Juliette Rossant

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The Food Channel® Trendwire

Heading into Choppy Waters

From Art Siemering's vantage point at the Noble Idea Center —

Let's see, where were we? Last week, we began an update on the phenomenon I like to call "Chefs Gone Wild."

In addressing this, I tried to walk the middle ground between those who think star chefs are on a never-ending roll, regardless of their excesses in terms of taste and credibility, and others who believe a "chef bubble" is floating overhead and the day when it bursts may not be far off.

Trends are my business, and I'd love to predict the outcome of all this, but the fact is, I'm still evaluating what I see. One thing I'm sure of is that the course taken by certain aspects of the star-chef syndrome, to which so many of us have proven vulnerable, will determine the final outcome.

So let's look at a few of the pros and cons, including — as I promised last week — the migration to America of a development that just might "blow the lid off" today's comfy-cozy world of chef-led fine dining.

Although I wrote extensively about the seriously overextended chef Todd English and his efforts to seek stardom far removed from efforts performed in a single kitchen, here is another insight from a story by Dirk Smillie in the current (April 19) edition of Forbes magazine.

"How cooks became gods is told in Juliette Rossant's new book, Super Chef: The Making of the Great Modern Restaurant Empires. Rossant, a former Forbes reporter, tracks the rise of six, explaining how each (became) an empire. Not all of them grew smoothly. 'This is a trial-and-error thing. There's no 101 course on how to expand a restaurant business,' says Todd English. He should know. After trying to launch 11 restaurants and two TV series in less than four years, his empire imploded, thanks to a stinging review of his new eatery Olives New York in The New York Times, health violations and lawsuits from his partner and an investor."

And there are plenty of other instances in which star chefs appear to be letting the food itself run second to their higher aims. If so, they'd better be careful what they wish for.

Word has reached these shores concerning a far more vicious strain of restaurant critics in London who are capturing stardom for themselves by the process of puncturing chefs' pretensions and kicking the self-commissioned pedestals right out from under their feet.

Details of the dead-opposite norm in Britain were spelled out deliciously in a New York Times story last November 9. Its title: "London Food Critics Have Knives Out for the Chefs."

Times writer Warren St. John described these folks as "a pack of sometimes hilarious, astonishingly brutal restaurant critics who in the last few years have turned English food writing into a blood sport.

"As the British foodie revolution has taken hold and the local menu has been transformed from gray clumps of meat and potatoes into wildly inventive, sometimes harrowingly expensive internationalist cuisine, Britain's schadenfreude-seeking newspapers have unleashed these reviewers to hack down any tall poppies — chefs, restaurants, architects, waiters — who might emerge from the crop."

But wait, there's more: "Their M.O. is to review restaurant openings not as culinary events, but as social ones, where chefs and owners put their aspirations on display at least as much as their vichyssoise." ¬Ý

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© 2004 Noble Communications. The Food Channel® Trendwire newsletter is published by the consumer intelligence unit of Noble & Associates, a food-focused advertising and marketing company with offices in Springfield, Mo., Chicago, Ill., Milwaukee, Wis. And Washington, N.J. Comments or questions may be directed to Art Siemering, the newsletter's editor-in-chief, at art.siemering@noble.net, by phone at 417-875-5187 or by fax at 417-875-5199.

The Trendwire newsletter is distributed electronically each week, 52 times a year. Its content, in whole or in part, may not be copied or reproduced in any form. All quotations must credit The Food Channel Trendwire as the source. Individual e-letter subscriptions are available for US$195 per year. Corporate subscriptions are US$895. For subscription inquiries, contact Art Siemering at 417-875-5187 or art.siemering@noble.net.

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