Chefs do Paid Promos

[touaregsand]

What I find most disturbing about the article is the laziness of the reporting and the habit of writers' coming up with a premise (in this case our beloved celeb chefs are duping us) and then pursuing info to support the premise, regardless of the more nuanced and difficult answers.  It's an incomplete and biased view of a broader phenomenon and therefore harmful to readers, harmful to the chefs and their businesses, and harmful to readers who want the whole picture.  I love the journal's writing and reporting but this is emblematic of the mediocrity so common in journalism today.

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Ming is not the only victim of lazy reporting. See this post for Jose Andres' correction.

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Interesting thread. Some examples of "talking about someone behind his back in front his face based on someone else's word." Then the chef himself shows up to defend what? Defend himself against inaccurate or misleading reporting.

[touaregsand]

I love the journal's writing and reporting but this is emblematic of the mediocrity so common in journalism today.

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So now it's the journalist's fault? Top chefs are taking money/products to put someone's food on their menus and sometimes NOT telling their customers, and that's not news? This was a timely story that got to a lot of people who were shocked that their beloved chefs were doing this. That is news. And I'm sure from now on, chef's will be revealing their sponsorship deals, which is a good thing. Many people were probably unaware of these deals, even if they are public knowledge. Personally, I doubt anything nefarious is going on, but it's good to have it out in the open.

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Maybe we live in different worlds or maybe I'm a bit cynical when I see menus like "Chino Ranch carrots" or "Neiman Ranch Beef" I think two things the chef is catering to a customer who is name brand crazy or the chef has a cut a deal.

Or maybe I'm a bit naive. Is Keller doing a California raisin tasting menu? Are raisins showing up in odd places in his restaurants? Is "I heard it through the grapevine" being played backwards as background music at Per Se?

Or maybe I'm too focused on the actual food that is being served to me to care whether or not the chef is having sex with horses. I just hope he washes his hands before cooking.

I don't see why "from now on chefs will be revealing their sponsorship deals." Just so a few diners can count the exact number of avocado dishes served in a restaurant than post on a board that there was one too many? Or to avoid gossipy posts on forums?

[robyn]

Just for the record - it's Hubert Keller who does the California raisin thing - not Thomas Keller.

I don't want to split hairs, but I just opened my last issue of food arts, and it has an add with TK, although HK does endorse as well. Trotter is a raisin guy too.....

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No problem and thanks for the update. I'd just seen the raisin ads in consumer magazines which feature Hubert Keller.

I like cooking with raisins (and of course Passover is full of recipes that call for raisins). As for Thomas Keller - when I ate at Per Se - he did a terrific dish with cooked plucots. If I were the trade group that was responsible for pushing that fruit - I'd pay Thomas Keller a heap of money fast to promote it (because we all see them in stores and most people haven't quite figured out what they are and what to do with them). Robyn

[robyn]

I was in ny monday for the cooking show premiere party, had lunch with Ming and mentioned the article.  He was infuriated by it, noting quotes used out of context, duplicitous tactics on the part of the reporter (fawning in order to conceal her motives), and unbalanced use of info to support her point.  Maybe Ming's just being sensitive--we were working our way through the excellent rose section of casa mono's great wine list (and awesome food), and ming was kind of unintelligible by the end, but having now worked with the guy and understanding the nature of his work, both at his restaurant and in TV, can vouch for his integrity.

What I find most disturbing about the article is the laziness of the reporting and the habit of writers' coming up with a premise (in this case our beloved celeb chefs are duping us) and then pursuing info to support the premise, regardless of the more nuanced and difficult answers.  It's an incomplete and biased view of a broader phenomenon and therefore harmful to readers, harmful to the chefs and their businesses, and harmful to readers who want the whole picture.  I love the journal's writing and reporting but this is emblematic of the mediocrity so common in journalism today.

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I think your conversation with Mr. Tsai reflects naivete on his part. The Personal Journal has a lot of articles dealing with consumer issues from a consumer's point of view. For example - an article about high end restaurants a while back didn't deal with the good food at the places - but the fact that the restaurants which were profiled gave almost all of their customers the bum's rush. Being interviewed for the Personal Journal is probably closer to being interviewed by 60 Minutes than a trendy food magazine which tends to do "puff pieces".

I'm a retired lawyer who handled some high profile cases. And my rule - after being burnt a few times - was - I don't talk to the press - and I don't let my clients talk to the press. I'd send reporters copies of public documents - that's about it. After I retired - I got involved in some things where reporters/journalists were seeking background material for "puff pieces" and "how to pieces" (like how to invest on line) - and I never had a problem with those reporters. I was "source material" - as opposed to my client being the subject of an (almost always) critical article.

So I think the moral of the story is you have to figure out who is interviewing you - and why - before you decide to open your mouth. Now that some chefs are as high profile as some of my clients were (which makes them fair game for so-called "investigative reporting") - they may just decide that in many cases it's better to skip the interview - "sorry I'm tied up this week" - and keep their mouths closed. Robyn

[Michael Ruhlman]

I love the journal's writing and reporting but this is emblematic of the mediocrity so common in journalism today.

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So now it's the journalist's fault? Top chefs are taking money/products to put someone's food on their menus and sometimes NOT telling their customers, and that's not news? This was a timely story that got to a lot of people who were shocked that their beloved chefs were doing this. That is news. And I'm sure from now on, chef's will be revealing their sponsorship deals, which is a good thing. Many people were probably unaware of these deals, even if they are public knowledge. Personally, I doubt anything nefarious is going on, but it's good to have it out in the open.

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I think it's good to have out in the open, too, I just wish the reporter knew more about her subject and had approached it in way that showed how complex the situation was.

robyn, you make good points about knowing why a reporter is asking you questions and I believe they have an obligation to be honest when you ask.

[chefzadi]

So I think the moral of the story is you have to figure out who is interviewing you - and why - before you decide to open your mouth. Now that some chefs are as high profile as some of my clients were (which makes them fair game for so-called "investigative reporting") - they may just decide that in many cases it's better to skip the interview - "sorry I'm tied up this week" - and keep their mouths closed. Robyn

As a chef who's been interviewed I can tell you that even journalists with the best of intentions get things wrong. Sometimes the inaccuracies are minor sometimes they are glaring. Sometimes situations are taken out of context to suit the story that the writer wants to tell even when the writer wants to give a glowing review. A writer took information off my website and still made factual errors.

I've been around long enough not to believe everything I read to the letter.

Your advice is well taken.

[docsconz]

While I never have been interviewed for food-related issues, I have been for medical and business issues. The first time I was interviewed I did it over the phone. Never again. I will only answer written questions with a written response.

[robyn]

robyn, you make good points about knowing why a reporter is asking you questions and I believe they have an obligation to be honest when you ask.

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I found with some reporters - you couldn't even trust them to be honest when you asked whether you were talking on or off the record. So my basic rule of thumb is don't say anything you wouldn't want to see in print - in any context. Robyn

[russ parsons]

i think it was a pretty shoddy piece of reporting done by someone who was looking for a quick hit-and-run piece. it's a very different thing when you're covering a beat; when you're going to have to go out and talk to folks again and when your reputation means something. i'm very proud of the fact that the people i write about almost always feel they've been treated fairly, even if they don't like what i wrote about them. it's a matter of short-term vs. long-term.

[Steve Klc]

So now it's the journalist's fault?

yes, Danny, in this case I'm with Russ, and a lot of blame lies with her editor for not displaying a little more mental clarity or acuity. This piece could have been tightened up a lot, there could have been historical perspective, some exploration of how sponsorship over time may have led to the decline in performance in certain chefs, or how sponsorship over time has helped chefs keep from raising prices or helped chefs send their staff away for training to gain experience, or how sponsorship has helped spread good products more quickly across the country, etc. Michael's criticism of this piece is valid and rings true to me: "writers' coming up with a premise...and then pursuing info to support the premise, regardless of the more nuanced and difficult answers.  It's an incomplete and biased view of a broader phenomenon and therefore harmful to readers, harmful to the chefs and their businesses, and harmful to readers who want the whole picture."

And that's what eGullet provides, the broader picture. You, menton1 and Busboy have helped flesh this out in your own ways, even though I believe you're ultimately holding the incorrect, perhaps somewhat shortsighted and minority, view. In this case, if the WSJ had employed one of their previous methodologies for food reporting--read eGullet first, perhaps have the reporter start a thread here and ask us to e-mail her--THEN write the article--they'd have been in much better shape.

Top chefs are taking money/products to put someone's food on their menus and sometimes NOT telling their customers, and that's not news? This was a timely story that got to a lot of people who were shocked that their beloved chefs were doing this. That is news.

No, that's not news. Most of us have either seen ads for the past 20 years featuring chefs and connected the dots or simply don't care, because the taste of the food is what is primary when we sit down to a meal in a restaurant, any restaurant, even at the hands of celebrity chefs who have coffee table books, television shows and media hype out the wazoo. My hope is this thread will allow us to expand the discussion a bit and really expose this WSJ piece for its lack of depth: why shouldn't a diner view raw ingredients like tools, they're there for the chef to choose (and granted, there's an incredible range to choose from) there for the chef to combine with processes simple or complex and use as he sees fit, as his own palate or customer sense or budget directs him? Even the strip mall diner realizes restaurants are businesses, certainly insiders and frequent diners realize there are many complex and inter-related pressures that impact what a chef does, the end result of that whole process is what you taste. Why pick out one minor aspect like "sponsorship" related to an ingredient? Do you need to know the equipment a chef uses in order to "taste" his dish?

The minute you go beyond "taste," where does the slippery slope of hyperventilation and expectation stop? Let's say you're still tempted by the cheap hook of the false WSJ premise--that it is VERY IMPORTANT chefs should disclose in advance that they're using x brand of shrimp/avocado/beef/pork/venison/whatever as a result of a sponsorship, promotional or more competitive pricing deal they've struck.

Why not also expect chefs, in advance, to disclose how much they contribute to charity, how well or not well they're paying their sous chefs, whether they offer health insurance to their staff, which convection oven they have on the line, whether it was "made in the good ol' USA or is imported" and how much they paid for that and whether they're sponsored by the convection oven manufacturer as well--essentially, if you follow this road, will there be anything a chef doesn't have to disclose in advance in order to satisfy every small subset of self-entitled diners personally-passionate about any given cause or issue x, y, z?

Do you a think a chef in bankruptcy protection should have to disclose this on his menu and website? Do you think if a chef has had several failed restaurants on his resume that he has to disclose this for the few current diners who might actually care about that and not give him a second chance? (Maybe if that chef had cut better sponsorship deals he'd be solvent, paying his vendors on time and not having to let his staff go.) Do you think chefs should disclose how many weeks behind they are on paying their staff or vendor accounts? If you want to start down this "disclosure" road, where does it stop? Shouldn't all these chefs expect diners simply to taste their dishes first?

This article was calculated to appeal to two sets of diners: the first who don't know any better--because most diners are still very clueless about chefs and dining out--and the second, a small subset of experienced, inquisitive diners who might latch onto this as a valid and very important issue for them--when in reality, for most experienced diners, this is putting a false cart before the horse (that $5,000 beef spot on Fox News excepted but that's really a separate case.)

And I'm sure from now on, chef's will be revealing their sponsorship deals, which is a good thing. Many people were probably unaware of these deals, even if they are public knowledge. Personally, I doubt anything nefarious is going on, but it's good to have it out in the open

I doubt it, and I think the majority of us on this thread and on eGullet will continue to argue the point, and sway the greater percentage to our view, that any discussion of advance "disclosure" is un-necessary, that the main thing we should expect from any chef, celebrity or not, sponsored or not, at least in the restaurant setting, is a dish that tastes good like Daniel said and, like Russ said, doesn't make us sick.

That's the only contract any chef makes with any diner, beyond that assumes too much. Touaregsand has it right: something cynical could creep in when you see menu branding like Valrhona or Niman Ranch, that branding is neither good nor bad on its face, the chef could be catering to a certain customer who is name brand crazy or the chef has a cut a deal--there's also something naive about diners worrying about--or exploring the deeper meaning--of, say, a Keller, ANY Keller, doing a California raisin tasting menu and then there are those luckily "too focused on the actual food" to fret much in advance about those things. But cynical, naive or hyper-focused about a particular narrow issue--it all should begin with tasting the dish and that's what's most important.

After you taste a chef and his dishes on his terms, with an open mind and palate and without prejudice being key, then if you want to poke and prod about sponsorship deals, about who owns the restaurant, how long the lease is, how many charity events or Beard dinners the chef cooked and at what cost, about whether all of his ingredients are feel-good certified organic hand-picked by barefoot waifs, their toes going squish squish in the mud, about whether the fish you had had previously been frozen or the sardines were overnighted from Portugal, that's fine. Being inquisitive, being interested in the answers to these questions is not the problem, it's feeling you're entitled to full disclosure of all these things in advance that is. And I'm sure if you asked any chef about this, they'd tell you, and they'd tell you why they do what they do, why they make the decisions they make, right down to crossing the t's and dotting the i's. But, if I'm taking the temperature of this thread correctly, most of us feel that to expect ALL of this disclosure in advance before you actually taste a $6.95 app or $14.95 entree or a $7 dessert is either naive or comically unrealistic.

You want to start a real scandal, you start petitioning chefs, especially chefs without sponsorship deals, to disclose where they're buying all their stuff from. Ask the next pastry chef in the next restaurant you happen to dine in (that is, if there's even a pastry chef involved) whether he or she is "sponsored," and if not, ask them to show you which dirt-cheap chocolate-like substance they're using before you order their signature chocolate dessert, that is if you feel you're even qualified to judge which chocolate would be a "good" chocolate beforehand. See how far you get with that approach. It may just turn out that the guys and gals WITH the deals more often than not are getting the best stuff--since they're the only ones able to afford the good stuff. Maybe it's the chefs without deals that the WSJ should worry about? Kelly? You reading along?

Oh, and allow me to let you all in on another little secret of the business: the best chefs in town, every town, usually receive things for a lower negotiated price from distributors than the "just-average-to-pretty-good" chefs in town--so those salesmen can, in turn, trumpet to other chefs that Marcel "Ain't he the baddest-ass chef in town" is using their foie gras and you should too--which according to the weak WSJ criteria would also be a troubling form of sponsorship which should be disclosed in advance, no? And, what's worse, some large distributors even put extra financial pressure on chefs to buy all of their goods solely from them...or else higher prices! Different prices for different chefs for the same things--and this is going on every day? Now that would be a really good subject for an investigative piece.

[docsconz]

I agree with Steve's post. I see it as much ado about nothing.

The difference between raisin council sponsorship and things like Niman Ranch or other "prestige" products identified specifically on the menu, is that the latter are identified not so much as advertizinf for or promoting the product, but because that product has a good enough reputation to lend cache to the menu. It is mentioned because customers may ecognize and appreciate tht particular product. Itis marketing, but marketing to promote the restaurant not the product itself.

[Miami Danny]

Steve-On the contrary, I would like to know a lot LESS about chefs, and just eat; but that doesn't seem to be the trend. The cat is out of the bag. It's too late for chefs to say enough, after they've promoted everything they do. Chefs chase celebrityhood like everyone else. That has its upside as well as its downside. When chefs want to 'save the shark', or whatever, they are using their celebrity to get you to do something. When they promote the use of a particular brand of shrimp, they're trying to get you to do something else. Is there a difference? That's up to the consumer to decide. But we can only decide when we have the info.

I admit that the reaction by some is overwrought (I'm shocked, shocked to know that people do stuff for money!), and the WSJ article had some flaws, but the fact is that the public doesn't JUST care about the finished product anymore, they DO care how it got there and why. We have chefs to thank for that (I'm not being sarcastic). It's great. But's it's also too late to say, Just shut up and eat!

[touaregsand]

Okay chefs are celebrities. Let's treat them like celebrities. Celebrities hold a can of coca cola in films with the label in clear view, they recieve expensive couture gowns for free and then tell their fans that so and so designer is the 'best', they also get tons of plastic surgery and then put out exercise videos and beauty products...

A consumer watch group is needed to protect the pubilc from these lies. Oh wait, the tabloids report on the juiciest bits of gossip. Often incorrectly. Celebrity chefs can rely on the WSJ for this.

The chef is not paid to endorse the product ergo it must be good.

The chef is paid to endorse the product ergo it must be bad or I'll do some research on the product itself.

Is that the idea?

[robyn]

Okay chefs are celebrities...

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Or celebrities are chefs (or run/manage/own restaurants). Like Gloria Estefan. The line is getting pretty blurry.

Read an interesting article the other day about how celebrities may well replace most clothing designers in the coming years. Who wants to buy Armani when you can buy Jennifer Lopez? The same thing could happen in terms of eating. Robyn

[touaregsand]

Okay chefs are celebrities...

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Or celebrities are chefs (or run/manage/own restaurants). Like Gloria Estefan. The line is getting pretty blurry.

Read an interesting article the other day about how celebrities may well replace most clothing designers in the coming years. Who wants to buy Armani when you can buy Jennifer Lopez? The same thing could happen in terms of eating. Robyn

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I'd say it's already happening. It's been happening. I would never argue that. My husband walked away from the restaurant business because he got sick of it. He'll go back one of these days, but with his own money. No investors, they're worse than sponsors. It may come as a surprise to some, but from our experience sponsors cut pretty clean deals, they are cut and dry, nothing nefarious. They do not dictate menus or try to mold a chef's persona. Investors on the other hand...

But that's another topic.

[David Lebovitz]

I read this in R.W.Apple's article in yesterday's NY Times and found it relevant to this discussion.

<With many New Orleans restaurants, including some of the most famous ones, relying these days on frozen crawfish tails and frozen soft-shell crabs and on shrimp and crabmeat imported from Thailand or China, Uglesich's stands out more than ever.

"Look," Mr. Uglesich said, peering through wire-rimmed glasses, "90 percent of the shrimp eaten in this country is imported. Local crawfish costs me $7 a pound, compared with $2.50 imported. People in restaurants here know they can get away with things. But I'd pay $10 for Louisiana crawfish, if that's what it takes. Otherwise, what's going to happen to our local fishermen? When we're gone, I don't know.">

Edited April 29, 2005 by David Lebovitz (log)