Yes, everybody is entitled to an opinion. And yes, food has never been closer to people in lots of ways. Now ingredients that needed to be purchase from specific hidden stores or imported overseas are now in your local supermarket. You can go on Zomato and check what your local diner is serving or instagram to check what your favorite chefs are doing currently.
So now days the world has a bigger understanding of food than it did 10 years ago.
Here is where the issue starts for me.
My name is Alejandro and I’m a cook. I’m being judged on a daily basis by people who have less food knowledge than me. And apparently I need them. Let me explain.
Long gone are the days when a restaurant would advertise through written press, tv, flyers. Now days the promotion goes on IG, Youtube, and reviews.
Since digital media promotion is directed by the restaurant, it’s literally a commercial for the social media. The reviews however, have gained a lot of traction in past years.
“If you don’t take this off the bill, I’ll leave a bad review”. “Do you know how many followers I have? You don’t want to mess with me”. Sounds familiar? If it does, then you probably work in a restaurant.
For some reason we’re letting people getting away with murder. The rules have changed and if you don’t adapt to this new way of playing the game, then you’ll be left behind. But some rules are meant to be broken, as some faces need to be slapped. With a chair. Several times.
I never thought I’d be in a managerial meeting seriously discussing PR events involving 20 something year olds with a terrible fashion sense and a truckload of instagram followers. Role models that have read too much Paulo Coehlo giving advice to people who haven’t read Fahrenheit 451. Sheep leading the sheep.
What exactly are they influencing? In a world of blind people, the one-eyed is king. Living through a 6” screen is not living at all. This self called “foodies”, a bunch of wishy-washy fucks who have mastered the complicated art of chewing and swallowing while filming themselves. Bastards who at their best could probably microwave a pizza, are leaving 1 star reviews because their 300 gr well-done steak wasn’t juicy.
Most of the reviews I get are 5 and 4 stars. At the restaurant, we work hard to meet peoples expectations, and half of the time we surpass them. We have the place booked constantly and leading the BOH of a regularly busy restaurant is it’s own reward. Something we sometimes have to repeat to ourselves to get through the 13-14 hour Friday shift.
Sure, there are easier ways of making money. And influencers have found the key to those doors. Yearly earnings in the 6 figure range are no joke. Obviously we gotta separate the wheat from the chaff. The issue is that the chaff is enormously bigger than the wheat. But the chaff doesn’t receive the flak it deserves.
I chose cooking as my career (or it chose me, who’s to say) and hated it at the beginning. Saw no glamour on cleaning kilos of prawn, getting my hands stabbed by the shellfish, not being able to get that smell off, the pain in the lower back from bending over stainless steel benches, etc. Now days my profession fits my lifestyle. Damn, it is my lifestyle. Yes it’s demanding and not everybody can do it, but it’s honest hard work and we are telling a story through food, which has a bigger meaning in a universal context of nurturing a town by feeding them a good meal. We may not be changing the world, but through food we are changing ours. Something that the unproductive can’t (because you need knowledge for that) and won’t (because you need will for that too) do.
So dear “influencers”, enjoy your lunch (which was probably free), post your story (which won’t change the world) and move on with your life (which at this point is not yours anymore).
With love
Another cook who’s tired of your shit.
