We Want Plates is a website, subreddit, Facebook page, Instagram account, Twitter account, and even a book! Just like wooden boards and baskets have taken the restaurant world by storm, We Want Plates has secured its place on the internet, demanding that people just use normal dishware. The subreddit, which has amassed an impressive 932k members since its creation in 2015, describes its mission as “crusades against serving food on bits of wood and roof tiles, chips in mugs and drinks in jam jars.” And the community certainly does an excellent job of mocking all of the ridiculous items restaurants find a way of incorporating into their kitchens for questionable reasons.

We Want Plates was started by Ross McGinnes, and lucky for us, my colleague Jonas was previously able to get in touch with him to hear more about how this community advocating for plates began in the first place. “I started the campaign in 2015 after a friend posted a picture of an average-sized steak on Facebook, which had been served to him on a large chopping board. It was captioned, unironically, ‘That is a big meal!’ It wasn't a big meal — he'd fallen for all this style-over-content hipster gastropub nonsense,” McGinnes previously told Bored Panda. “I searched Twitter for an account which would allow me to vent my spleen with like-minded people, but found nothing. We Want Plates was born.”

The creator of We Want Plates presumes that restaurants go to these extreme measures when plating their food to ensure that they stand out from the crowd, and perhaps go viral. “My local pub used to do a great Sunday roast: twelve quid, piled high, tasted great and yes, it came on a plate,” he shared. “One weekend they added a quirky offering to the menu: little sandwiches, pies, dainty cakes and mini milkshakes served on a miniature picnic bench. The benches, painted bright pink and yellow, sat on top of tables seating actual grown adults. And what was the first thing these infantilized diners did? It wasn’t try the food — it was whip out their phones and take a picture.”

“Over the following months, the picnic benches became increasingly popular, coinciding with the specials board becoming progressively smaller, before it eventually disappeared altogether,” McGinnes continued, much to his dismay. “I sat there one Sunday, watching bench after garish bench emerge from the kitchen like a technicolor carnival of idiocy, before my usual roast arrived. The meat was cold, and the potatoes were burnt. It was once their main Sunday trade, but the traditional roast had died an unpalatable death. But that’s okay because they were doing a roaring trade with the benches, right? Sure, until the pub down the road started doing them too. Then the one around the corner. Before you know it, everyone’s doing the same ‘quirky’ thing, except it’s not ‘quirky’ any more because you can’t move for mini picnic benches and now all their roast dinners are rubbish to boot.”

As impractical as these plating options appear, they seem to keep popping up in restaurants all around the globe, likely because they go viral on social media. I’m sure we’ve all seen the slices of cheesecake on top of milkshakes or towers of onion rings sticking out of burgers. But how are we supposed to actually devour these dishes? Many of them must end up becoming a huge mess and creating devastating amounts of food waste. There’s nothing wrong with simple plating, but unfortunately, social media is a very powerful tool, even in the real world.

Bored Panda was also previously able to get in touch with one of the moderators of this board-shaming subreddit, Merari01, who shared that, “A wonderful meal is enhanced by a superb presentation. But an overly excessive display can detract from the meal.”

"For me, the line [between creative and absurd] presentation is crossed when the creativity hinders the enjoyment of the food,” Merari01 previously told Bored Panda. “Food that cannot be eaten without messing up the table, because the sauce gets everywhere since there's no plate but a piece of slate used. Food that cannot be eaten without carefully dismantling it from the display on which it is mounted and pinned. Our current top post is a good example. You'll have to dismantle the display and then there isn't much room on the board for cutting the meat."

We Want Plates has become such a massive movement that even The Guardian has reported on their efforts. In fact, some of the Twitter account’s followers have begun sending boards and bizarre serving platters back to the kitchen to receive their meals on regular plates. “I hope we’ll make a difference,” David Martyn, one follower who was featured on We Want Plates after requesting that a Clifton pub provide him with a plain old plate when they attempted to serve his fish and chips on a roof tile. “How are you supposed to eat fish and chips off a slate? It’s presentation over practicality. And surely it’s old hat by now?” 

One restaurant owner in Windsor was even convinced to change their approach after We Want Plates brought to their attention that eating ice cream off of a slate is not very practical. “We were delighted that someone pointed it out to us,” Conrad Byrne, general manager of the Fox and Hounds, told The Guardian. “We put the dessert on a plate that very afternoon and it’s changed how we look at our dishes. Now we don’t just think purely about the visuals, we’re asking: ‘How will the customer see this?’”

Not everyone is on board with We Want Plates’ movement, though. Just like there are purists who are begging for regular dishes, there are innovators who refuse to turn back. Seth Levine, the executive chef of Hotel Chantelle who hangs small pieces of jamon from a washing line for his diners, was unphased by the criticism he received. “I’d never in a million years even contemplate changing my style because there’s a small group of people who want to eat off a white china plate,” he told The Guardian. “It’s fun to upgrade dishes a bit. I ate in a restaurant the other night where something was served to me on burning wood, and I thought it was incredible.”

At the end of the day, the most important factor we should all be considering when trying to enjoy a meal is enjoying the food. If it’s impossible to eat without making a mess, becomes instantly soggy or cold due to a focus on the display, or it just doesn’t taste great because aesthetics became the priority, the meal is a failure. And when we’re going out to a restaurant and paying $20 for dinner, that dish better be delicious! Save the displays for art museums; when I’m coming to eat, I want to know that my meal will be satisfying. (And no, I don’t care if my Instagram followers get to see it.)