Nici Wickes: Too Casual?

Fine dining at the Langham Hotel.

Nici Wickes asks if we have forgotten the art of dining in the rush to get fast food.

Twenty years ago, whilst spending a summer living on the East Coast of the US, my boyfriend and I went to one of Rhode Island's fancier restaurants.

I've forgotten the food we ate but can still recall the way I felt rushed with each course almost running into each other. I felt turfed out, blinking into the streetlights, before I'd really had time to settle in and enjoy the wonderful dance that is dining.

My American boyfriend didn't notice it at all. You see I was comparing it to dining out in New Zealand where, at that time, it deliciously took up a whole evening, the night unfolding gracefully with each of the multiple courses being given the reverie it deserved and where the wait between each course was spent deep in conversation.

But now I fear the gap has closed and dining in NZ has sped up and become incredibly casual, perhaps too casual. Whilst I adore, and understand the need for, a less formal approach to dining, I heard a talented chef utter the other day that "casual has become too casual and just an excuse to serve bad food" and it got me wondering.

Cooking is a craft, an art form, a highly specialised skill that takes decades to perfect and dining out is the way we appreciate and enjoy this dedication. Casual dining is considered fun, affordable and relaxed but it comes at a price.

We're foregoing some of the diner's privileges - of being able to book, of lingering all night long, of having waitstaff who know how to pace the evening and will be guided by you, of enjoying food that you most certainly wouldn't be able to "throw together" in your own kitchen.

Let's not get too sloppy because before you know it we'll have gotten so used to "a quick meal out" that we'll have forgotten how to cook as will have the chefs - and then where will we be?

To hear this and other topics related to our food scene discussed amongst our top restaurateurs join Nici live at the first of our Viva Sessions in Britomart on Wednesday 5 March. Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.

- VIVA