The individual plate is a relatively recent invention. Anyone wishing to understand this should observe how most people around the world have been eating for millennia: together, from the centre of the table, with everyone taking what they like. Sharing is not a trend. Sharing is the origin.
Tapas, mezze, dim sum. Three cultures, one principle.
In Spain, it's called tapas. Small plates that make the rounds, accompanying conversation rather than interrupting it. Legend has it that the term comes from "covering": a piece of bread or ham placed over a glass to keep flies away. Whether that's true or not doesn't matter. What is true is that the Spanish have never stopped eating this way. The table as a shared focal point, eating as a social act.
In the Arab world and the Levant, it's called mezze. Hummus, baba ghanoush, falafel, stuffed vine leaves: everything arrives at once, everything is there for everyone. Mezze is not a starter. Mezze is a principle. You sit, you share, you talk. The meal ends when the conversation stops, and the cook has little say in the matter.
In China, Japan, Korea and large parts of South-East Asia, a full table is so commonplace that it needs no name. Rice bowls, vegetable dishes, meat, soup: everything is on the table at the same time, and everyone takes whatever they fancy. The idea that one dish follows another is alien here. The table belongs to everyone.
Then came French cuisine. And with it, the individual plate.
In the 19th century, something changed fundamentally. Classical French cuisine, shaped by Marie-Antoine Carême and later systematised by Auguste Escoffier, brought a new order to gastronomy. The "service à la russe" replaced the older "service à la française": instead of all dishes being served at once, they now arrived one after the other, each on its own, with every guest having their own plate.
This had advantages for the kitchen. Dishes could be served hotter. The presentation was more controllable. The chef decided what appeared when and in what form. Great chefs such as Paul Bocuse, who helped shape Nouvelle Cuisine, and later Alain Ducasse, further refined this idea: the dish as a composition, the plate as a canvas, the guest as the viewer.
What was partly lost in the process: the guest as a participant. Sharing relinquishes control to the table, to the others, to the moment. The individual plate returns control to the kitchen.
What this has to do with uuuhmami
From the very beginning, uuuhmami has focused on sharing, simply because it is closer to how people want to eat when they feel at ease. On a good evening with friends or family, you order more than you need, try a bit from someone else's plate, and order more of what was good.
The sharing concept at uuuhmami is deliberately open. The menu is designed for sharing, and anyone who wants to keep their plate to themselves is just as welcome. It's all about an invitation.
Three to five dishes for two people. More, if you're curious. Less, if you're focused. The table decides. That is, if you like, the oldest gastronomic concept in the world. And perhaps that's why it's the most enduring.