Disclaimer: Apologies in advance for any profanity and the candid nature of these words. I hope this is anonymous. Note to self – Sign off with a random name. Look around for ideas.
It’s said that sharks can detect a drop of blood in a 100 litres of water and can smell blood 400 meters away. Similarly as chefs/ restaurateurs we’re blessed with the innate (yes innate, whiskey is good for vocabulary) ability to sense any kind of bullshit, sometimes upwards of a mile away.
Enter, stage right, The Nouveau Foodie. The Connoisseur. The Influencer. The *cough cough* Free Loader. The Reviewer. Administrators. The Social Media Evangelist/ Guru/ Maven/ Pundit/ or whatever fuck-tarded synonym a thesaurus can spit out. (The thesaurus by the way is not a type of dinosaur, it’s by and large an extinct book that you modern day foodies should use more instead of having that elusive explosion of flavours in your mouths all the fucking time. By the way, it’s okay to say orgasm. Your parents don’t read what you’re writing anyway. I’m pretty certain nobody does.)
(Large sip), ahem, anyway, what does it take to be one or all of the above personifications of a present day chef’s nightmare? Here’s the vital checklist:
1. Must own a blog.
Before I ramble. A second’s pause. The word blog. Say it. BLOG. Enunciate. Bl-o-o-o-o-o-g. I think that’s the problem right there. How can you be serious about anything that is in any shape or form of the word blog. B-l-o-g. (Large gulp)
Typically these blogs (shudder) have a viewership that extends to the farthest reaches of a single digit. The name of the blog (repulsive shudder) must usually involve an article of clothing and an ingredient or dish. EG: Cherries&Corsets or Pinots&Palazzos, so that they can vie for a free meal in addition to that free odd sized T-shirt during fashion week! Cheeky cheeky.
2. Must have an Instagram / Snapchat account.
The key here is to have enough paid followers (Paid??? No!!!!! Yes, paid) to “guarantee” exposure which in turn would “validate” those free glasses of wine from that expensive bottle or free meal being had. Useful tip by the way: Try checking the followers or people who like the posts of these individuals. If the names sound more like Google searches of horny 12 year olds or soviet / hentai mail order bride catalogues or things Donald Trump would say, you’ve hit the jackpot. Or if they oddly have just one post but follow 5 billion people.
3. Must know the name of the owner or the chef in charge.
Dropping names or introducing the person in charge to your friends as being the person in charge only means that your memory recall is functioning at optimum capacity. If you’re expecting the food to magically taste better… err… sorry, your attempt to elevate your social game won’t raise the flavor profile of the food (or inversely reduce the length of your bill).
4. Must know how to rock that fake compliment and fake insult with a poker face better than Gaga.
Even though every restaurateur loves a quick or long ego-job it’s almost always ruined by a phony as fuck compliment. Eg: Sometimes you can be told that using single estate truffle oil in your pasta or Maldon salt in your chocolate dessert was a genius move; even though those two ingredients never existed in the whole bloody kitchen! Or sometimes you’re told about how bad the competition is and how badly a competing chef makes his version of a dish you’re known for. Well we’ve eaten that version and it was actually quite bloody brilliant, even better than ours probably. So let me help you zip it. No more ego-jobs from you 😉
5. A photo-op.
While its customary to bugger the living daylights out of every dish or course served with a photo or video akin to the Blair Witch project; its now mandatory to also take a photo with the owner or chef or restaurant manager. I’m surprised they don’t pull even the helpless waiter into the frame. Must we smile? (Especially since half a bottle of wine, which nobody will buy by the glass now, was collateral damage).
6. The long kiss goodnight.
If you must flourish however, the most important quality to be had would be the art of wriggling out of paying the bill. Usually via a speech at the very end of the meal, which would put even Martin Luther King’s speechwriter to shame. Or via sustained subtle subliminal messages throughout the meal or check-ins or live updates via the wide reach of one’s social mafia, oops media. (No more drinking now) Words to the rescue. The promise of stardom a.k.a. page views or the “fact” that its going to be their number one recommendation or how they can’t wait to write their “review”. Or upon completion of the meal, a line that sounds less like, “May I have the bill please” and more like, “Can you please call the chef or owner. We want to thank them for magically curing my dining partner of his vegetarianism disease which doctors all over the world had said was incurable”. All of which is just one big fat long verbal kiss before saying goodnight (sucker). But typically this is when all we want to do (in the words of the almighty Notorious BIG in his album Life After Death) is kiss your ass goodnight! *boom*
So here it is. While the recurring cast of the latest season of “Food Critics” of the city rave about some and ravage other restaurants (who probably gave a bill or no discount at the end of the meal), know that we can sense your presence and pretence. And since the latter always leaves a rather unpleasant taste; fool us once, shame on you but fool us twice… well, that’s a story for another day.
J. Beam
‘Pandora’s Box: Unlocked by DSSC’ is an anonymous series of 5 F&B industry superstars who disclose what it is about the industry that irks, nay, annoys the #&*$ out of them. You can read the other articles here, here, here and here.
