It Takes More Than a Chef: The Neglected Constituents of a City’s Restaurant Scene

• In Event: 548 - Section on Consumers and Consumption Paper Session. Intersections of Consumption and Production

Abstract

In popular and academic accounts, restaurant culture has largely, and perhaps necessarily, operated in a restricted fashion by addressing an audience already disposed to believe that the chef matters most. But these individualistic accounts suggest that restaurant success and culinary creativity operate in a universe devoid of societal influence and social interaction. In practice, however, restaurant meals, particularly fine ding meals, are produced by collaborative links between skilled practitioners. This insight means that these individuals, even the virtuosos, depend upon the social systems in which they create their magic. Therefore, this article looks at the larger milieu of a restaurant to explore how place-based aesthetics mediate expert opinion and facilitate consumption in urban environments. Taking the entire restaurant community as the point of analytic focus provides an avenue for research about aesthetics, sociability, taste, expertise, and place-making. I combine the preferences and practices of restaurant patrons, professional critics, and fine-dining chefs to reveal the hidden infrastructure that facilitates consumption of food as nourishment and food as culture. I treat restaurants as dynamic entities, focused on artistic innovation and economic enterprise in the context of contemporary cities. In a nutshell, I advocate that restaurants can be best understood not as the domain of talented individuals, but instead as the juncture between professional, social, and aesthetic preferences based in a specific place and time.

Author

• John T. Lang, Occidental College