Elevating Taste

The article describes a new but unlovable kind of restaurant trend. It’s a clubby, influencer-magnet restaurant with a menu of nostalgic, photogenic comfort foods designed more for social media than genuine culinary innovation. They are exclusive, hard to access, and engineered to make diners feel privileged simply for getting in, while serving food critics describe as “adult cuisine as imagined by children.” 

The author argues is part of a broader, troubling shift: as the middle class and its traditional restaurants decline, high-end, Instagram-ready “clubstaurants” for the wealthy and image-conscious are taking over, fueled by economic inequality and a culture obsessed with exclusivity and spectacle. This turns the art of hospitality into a soulless, photogenic commodity for the elite naturally out of reach for the average person who already finds eating out much more than it used to be.

“When I test products against other products, I require an 80 percent result to justify any sort of change,” Fertitta writes. “For instance, if we’re testing a new salad dressing with ten participants, a minimum of eight out of ten of those folks need to say they prefer the new dressing for us to even consider a switch. That high level of approval gives greater certainty to any decision that’s made.” This is a safe governing principle if you’re trying to sell toilet paper rather than food and hospitality, which at least on the level Corner Store aspires to, has historically been the product of an individual, a chef and general manager with a specific palate, aesthetic, and philosophy. Taste, in other words.