Continually stretching out the culinary trinity of appetizer, main, and dessert, fine dining keeps halving the distance between one course and the next. As soon as the mouth makes one dish disappear, another one appears. And then another one, and another one. Even when a last bite comes into sight, the race goes on, and Achilles cannot overtake the tortoise.

Many thanks to Berlin Review for inviting me to take on fine dining’s past and present in its sixth issue. “The Last Course” begins with fire and ends with the future, stopping for coffee along the way.