When Chanita Chayaluk decided to open her restaurant and wine bar Taan, she had a distinct vision for bringing a fresh culinary perspective to the Midwest. She hoped to showcase Thai food in Chicago in a different light, moving away from the prevailing norms established decades ago. As she notes, the first wave of immigration of Thai people to Chicago occurred in the 1970s, and a significant portion of the Thai food available in the city still feels firmly rooted in that era. When Taan opened in September, its menu broke away from expected tropes with offerings like miang, a traditional Northern Thai dish prepared with fermented tea leaves, and a whole, deep-fried fish served in a rich fish-sauce caramel.
Operating a contemporary independent restaurant in Chicago, however, brings its own distinct operational challenges, including navigating local cultural norms. Chayaluk points out that the local ethos remains heavily influenced by a brand of "Midwest nice," where businesses often lean toward overaccommodating and attempting to appease the masses at every turn. In the early days of service at Taan, this cultural tendency manifested as frequent requests from guests for custom modifications, ingredient substitutions, and dietary accommodations.
These constant alterations quickly began to take a toll on kitchen operations. According to Chayaluk, accommodating endless preference-based requests would slow down service speed, which ultimately impacted not just the kitchen’s workflow, but the overall guest experience in multifaceted ways. Operating with a small kitchen and a tight-knit staff made it difficult to keep up with the constant stream of personalized modifications. At times, the volume of customization made the independent establishment feel less like a destination for deliberate culinary exploration and more like a fast-casual assembly line. The breaking point arrived when a guest placed an order for green curry mussels, but explicitly requested them "without the mussels."
Faced with mounting operational friction, Chayaluk took a firm stand by implementing a limited substitution policy at Taan. She took to social media to explain the decision to the public, emphasizing that foundational ingredients such as fish sauce and shrimp paste form the structural fabric that defines their cuisine, and therefore cannot be removed from any dishes that naturally incorporate them.
Taan’s policy arrives at a time when the broader restaurant industry is experiencing a renewed reckoning over menu customization. A decade or so ago, asking for heavy menu substitutions was generally frowned upon and widely derided within dining culture as a breach of etiquette. Recently, however, many restaurants report that substitution culture is bubbling back up and returning in full force.
A complex swirl of cultural and economic factors has driven the industry to this juncture. The rise of lunch bowl and fast-casual concepts has effectively primed customers to expect a high degree of granular customization with every order. Meanwhile, the cultural footprint of movements inspired by books like Unreasonable Hospitality has further intensified an unconditional "customer is always right" mentality. Compounding this pressure is the omnipresence of social media influencers entering the food-review space, where a restaurant choosing not to honor a specific dietary preference or personal whim can instantly become ripe for a viral, critical takedown. Couple all of these cultural pressures with the stark reality that it is exceptionally hard to keep an independent restaurant afloat in the current economic climate, and it becomes easier to understand why numerous operators have found themselves giving in—whether by accommodating specific requests or by fundamentally altering their menus altogether, a phenomenon also mirrored in the ongoing trend toward the de-spicification of spicy dishes across various urban markets.
Yet, even as industry pressures mount, independent operators like Taan in Chicago and Ha’s Snack Bar in New York are choosing to stand their ground. Ha’s Snack Bar proudly leans into its culinary identity, explicitly announcing in its Instagram bio that everything on its menu contains fish sauce.
Similar challenges have emerged further west at Lom Wong in Phoenix, Arizona, where substitution and modification requests notably ramped up after the restaurant began receiving widespread national attention. Chef Yotaka "Sunny" Martin received recognition from the James Beard Awards, and the restaurant was honored with a Michelin Bib Gourmand designation. According to chef and co-owner Alex Martin, the accolades brought a distinct shift in the clientele and their expectations.
Following the awards, the restaurant welcomed a surge of guests who were less familiar with its traditional style of service and more inclined to pick dishes apart. Patrons began asking for modifications or expressing confusion over the service style, specifically questioning why Lom Wong did not course meals in a traditional European fashion. Alex Martin notes that there is a prevailing European distinction of what an award-winning restaurant looks like, leading diners to mistakenly equate that recognition with a formal white-tablecloth establishment. The response from ownership was clear and unwavering, establishing that this is not who they have ever been, nor what the restaurant will ever become.
In response to these shifting customer dynamics, Lom Wong followed Taan’s lead by taking to social media to clearly set expectations before guests even walked through the door. Their public messaging clarified that the restaurant would not make substitutions simply to make a dish more familiar to Western palates, and noted that certain elements—such as beef containing gristle or fish being served whole—are fully intentional and culturally authentic choices. Alex Martin highlights the guiding role of his co-owner and chef, noting that Sunny serves as their compass for cultural context, carefully advising on whether changing any component of a recipe would ultimately compromise the integrity of the dish. While the restaurant maintains certain flexible accommodations—such as allowing a mango salad to be ordered with shrimp served on the side—they maintain a strict boundary against removing essential ingredients like beef or shrimp paste from dishes that necessitate them.
Chayaluk has adopted a similarly principled approach at Taan, ensuring that the menu still offers thoughtful options for diners with legitimate dietary restrictions without compromising the kitchen’s core output. The restaurant consistently features a dedicated vegan and gluten-free option—currently a fried rice dish—which Chayaluk describes as a catchall solution designed specifically for guests who cannot consume other items on the menu. Emphasizing the care put into this offering, she notes that they make sure the dish is exceptionally well-executed and substantial, serving as a complete meal rather than functioning merely as an afterthought or a scaled-down appetizer.
At both Taan and Lom Wong, front-of-house and back-of-house staff are actively encouraged to uphold these operational boundaries. Both Chayaluk and Martin emphasize that these policies are designed just as much to protect their team’s peace of mind as they are to ensure rigorous quality control for the diners.
While implementing these boundaries has occasionally sparked minor backlash, the proactive approach of setting expectations at the very start of the meal—and well before arrival through social media transparency—has been overwhelmingly well-received by the broader public. Framing the conversation around mutual respect has proven effective in shifting the dynamic between diner and kitchen. As Alex Martin explains, their approach to communicating the policy involves kindly reminding guests that while the restaurant fully respects their personal preferences, those preferences ultimately belong to the individual diner, and gently steering them toward existing menu items that already align naturally with their tastes.
