Chefs Bite Back

[vengroff]

Four weeks ago, chef Gillian Clark of the Colorado Kitchen wrote a letter to Tom Sietsemsa of the Post (a recent eGullet Q&A guest). She complained about customers who wanted to re-engineer her dishes to their own specifications, ignoring the time and effort she had spent designing them in the first place. The backlash from readers was immediate, and blistering. Diners expeted that when they are footing the bill, they should get exactly what they want.

In today's Post, Candy Sagon follows up on the story with Chefs Bite Back: In Some Cases, the Customer Isn't Always Right. Bob Kinkead, Judy Rodgers, Susan Lindeborg, Tom Collicio (through his staff), and others weigh in on where the line between artistry and customer service should be drawn.

[Varmint]

The last time Mrs. Varmint and I ate at Magnolia Grill in Durham, she was very intrigued by a dish, except that it had a cilantro-based sauce in it. My wife absolutely detests cilantro. When we asked the waiter if the sauce could be removed, he talked us out of it. Chef Ben Barker's cuisine is often based on complexity of flavors. Remove one element, and the entire dish can be out of whack. Such was the case with this particular dish. Mrs. Varmint loved it, and the cilantro merely acted as a counterbalance to some of the other assertive flavors in the dish. Without the cilantro, it would have been very wrong.

The waiter handled this very diplomatically, and we took his advice. He was appropriately trained by the chef to handle this type of request.

[Jonathan Day]

This one has been discussed at great length on eGullet, mostly on the "General" forum.

Start here for an example, but this is hardly the only place that it has come up.

[Fat Guy]

Wouldn't it be interesting if chefs and restaurateurs were always given the opportunity to respond to restaurant reviews?

[Dave the Cook]

Wouldn't it be interesting if chefs and restaurateurs were always given the opportunity to respond to restaurant reviews?

Interesting, yes. But would it be productive?

[Fat Guy]

Ah, the productiveness standard for judging the worthiness of newspaper food-section content!

Seriously, I doubt it would be, because few chefs or restaurateurs can write worth a damn so they'd turn the task over to publicists and the whole thing would be a disaster. But there's currently such a one-sidedness to newspaper restaurant coverage, and too often it comes from an anti-industry perspective. It would be nice to find a cure for that.

[fresco]

"But there's currently such a one-sidedness to newspaper restaurant coverage, and too often it comes from an anti-industry perspective. It would be nice to find a cure for that. "

One remedy that egullet could offer: annotated reviews. If a reviewer has an obvious conflict/ax to grind/demonstrated bias, his/her reviews could be posted and explained. If nothing else, it would help to keep reviewers honest.

[Fat Guy]

Copyright laws would prevent us from posting more than a few short quotes, but yes, eGullet is part of the cure -- any user can critique a writer's work here.

[Jon Tseng]

isn't this the whole is-food-a-trade-or-is-it-an-art debate viz the first section of Culinary Artistry?

J

[vengroff]

Wouldn't it be interesting if chefs and restaurateurs were always given the opportunity to respond to restaurant reviews?

But in this case it was not a chef responding to a review, but a chef bashing the behavior of her customers that started the whole thing.

[vengroff]

This one has been discussed at great length on eGullet, mostly on the "General" forum.

eGullet leads the way again...

[Fat Guy]

Wouldn't it be interesting if chefs and restaurateurs were always given the opportunity to respond to restaurant reviews?

But in this case it was not a chef responding to a review, but a chef bashing the behavior of her customers that started the whole thing.

Yes, my comment was an off-topic non-sequitur.

[Malawry]

I don't dine in restaurants where the chef is known as disinterested in (or disdainful of) flexibility if I can help it. To me, customer service is even more important than the integrity of cuisine. It's entirely possible to accommodate requests as long as they don't disrupt the flow of the line, as Susan McCreight Lindenborg said. The small size of Colorado Kitchen could theoretically make the possibility of changes more difficult than, say, in Ortanique with its two-level kitchen. Just the same, I'm turned off by inflexibility as an attitude, and there are (important) restaurants I have not visited because the chef has a well-known disdain or even temper when confronted with special requests. I love places like Gramercy Tavern partly because they are so willing to accommodate their customers.

That being said, I ate with a friend at CK several months ago. She was accommodated when she requested green beans instead of onion straws with her burger (she was on the Atkins diet).

[Anna N]

So... I walk into an art gallery and see a beautiful painting which I am willing to pay for. It's a pastoral scene with two maple trees. Do I have the right to call the artist and say I'll buy the painting if he/she replaces the maples with oaks? If the artist refuses my request should I complain about poor customer service? What sort of artist would he/she be if they complied with my request? Just thoughts. Anna N

[Bux]

So... I walk into an art gallery and see a beautiful painting which I am willing to pay for.  It's a pastoral scene with two maple trees.

I'll take one in blue, and could I have my trees on a side canvas.

[Peter B Wolf]

I strongly believe that a chef, when asked (in advance) to prepare/cook something special (not normally on the menu) should if at all possible respond in a positive accomodating way.

But, I also even more strongly believe, that changes to menu items , which may or may not be his or her creation, requested by someone for whatever reason, should absolutly but politely be declined.

Anna N. , your thoughts are right (from the gut) :...."Do I have the right to call the artist and say I'll buy the painting if he/she replaces the maples with oaks? If the artist refuses my request should I complain about poor customer service? What sort of artist would he/she be if they complied with my request?..."

As a byline, I am not suggesting all cooks/chefs are artists.

But a distinct line beween service and product must be understood.

I don't ask the clothing store owner/taylor to put short sleeves on on a regular long sleeve jacket just because it's summer.

[Bux]

Analogies will ultimately get us in trouble, but Peter's distinctions between ordering in the restaurant and making advance requests apply to art as well as food. Artists often work on commission and are usually happy to have the opportunity to do site specific piece, even if it's a framed painting hanging on a wall. Rarely can you get a copy of something you saw in his gallery, but in blue or that sort of thing, but you can have a discussion and come to some understanding of what you might expect before you commit yourself as a patron.

Anyway, I'm not suggesting all painters are artists either.

[Jinmyo]

Peter, quite agree.

Adequate warning for substantial changes, great. Interesting. Yes.

Last minute substantial changes, you're not interested in the food. You want your idea of what you want. Eat your ideas. Not this food. Go/ exeunt stage left followed by bear.

(Of course someone asking for a slight change can always be accomodated.)

[KNorthrup]

If a restaurant has a reputation for exceptional food and an unwillingness to customize, I'm still willing to eat there. Certainly the more expensive the place, the less willing I am to ask for anything unusual.

But the one devil's advocate thing I want to point out about patrons like the fellow who scraped the wild mushrooms off his meatloaf and added catsup is that some of them really would prefer to be eating at home. They're only there as a favour/indulgence/gift/trade-off/whatever to someone else at the table. Which is not to say indulge their whims on the hope they'll see the light and convert, just that there is an answer to 'why are they even there?' and it's nothing against the chef.

[Jinmyo]

KNorthrup, just so. And that's no problem. Unless they make a big deal about how disgusting mushrooms are and why the kitchen doesn't have their brand of ketchup.

[Pan]

Wouldn't it be interesting if chefs and restaurateurs were always given the opportunity to respond to restaurant reviews?

So far as I can tell, only writers are given that opportunity. I can't remember seeing a newspaper giving a musician the right to respond to an absolutely idiotic review, nor a painter, nor a dancer. Yes, I think that equal time should be offered to the reviewed, but I don't think it'll ever happen.

[Tom Sietsema]

Mind if I respond to this?

People already have ways to critique the critics or their work: they can write letters to the editor or (in my case) follow published restaurant reviews that appear online with mini-reviews of their own. The latter option doesn't thrill me, because posters get to remain anonymous (and who KNOWS who they might be?)

Equal time for chefs and others sounds like a good idea in theory, but it could also turn out to be this back and forth ping pong game of write/rebutt, write/rebutt. Where would it all end? Newspapers have limited space, after all. (The same is obviously not true of this medium, where discussions can go on for, well, miles.)

Just my two cents.

[Anna N]

Food Writer's "Moral Rights"

"the right not to have a work subject to distortion or mutilation which is prejudicial to your honour or reputation"

The quote is taken from the link above which came from the thread about recipe copyright. Hmmmmmmmmm - amazing how the threads here twine and intertwine!

Do chef's not have the same "moral right" not to see their creation distorted and mutilated by having their mushroom sauce replaced with ketchup? Anna N

[Andrew Fenton]

So... I walk into an art gallery and see a beautiful painting which I am willing to pay for.  It's a pastoral scene with two maple trees.  Do I have the right to call the artist and say I'll buy the painting if he/she replaces the maples with oaks?

Actually, this isn't too far off: consider the ridiculous popularity of Thomas Kinkade. He's the most successful painter in the world today, and works exactly like this. You see a painting (actually, a reproduction, but let's not quibble) of his in a gallery, and then you have an in-house artist "touch it up" to your specifications. If you're lucky (and have the ca$h), Kinkade himself will adjust your painting to match your sofa!

So if a real artist, who has his paintings in real galleries in malls across the country, is willing to adjust his art to his customers' specifications, well shucks, why shouldn't a cook do the same?

[Peter B Wolf]

So... I walk into an art gallery and see a beautiful painting which I am willing to pay for.  It's a pastoral scene with two maple trees.  Do I have the right to call the artist and say I'll buy the painting if he/she replaces the maples with oaks?

Actually, this isn't too far off: consider the ridiculous popularity of Thomas Kinkade. He's the most successful painter in the world today, and works exactly like this. You see a painting (actually, a reproduction, but let's not quibble) of his in a gallery, and then you have an in-house artist "touch it up" to your specifications. If you're lucky (and have the ca$h), Kinkade himself will adjust your painting to match your sofa!

So if a real artist, who has his paintings in real galleries in malls across the country, is willing to adjust his art to his customers' specifications, well shucks, why shouldn't a cook do the same?

To comment on your last paragraph:

I say , if the artist (or referring to the post about chefs) is willing and wants to, at his discretion, to comply to a customer/client/consumer's wishes, so it be!

But "should" ! ? He definitely NOT !