Tasting menu
A long meal of many small courses chosen by the chef to show the range of a kitchen.
Also: degustation
A tasting menu serves many small plates in a fixed order, sometimes eight, twelve or more. The guest does not choose the dishes. Each portion is only a few bites, so the diner can try a wide spread of what the kitchen does. Drinks are often paired with each course. The format became common in fine dining in the late twentieth century. Japanese kaiseki, a formal sequence of small seasonal dishes, is a much older relative.