifesting themselves as physiological problems”, he came across unique ones on a weekly basis.
“One week it was ‘no purple food’, the next was ‘nothing cooked with electricity’ then ‘nothing that photosynthesizes’, and so on,” he added.
“My task was to keep the man in proper nutrition and pander to his many likes and dislikes whilst feigning dedication to the doctor’s surreal game. After that gig, everything else became easy.”
He disagrees that chefs should consider their menus to be perfect as they are. In fact, they should consider the myriad of reasons for special requests.
These include allergies, dietary restrictions on medical grounds, religious or ethical beliefs, superstitions, personal likes and dislikes, and the need to be the centre of attention at the table.
Jim added: “I neither love nor hate them – they are as unavoidable as gravity.
“Some are legit (coeliac) and some are frivolous (no cheese on the starter but cheese is fine on the main).
“But I do take each request seriously because we tend not to ask the customer why they’re making the special request. Although vegans tend to be more than happy to volunteer that information.”
Steak cremated and meat for a ‘vegetarian’
Other special requests Jim has received came from a father who regularly brought his family of vegetarian diners in for dinner.
Whilst they chose from The Anderson’s wide selection of plant-based meals, he had other plans.
“He would always order a pizza and ask me to top it with every type of meat we had in the kitchen,” Jim laughed.
“By the time we’d piled beef, bacon, pepperoni, venison, chicken, and haggis on, the servers could barely carry the thing.
“And you know, I never found out if he did it out of spite or simply to make up for all that veg he had to eat during the week.”
John Tripney added: “When I worked at Fairfield Care Home, I was asked to make white toast brown.
“At Drumnadrochit Hotel an American customer wanted pepper sauce on his steak, blue cheese dressing on his salad, ranch for fries, and ketchup on the side.
“Not really unusual but someone wanted a steak cremated. They said ‘when you think it’s ruined, cook til there’s no moisture’. I did as they asked.”
John has been in the cooking industry for 38 years and admittedly went on to say: “I can’t say I enjoy unusual requests since what’s the point of the menu that attracted them in?”
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