Archive for the ‘Dining Culture’ Category
Spotlight on Dining DNA:
The Search for the Elusive Protagonista
October 23, 2009
There is a kind of woman who, when seen at a restaurant or lounge, seems to give off a glow. You might try to pinpoint what makes this woman so effervescent. What gives her that ethereal aura, that mysterious halo? Is it her confidence? Is it her strong sense of self? Is it her liberated spirit?
Then you realize: It’s the ambient light reflecting off her glossy pair of Manolo Blahniks.
There are some women who are comfortable with eventually settling down and retiring their social lives, but don’t ask this woman why she doesn’t follow the herd. She’s a protagonista, and her desire for new friends and new experiences is as alive and kicking as ever.
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Has America Abandoned Las Vegas?
October 20, 2009
While Las Vegas remains one of the defining cities of the United States, it’s one that is often regarded with a mix of fascination and discomfort. It’s the embodiment of America’s uninhibited nature—a place to test the boundaries of one’s usual propriety. It’s America’s occasional mistress, not its longtime love interest. There’s a reason the city sits in the middle of a barren desert—within arm’s length, but isolated enough to keep temptation at bay.
America’s take-it-or-leave-it approach to the city of Las Vegas has been particularly harsh during the economic crisis of the past two years. October of 2008 brought a 10.2% drop in the city’s visitors—the biggest downturn since September, 2001. Monthly visitation rates and gaming revenues have plunged over the past year, and even as the rest of the country looks toward recovery, the city’s current unemployment rate sits at 13.4%. The Southern Nevada Index of Leading Indicators from this past September showed slight economic gains, but the most optimistic economists predict no significant relief for Vegas before the end of the year.
Las Vegas may be the brightest city in the world, but certainly not in current economic terms. Read More »
Posted in Dining Culture, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Travel | No Comments »
Romancing Her Taste Buds
October 13, 2009
Admit it, men: few things are more sensual than stirring a steaming vat of ruby red tomato sauce. The swirling trails left in the wake of your wooden spoon, the bubbles that quiver and swell on the surface until they burst, the hearty aroma that snakes its way up to your eager nostrils. It’s true romance. In that moment, you are one with your tomato sauce.
Deep down, you are all gastrosexuals.
Well, maybe we’re being a bit theatrical. Though many men still prefer the art of ordering takeout, an increasing number are trying their hands at the culinary arts. In a study by food company PurAsia, 53% of men reported that they cook with separate ingredients every day and the amount of time men are spending in the kitchen has increased fivefold since 1961 (and that’s not just due to the rise of the microwave). While we applaud these men for their elevated tastes, we should also note that a popular reason for this cultural trend remains the desire to seduce a partner. Read More »
Posted in Culinary Trends, Dining Culture | No Comments »
Pity the Chef: Is It Ever Too Soon To Review a Restaurant?
October 12, 2009
It’s easy to sympathize with a chef on opening night in a high profile restaurant. Managing the chaos of a professional kitchen is hard enough on an ordinary night in which speedy delivery and careful preparation perpetually strive for highest priority. On opening night, take those same challenges and turn the burner up to full blast. Each grain of salt too much, each drop of sauce misplaced, each degree Fahrenheit too high or too low gets noticed and potentially documented by a critic. It’s cook or be cooked.
Reviewing a restaurant on opening night is, by all appearances, cruel and unusual punishment. Doesn’t the staff have enough on its plate without the added scrutiny? Read More »
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Some Wisdom on Crowds
September 28, 2009
It’s not unusual for someone to say that a bar is “full of hipsters,” to note that a friend is “part of that whole Dolce and Gabbana crowd,” or to describe someone as a “techie.” These kinds of statements are ways of describing different crowds, and crowd descriptors are convenient ways to broadly and concisely characterize large groups. Essentially, they’re stereotypes, but they’re generally less offensive because they’re based mostly on the ways people choose to present themselves, rather than on gender, race, class, or age. While the term “techie,” for example, may carry certain connotations, it’s based on something external – an interest in technology – and doesn’t technically target any one demographic.
What’s peculiar about conversations regarding crowds is that they tend to exclude self-reference. Simply put, crowds are eternally viewed as the other rather than the self. It’s common to say “The bar was full of hipsters;” it’s less common to say “I’m a hipster because I was at that bar.” Why are crowds so easy to identify, yet it’s so difficult to associate ourselves with them?
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Posted in Community, Crowds, Dining Culture, Lifestyle | No Comments »
All The Restaurant’s a Stage
September 23, 2009
The design of a restaurant should tell a story. That’s the conclusion one can draw from observing the overarching trends in dining. The location, the layout, the color schemes, the lighting, the materials and the unifying motifs and themes that comprise a restaurant’s design are ultimately the elements that define the dining experience. From the way food arrives, to the visibility or invisibility of the kitchen, to the distance between tables – the design of a restaurant determines the order of events and the mise-en-scene. It’s no surprise that restaurant designers think of their projects in terms of theater.
The Rockwell Group, who designed the original Nobu restaurant in New York, as well as the more recently opened Nobu 57, may be one of the originators of the restaurant-as-theater approach. The design firm sees the physical space of the restaurant as a frame or stage, and every symbol within that frame is altered by it. The staircase leading down to Nobu 57’s dining room acts as a catwalk for arriving and departing guests – a function that draws on the theater art notion of “entrance,” by which actors enter and exit the fictional world. Guests can thus take on roles; and the aesthetics of the restaurant can serve as emotional inspiration.
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Posted in Architecture, Design-inspired, Dining Culture, Impress, Ingredients, Restaurants | No Comments »
What’s Your Dining DNA?
September 3, 2009
Frank Bruni’s recent look back on his five years as a New York Times food critic highlights the different kinds of eating personalities and quirky dining behaviors he noticed at the dinner table. “Hoarders” (the voracious ones who dig in with abandon) and “sharers” (the timid ones who prefer to split plates with others) were the two most common eating archetypes, according to Bruni.
But his observations got us thinking: What other kinds of eating personalities are there? When the civil nature of fine dining interacts with people’s basic, animalistic need to eat, what sorts of puzzling, surprising, and — above all — entertaining behaviors result?
We pondered this question and came up with a few archetypes of our own. We propose the creation of a new social scientific field that fuses anthropology, behavioral economics, culinary studies, and genetics to explain eating preferences and their corresponding behaviors. A person’s dining traits are like DNA: coded in every cell of their body, impossible to suppress, and possessing more complexity than first meets the eye. For that reason, let’s call this field “Dining DNA.” We’ve come across many fascinating types of Dining DNA in our research. Here’s just a sampling of strands from our index:
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