I've dined at quite a few Michelin-level restaurants and disagree with your take on the piece. Yes, this sort of dining is more akin theatre, and art, and an educational experience. I agree with you that, generally, people shouldn't be surprised at the portion sizes when it's a 27-course meal. That said, there are many notable points that that review makes, much of which should warrant, IMO, a re-examination of whether or not they actually deserve a Michelin star.

Let's start with a look at their post-script at the end of the article, since it's about portion-sizing:

>Note: the TripAdvisor reviews show a lot of elaborate courses, and these were all way, way more food than anything we ate. I cannot express to you how little we were fed, and I’m not a particularly big eater. Allergy and dietary restrictions were largely ignored.

>The servers will not explain to you what the hell is going on.

>When a member of our party stood up during the lengthy stretch between courses to go have a cigarette outside, and was scolded to sit down.

>When one member of our party was served nothing for three consecutive courses, because they couldn’t figure out how to accommodate her food allergies.

>When Rand was served food he was allergic to, repeatedly, because they didn’t care enough to accommodate his.

I've never seen a Michelin-level restaurant just flat-out not serve a guest a course (in this case multiple - three!) because of their dietary restrictions, nor have I seen a Michelin-level restaurant "forget" about said restriction.

>When a server reprimanded me for eating. These reconstituted orange slices (one per person) were a course. I asked if I could eat the real orange that had been served alongside it (we’d all gotten one, and I, at this point, was extremely hungry). “Yes,” the server said, annoyed. “But you aren’t really supposed to.” He let me have two segments and then whisked the fruit away.

So they served edible food and then took it away before people were finished eating?

>That’s the problem with a tasting menu. With so many courses, you just assume things are going to turn around. Every dish is a chance for redemption. Maybe this meal was like Nic Cage’s career – you have to wait a really long time for the good stuff, but there is good stuff.

Clearly the servers were not communicating the progress of the meal to the guests:

>“Would you like red or white?” the server asked.

>“What are we having for the main?” she inquired.

>His face blanched.

>“The… main, madame? Um… we’re about to move on to dessert.”

Or this description-less explanation of a dish from a server:

>“We’ve infused these droplets with meat molecules,” the server explained, and left.

>... and a dish called “frozen air” which literally melted before you could eat it...

>P.S. – The next day, one of the staff tried contacting the only single female member of our party via Instagram messages. “Hey, I served you last night!”

I mean, there's art [nods head], and then there's art [shakes head]. If you take the time to read the article, it's apparent that these guests have dined at tasting-menu establishments before, perhaps even Michelin-level spots. But to be fair to them, Lecce absolutely does seem like it's trying entirely too damned hard to be over the top in a way that is detrimental to itself.