These Restaurants Served Food in Unusual Ways, and Diners Weren’t Loving It

We get that restaurants want to be unique. They want to stand out from the crowd and offer something people have never experienced before, but surely it’s not too much to ask for our food to be served on something that isn’t over 30 years old and completely unsanitary? Of course, we have nothing against Whitney Houston or Kevin Costner, and we’re not even mad about the hint of nostalgia in this dish. 

They say that when you lose one of your senses, your other senses are heightened. So, is that what’s happening here? The restaurant that decided to offer cocktails in this Spider-Man-inspired vessel obviously wanted their customers to really appreciate the taste of the drink. So that’s obviously why they decided to blind the customers in the process! And if you don’t believe us, just look at that poor guy. 

Well, this is all kinds of wrong. We’re so disgusted by this picture that we can’t bear to look at it. But at the same time, there’s something about it that’s so entrancing we can’t seem to look away! After all, it’s not every day you see that a restaurant’s dishes are stored just steps away from the toilet. And what makes this whole situation even worse is the fact that the last person didn’t close the lid!

Don’t get us wrong; we love pizza as much as the next guy. We could eat pizza all day, every day, and we have one too many leftover pizza boxes stacked in our kitchen. But it’s safe to say that we’ve never seen a pizza box like this before! Yes, that is a pizza inside of a box of pizza, and we’re not quite sure what to think about it. 

While many of the pictures on this list are mind-boggling and unsanitary, this one is actually pretty cute. And while we don’t know anything about art, we’re willing to base our whole personality around it if it involves cheesecake samples. Just look at them! Teeny food is adorable, and it’s even better when it’s made of cream, a buttery biscuit base, and delicious sauces. We’re definitely sold on this one. 

While we understand that people think ordinary round plates are boring, we do have to question how far restaurants are willing to go to be different. And here’s the big question; is a dinosaur too far? In fact, nothing about this dish makes sense. For starters, we’re not quite sure what this dish is, or why the chef decided to place the onion rings around the dinosaur. Is this supposed to be fine dining?

Eating at a restaurant is expensive in itself – even if you choose the cheapest thing on the menu. So, the last thing you want is to leave the restaurant with a hefty dry cleaning bill, too. But we have a feeling that the person who ordered these pancakes left empty-pocketed after this restaurant experience. Yes, you read that right. Those are pancakes and not a strange-shaped omelet covered in gravy. 

Many chefs spend their careers hoping to earn a Michelin star or two. These stars are the epitome of fine dining and give restaurants a chance to really stick out from the crowd with their menu. And while those who have the money to eat at these restaurants expect the best, we don’t blame these diners for feeling pretty short-changed when this dessert was placed in front of them. We all know that shoes shouldn’t go on the table, after all.

You know you’re at a fancy restaurant when you’re served fancy bread before you even order off the menu. In most cases, the waiters will place a basket of bread on the table, or serve you a piece straight onto your plate. This restaurant decided to do something a little different, though. Instead of serving their bread in a sanitary, and completely normal way, they decided to serve it in roadkill. You know, as you do. 

Nowadays, restaurants and fine dining establishments are all about “deconstructed” food. They serve everything from deconstructed cheesecakes to deconstructed burgers, and it’s just a fancy way of saying that they kept the individual foods separate. This restaurant decided to do the same thing with their Greek salad, and, for some reason, they decided to use an upside-down wine glass and a shot glass to help them bring this strange vision to life. 

You can bet your bottom dollar that every restaurant on this planet has a salad on the menu. It’s perfectly normal to have these dishes served in restaurants, but what’s not perfectly normal is to serve these salads on anything other than a bowl or a plate. After all, why would you serve it in anything else? Well, this chef decided to try something new anyway and somehow landed on a pillow. 

If you’ve never had fried green beans before, you’re seriously missing out. They’re both crunchy and soft, and deliciously savory but sweet when dunked in ketchup. So, we have to give kudos to this chef and the restaurant for putting these fried green beans on the menu. We do have to question why they decided to serve these treats in a pot that they then stuffed into a sneaker, though. 

We don’t want to be all doom and gloom on this list, so we are going to give this salad credit where credit is due. It does look pretty delicious, after all. But while we can appreciate the mustard seeds and the tomatoes, it wouldn’t be right if we didn’t call out this restaurant for its plating. Actually, can you call it plating if the food isn’t actually on a plate? 

While some people prefer fine dining restaurants, there are others who can’t get enough of fast and convenient food. And you probably don’t need us to tell you that street food is hugely popular in China. But have you ever tried holding a drink and a plate of food at the same time? It can be pretty difficult, so we do understand the thought process behind this Cola/Xiaolongbao combination. But in practice, it gives us the heebie-jeebies.

It’s not uncommon for drinks to be served “on the rocks.” In fact, you might only ever order your liquor on the rocks! But we guess this fine dining establishment decided to incorporate this idea into their menu, too. They devised a dish that would allow customers to eat a single raw shrimp on the rocks – but we think they should have thought about this a little more than they did.

In no world is eating your food off something that looks like an animal a valid or excusable idea, but that didn’t stop this restaurant! And out of all of the animals, they decided to serve their white chocolate dessert in a ceramic iguana. But what freaks us out the most is the fact that you can’t even really tell that this iguana is made from ceramic. It looks weirdly real. 

More and more fine dining establishments are trying to give their diners a “sensory experience.” They’re trying to prove that eating can stimulate so much more than just your sense of taste and smell. And while we appreciate the effort they’re trying to put into this, we can’t help but think that some chefs aren’t quite understanding the dining experience. No, most guests don’t want to have chocolate sauce shoved in their hands. 

The world is in the midst of a major coffee revolution. People young and old are finding joy in coffee again and experimenting with all kinds of flavors, strengths, and even presentations. And while we have to congratulate this restaurant for creating a cool take on iced coffee, we do have to question whether this idea has a few limitations. You know, like the fact that the block of ice will melt!

Have you ever wanted to do body shots off Pinocchio? No, neither have we. In fact, we don’t think that thought has crossed anyone’s mind before, but that didn’t stop this cocktail bar from adding this strange cocktail to their menu! While drinking this mini martini, drinkers can then do a shot off caviar off a creepy wooden hand, and the whole thing is just downright strange. It’s making us feel a little uneasy, actually.

Flights are extremely popular in the United States, and we can understand why! The idea of ordering a flight lets you try smaller portions of different types of food – like pasta, for example. And while we love the idea of ordering a whole load of different pasta, we have to say that this looks more like a shipment of pasta than a flight of pasta. Yes, that’s a whole lot of food. 

Street food is a whole different kettle of fish compared to fine dining. After all, with no restaurant to eat in, street food vendors have to come up with unique ways to serve their food. And while most opt for eco-friendly pots and containers, this street food stall decided to go for something a little different. Of course, we’ve heard of wrapping food in newspapers, but this is one step too far. 

It seems as though more and more restaurants are choosing to use wooden boards as their plates and dishes, and if we’re being totally honest, we don’t hate it. Sometimes this rustic charm can really work with the menu, and sometimes it looks absolutely beautiful. But you have to cater your plates to the food you’re serving – and it’s probably best not to serve a saucy dish with a board that has a giant crack running through the middle of it. 

The only acceptable amount of licking you should do in a restaurant is licking your spoon at the end of a delicious dessert. It’s even frowned upon to lick your plate – even if you do that at home! So, why do these fine dining restaurants want their customers to lick more than what’s considered to be a normal licking amount? We have no idea, and we have no idea what this is, either. 

There are two kinds of people in this world. There are those who have way too much money in their bank account and pay an extortionate amount for fine dining experiences, and then there are those who just want to enjoy a good meal. And you could say that those two people fall into these two categories. Thankfully, we’re with the majority of people who just want to embrace the tradition of a good old buffet. 

One thing we will never get over is that the same company behind Michelin Tires is the one that awards fine dining restaurants their Michelin stars. Something about that doesn’t compute in our brains – but is that what they mean by a Michelin-star restaurant? Food in a Michelin tire? If not, this restaurant didn’t understand that concept at all, as they tried to award themselves their very own Michelin star. 

In recent months, Barbie fever has well and truly taken over the world. The famous doll has found her way back into the limelight thanks to Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, and Greta Gerwig, and it seems as though restaurants are even buying into this new trend. But while we always prefer our meat to be served on a plate, it seems as though they decided to use a Barbie doll as their model instead. 

Fine dining restaurants love to trick customers into thinking their money isn’t going straight into the pockets of the owners. So, they create elaborate pieces of “art” for their customers to enjoy – and this is an example of one of them. But we can’t help but think that this would have worked so much better in a bowl, as it just seems a little too pretentious. Are you supposed to get sauce all over your arms just because you want an extra raspberry? 

Don’t get us wrong; we love all of the elements of this dish. We love pasta (especially the extra saucy kind), and we love pizza bread. We even love these things together! Yes, shove a dollop of pasta on our pizza, and we’ll be a happy clam. But putting these things all together into a wire cone and calling it a pizza cone? Well, that’s just one step too far. And we feel dirty just looking at it. 

Using throw-away plates and serving vessels make sense when you think about it. It means that the restaurant staff can spend less time doing the dishes and more time focusing on the food and general customer service. So, while we appreciate the efforts to work smarter and not harder in this particular restaurant, sometimes it’s worth working a bit harder. At least if you want to keep your restaurant’s reputation intact. 

It’s important to make sure that you’re eating balanced meals that provide you with the right nutrients and minerals. And iron is one of them! You can meet your iron quota by eating the likes of cereal, spinach, chocolate, soybeans, and meat. But it seems as though this restaurant wanted to go one step further and offer their guests literal iron in the form of barbed wire. Let’s hope the customers got their tetanus shot after this.

Hands up if you love tiramisu? We’re going to assume that you’re all waving your hands in the air like you just don’t care right now, as tiramisu is arguably one of the best – and one of the most common – desserts in the world. It’s a pretty simple dessert and one that can stand alone in its deliciousness without any fancy presentation. That didn’t stop this restaurant from trying something new, though.

For years, we were under the impression that a cookbook was just a book that offered written recipes. But we guess we were wrong, as this is a real cookbook! Yes, this person went to a restaurant and was served their appetizer inside the pages of a menu book, and we can safely say that we’ve never seen this before. What happens next, though? Do you eat the pieces separately? Or do you build your own appetizer?

The general consensus when it comes to plates and serving dishes is that they should at least be practical and be able to hold the food without toppling over as soon as you touch it with a knife or fork. But this restaurant obviously didn’t get that memo. They were so focused on trying to make their menu look like a fine dining experience that they forgot things actually have to stand still on the table. 

We’re all for fancy cocktails. In fact, the fancier, the better, we say! As long as we’re paying for a proper drink that seems worth the money, they can shove all of the cotton candy and dry ice they want in the glass. But we do have to question the thought process behind this particular cocktail. Sure, the glass looks normal… but why is it upside-down? And how is anyone supposed to drink it?

As soon as you make your way into a Mexican restaurant, you can guarantee that you’ll have a bowl of chips, guacamole, and salsa in front of you within just a few minutes. And while we normally love this impressive and prompt hospitality, we bet the people who were greeted with this bowl of chips wish their servers had forgotten about them completely. Yes, that bucket is completely covered in rust! 

The main thing we hate about fine dining restaurants is that the menus often sound delicious, but the actual food is pretty disappointing. That’s mostly because the portions are so small – especially if you only get one croquette as your appetizer. But what made this restaurant even more disappointing was the fact that this single croquette was then served on the tongue of a bizarre mask made from metal. 

It’s becoming more and more common for steakhouses to serve their meat on hot stones, so we’re pretty used to seeing these things. However, this restaurant decided to take that concept one step further and serve the whole meal on a giant stone! We can’t even imagine how heavy this must have been for the server, but we really hope this restaurant only exclusively hires bodybuilders. The average person can’t carry 100 of these a day, surely? 

Sure, we still don’t really know the difference between pancakes and crepes, but we appreciate chefs that put these desserts on the menu. Of course, most restaurants choose to serve their crepes on a giant plate, but one thing we’ve learned from this list is that some restaurants just don’t want to follow the rules anymore. Especially if they have a whole stockroom full of Babushka Barbie dolls and they don’t know what to do with them. 

We’ve never really thought about it before, but we guess the word “plate” is rather ambiguous. There are so many things out there that are also called plates, including license plates! And we guess this restaurant decided to play along with that ambiguity and serve all of their food on folded license plates. But we do have a few questions about this decision. Firstly, were they cleaned before they put food on them?

The general rule of thumb when it comes to restaurants and fine dining is that the food needs to look edible. It needs to look appetizing, and it definitely doesn’t need to look like a worm farm. But it seems as though this restaurant didn’t get that memo. For some strange reason, they decided to serve their brown pasta inside of an upside-down wine glass and serve it with some cheese on the side.