We’re excited to introduce our latest op-ed writer and the mind behind the online food series, ‘Least Eats’, Wilko. Both his writing and videos are woven from an ethos that food should be explored and freed from popular trends and opinions. A couple of months ago, we discussed the idea of having him peer into his brain and write a piece for us. Fast-forward to now, and the result is part editorial, part manifesto, part stream of consciousness, and 100% Wilko.

I’m Wilko. Let’s get straight to it, you’re eating out wrong. 

You. Your friends. Your colleagues. Your cousins. Your situationships, second-rate mates and your dad, alike. 

So stop. 

Stop ordering the signature dish. It’s the menu item every few hungry guys online are talking about, famous in name and your in-feed frame. Stop ordering it.  

These “must-try” menu items are seemingly the safest choice when eating out at hot spots and hidden gems. The issue is just as much who is thrusting “must-try” on us; a direction that has us all ordering the same plates at the same places in the hope of experiencing the same faces of foodgasm. 

So next time, order the least eats. 

Modern food media is a minestrone of the same ‘critique’ style: Hundreds of content capturers biting, smiling and mmmmmm-ing the same most-popular food from the same most-poppin’ venues. There’s nothing wrong with it, It’s just a really boring way to consume the wonderful world of food. 

So what if one person ordered the opposite?
The least-appreciated menu item?
The not-so-sexy offering?
The least eaten dish.

That’s what I do. 

As someone who wanted to be in the cool food media crew, I knew I couldn’t simply share signature dishes and new venues in town. I had no differentiator. I offered no utility. I lacked conviction. So I ordered the opposite. 

And why? With my hospo resume as petite as Cantina OK! and my ambition as expansive as La Foote, why would you trust my take on eating out over the hundreds of food content accounts telling you the “must-try” dish of each new A.P. Bread outlet? 

It’s because I’m willing to eat wrong.

I still believe in the mystery a menu offers. C’mon, is there not something special in food that arrives at the table that also tickles your doubt cortex? It adds a spice to the dining experience that no Scoville unit can match. ‘Cause there’s something those must-try guys may never experience eating out. There’s a story when you order against the grain. 

It’s why I began Least Eats. 

Least Eats is a food series that celebrates dishes that could use a little more love, even if it doesn’t feel like the easy choice. From “historic venues, iconic menus” across multiple cities, every episode of Least Eats has made me braver in the bistro seat. It’s taken me back to a time where ordering was done with uncertainty, even with awkwardness. Where once I craved the ‘must-try’, now I’m carving out dining time where “I’ll try anything, once”.

If you ask me, the way we order nowadays reflects anxieties that were never meant to nab a seat reserved for walk-ins. There’s few food fears worse than ordering the ‘incorrect’ dish; to miss out on that ‘best’ item, to leave the venue without something shareable. But is it worse that we’re all departing the same Surry Hills bistro having all eaten the same $64 steak frites? Maybe The Modern Australian Menu Playbook is to blame. Maybe the demise of critique & rise of eating influencers is too.  

Yes I get it, we all end up at the same dining dilemma: What should I order?

Agree with me here that “What should I order?” could, in fact, lead us to enlightenment. Less of a question, more of an existential catalyst that unravels the wool that was pulled before your eyes. What do I order? What should I ask for? What am I doing? What do I deserve? What will become of me? What the fuck is strawberry matcha doing in this restaurant’s raw bar section?

It could simply be cringe culture that stops us from standing up, speaking loud, then asking for something maverick. No diner wants to be seated on the incline of the adoption bell curve. How could you order anything but ‘the best’ in the precious little time you’re afforded out and about; that dwindling disposable income going down $64 a plate. 

So why not try the least dish next time?

I’m not asking you – dear reader – to immediately embrace my anti-signature eating with open arms. I’m just asking you to order one new thing alongside that tantalising popular dish. To eat eccentric. To taste the atypical. Savouring sweetbreads instead of steak frites. 

I just want my friends – like yourself – to not share the same dining disorder when we sit down to eat. To us not be preoccupied with the ‘must-try’ dishes thrust upon us. Instead I want to see you savour spontaneity. Treat your ego to a lick of the unknown. And agree with me on abolishing this one absolute. 

You must not believe in ‘the best’. 

Who truly knows what the least-appreciated, least-ordered, least-loved item on a menu is? It’s just an opinion. Some spend their whole life chasing “best banh mi hcmc reddit”. But you simply can’t expect a pork sambo to arrive overflowing with the meaning of life when your expectations begin with ‘the best’ or “a must”.

There’s so many terrible inevitabilities in the world, why not treat a menu like an opportunity to abandon certainty altogether?Choose what feels least to you. Savour something no one else is having. There’s no more wonderful space than the dining table to begin embracing the new. 

Eat what feels right.
Eat out with this technique. 
It’s a must try. 

All words by Wilko.
Follow @wilkowilkowilkofood.
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