{"id":606688,"date":"2023-02-10T09:35:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T15:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/10\/people-still-love-fine-dining-they-just-feel-guilty-about-it-now\/"},"modified":"2023-02-10T09:35:00","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T15:35:00","slug":"people-still-love-fine-dining-they-just-feel-guilty-about-it-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/10\/people-still-love-fine-dining-they-just-feel-guilty-about-it-now\/","title":{"rendered":"People Still Love Fine Dining\u2014They Just Feel Guilty About It Now"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It was not particularly surprising when\u00a0The New York Times<\/em> gave the iconic, mostly French restaurant Le Bernardin\u00a0four stars this week<\/a>. After all, the fine dining spot has held the\u00a0Times\u2019<\/em>\u00a0highest star rating since opening in New York in 1986.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet, compared to his\u00a02012 ode to the same restaurant<\/a>, critic Pete Wells seemed a little on edge about handing over those stars this time: \u201cAt this point, expensive restaurants have gotten so much bad press that I know people who wish that whole end of the restaurant business would disappear,\u201d he writes. \u201cThey\u2019re dreaming\u2014somebody will always pay more to eat in the restaurant that gets the best tuna.\u201d The earlier review is awestruck and unapologetic, while the latter teems with a restraint that seems every bit as driven to justify its own existence as that of the fine dining restaurant itself. It\u2019s clear the way food media talks about fine dining has changed\u2014and for good reason.<\/p>\n

Over the last couple of years, reports have described famous fine dining chefs\u00a0kneeing their subordinates \u201cin the dick<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0plopping cooks inside trash cans to punish them<\/a>, and overlooking\u00a0claims of sexual assault<\/a> in their kitchens. In the past, such labor injustices might have been ignored, even justified as harsh but necessary means for creating transcendent dining experiences. But today these practices are unavoidable, made tangible to a broad audience via high-octane dramas like TV series\u00a0The Bear<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and satirical horror film\u00a0The Menu<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0At the same time, the economy is once again looking precarious as the word recession<\/em> seems to be on the tip of so many tongues, making personal wealth a particularly\u00a0touchy subject<\/a> right now. Ultraexpensive fine dining restaurants are reminders that some people simply have way more money to spare.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All these details explain a clear tension I\u2019ve noticed recently: Fine dining is undergoing a tectonic cultural shift. It\u2019s not so \u201cokay\u201d to admit you love it anymore.<\/p>\n

The most exclusive and costly subset of the restaurant industry has faced such terrible allegations in the past several years that some are\u00a0relishing its fall from grace<\/a>. Others\u00a0defend<\/a> fine dining restaurants as essential hubs of creativity and education. This kind of morally charged, deeply divisive discourse is enough to make anyone feel sheepish about\u00a0battling it out online for a coveted seat<\/a> at, say,\u00a0Eleven Madison Park<\/a> or\u00a0Blue Hill<\/a>\u2014which is\u00a0what you\u2019re gonna have to do<\/a> if you want the special treat of paying hundreds of dollars for dinner at a potentially problematic restaurant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nowhere are these anxieties more obvious than in the evolution of restaurant reviews. The aforementioned\u00a0New York Times<\/em> reviews, over a decade apart, reveal a clear tonal shift. In 2012, Wells focused mostly on the food at Le Bernardin, then a $125 four-course meal, which he wrote was \u201cripe with opportunities for excitement.\u201d Meanwhile, in February of this year, he gave almost as much airtime to contextualizing the cultural relevance of such a restaurant\u2014which now charges about $298 for eight courses\u2014as he did to the \u201cwarm wedges of sea scallops with tender bright-green leeks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Successive\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> reviews of The French Laundry, which serves a bucolic set menu in Yountville, California, also illustrate a stark difference in the way the media talks about fine dining restaurants. In 2018, former critic Michael Bauer\u00a0breathlessly described<\/a> chef Thomas Keller as the type of exacting cook who \u201calways looks for ways to up his game,\u201d exemplary of a serious dedication which \u201chas put him on top.\u201d Just four years later, Soleil Ho\u2019s review was\u00a0far more skeptical<\/a>. They wrote that, for the amount of work\u2014\u201con a material level, to accumulate the wealth necessary to dine here, and on a social capital level, to actually make the reservation\u201d\u2014the splurge was not simply not worth it.<\/p>\n

Wells also explicitly addressed the notorious brutalities of restaurant work in his most recent Le Bernadin review: It\u2019s not as if this particular slice of the food industry \u201chas a monopoly on bad behavior,\u201d he wrote. He\u2019s not wrong. Just about anyone in an apron can be a jerk, whether they\u2019ve donned it at a low-key diner or within the sterile walls of Noma\u2019s kitchen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the aside highlights a simmering sentiment: Whether a customer is experiencing the stress of dropping a whole bunch of money while the economy is in the toilet, or feels ethically compromised by the possibility of underwriting abusive practices\u2014or both\u2014fine dining seems to come with an inherent side of guilt these days.\u00a0This falls in line with a trend that reaches beyond restaurants\u2014when it comes down to it, a lot of rich people really\u00a0don\u2019t want to broadcast just how rich they are<\/a>, whether it\u2019s via the places they eat or what they buy at the grocery store.\u00a0Even if you still think the spectacle of fine dining is fun, owning up to it without admitting to its possible evils (and your own privilege) has become sort of taboo.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To be clear, Wells and other critics aren\u2019t the instigators of this cultural pivot\u2014they just reflect how confused people are about fine dining right now. \u201cI think it\u2019s just become a luxury a lot of people don\u2019t think about doing anymore,\u201d one person\u00a0told me on Twitter<\/a>. Another diner couldn\u2019t stomach the labor practices: \u201cAfter hearing how the [back of house staff] is treated at my city\u2019s fine dining choices, why would I ever give money to the people facilitating that?\u201d Others said that they still loved fine dining, but scrimped on regular meals to save for special occasions. \u201cSpending $200-300 a month is easy if you eat out or get takeout frequently,\u201d one person responded. \u201cWe reserve that for one night out a month or every other month at our favorite spots.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That fine dining restaurants are expected to be morally\u00a0good<\/em> as well as delicious is a broadly positive thing for customers and workers, and I\u2019m glad that\u2019s being reflected in reviews that are more holistic and nuanced. And I doubt fine dining is particularly near The End, as\u00a0some<\/a>\u00a0have predicted<\/a>. Between the end of 2019 and the end of 2022, the reservations platform OpenTable saw the biggest growth (8%) across restaurant meals in their most expensive category (over $50 per person). Sure, that\u2019s not a $300 tasting menu, but it does indicate that customers are still willing to eat out at a higher price point. It\u2019s also clear from the explosive growth in\u00a0members-only private restaurants<\/a> that there\u2019s a market hungry for pricey experiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At least for now, it\u2019s not so much that no one is going to fine dining spots\u2014it\u2019s that, given the moral conundrum, customers just don\u2019t want to brag about it anymore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Ali Francis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was not particularly surprising when\u00a0The New York Times gave the iconic, mostly French restaurant Le Bernardin\u00a0four stars this week. After all, the fine dining spot has held the\u00a0Times\u2019\u00a0highest star rating since opening in New York in 1986.\u00a0 Yet, compared to his\u00a02012 ode to the same restaurant, critic Pete Wells seemed a little on edge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":606689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[534,287,1441],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-606688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-financial","8":"category-people","9":"category-still"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}