This is America! Free our imprisoned restaurant customers from the shackles of the paternalistic chef—we’re grown-ups now! Why should we have to subject ourselves to those ugly meats that actually look like they came from animals? Why should we put up with bitterness, challenging textures, unusual spices, or foreign foods? Why should we ever have to try anything raw, anything fatty, anything new? Free us from the shackles of a thousand years of culinary tradition, and deliver us to a brave new culinary world where the evils of all strong flavors have been eradicated, where the guilt of feeling like you’re actually consuming animals has vanished along with their skins and bones. Take us to the promised land of milk and honey mustard, of grilled-chicken-breast Caesar, the fillet of salmon cooked to white, the penne pasta with sautéed spinach and mushrooms and turkey sausage, the “Grilled Chicken & Pasta Pesto Deli,” the mushroom-and-spinach turkey burger. Take us to Café Express!

Put it all on LCD monitors above the counter, and go from customer straight to computer. Don’t let servers offer their pesky suggestions and personal touch! Don’t let them make us feel that they know more about wine than we do! Let us choose, ourselves, from the house red or house white!

This is what the famous Del Grande, owner of Soleil, sees as our culinary future?