Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

French chef asks to be stripped of three Michelin stars

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 138 posts

Re: French chef asks to be stripped of three Michelin stars

#101

Post by [deleted] »

emj wrote: post #99
kodfodrasz wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A private business is not a public place.

I've never understood that argument; if you invite unkown customers you are inviting the public. I mean if you really want to keep it private you would have to have a guest list imho. Which is fine, but you can't have a guest list that says "not that kind of people". Private is for things like Sento imperial palace, where you guide people through your property, but when you let people in freely it is my belief that a…

[deleted]

Re: French chef asks to be stripped of three Michelin stars

#102

Post by kodfodrasz »

emj wrote: post #99
kodfodrasz wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A private business is not a public place.

I've never understood that argument; if you invite unkown customers you are inviting the public. I mean if you really want to keep it private you would have to have a guest list imho. Which is fine, but you can't have a guest list that says "not that kind of people". Private is for things like Sento imperial palace, where you guide people through your property, but when you let people in freely it is my belief that a…

Actually you can have a place like that. There are places where you cannot enter unless dressed in a way, but there is no specific guest list.

Re: French chef asks to be stripped of three Michelin stars

#104

Post by Karunamon »

nimchimpsky wrote: post #45
chongli wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

xenophobic undertone It's another facet of gentrification. A restaurant owner may really love having a small, local clientele of regulars and a very good atmosphere due to that fact. Then one day he gets awarded a Michelin star and suddenly thousands of tourists descend on his place and swamp it with unwanted business. Is it xenophobic to suggest he might prefer to go back to the previous situation?

thats not what he said though. He said "how can a bunch of foreigners tell us what is good or bad." There is no undertone, its explicitly xenophobic.

Indeed. Were this statement made in the USA, there wouldn’t even be this attempt to rationalize it. Torches and pitchforks would be at the ready almost immediately.

Re: French chef asks to be stripped of three Michelin stars

#105

Post by scotty79 »

kodfodrasz wrote: post #87
scotty79 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you leave it to the market you'll get segregation, and whites only stores and buses on no Jews and dogs allowed signs. Allowing this kinds of things in public space wouldn't advance humanity.

A private business is not a public place.

How so? Just because it has word "private" in its customary english name? If you translate it to other languages word private often disappears. And if it remains it serves to separate state owned buisnesses and privately own buisnesses. Both participate in public market, have random customers from the public and are regulated so that they need to display prices and not refuse service to some people based on owners stupidity.

Re: French chef asks to be stripped of three Michelin stars

#106

Post by forgottenpass »

ue_ wrote: post #27
rjzzleep wrote: post #4

He's not the only one. [1][3] In fact some places like Kyo Aji from Kenichiro Nishi - who is apparently a very good and famous chef - go as far as ban michelin tourists. Or at least try to. Just look at this discussion on chowhound [2]. Interesting comment: > Kyoaji is probably sick of rich foreigners trying to book via 5 star hotel concierges. Maybe change your strategy, and stay at a budget salaryman hotel and use…

>“Japanese food was created here, and only Japanese know it,” Mr. Kadowaki said in an interview. “How can a bunch of foreigners show up and tell us what is good or bad?” I feel like this has a xenophobic undertone to it; nobody's showing up anywhere, it's a guide which attempts to find good restaurants and food around the globe; what makes the Japanese in his view so specially qualified to judge the food? If the food…

I feel like this has a xenophobic undertone to it

meh, shrug. If this was any local cuisine other than Japanese -- who we have been taught to see as xenophobic -- the obvious follow-on retort wouldn't be about xenophobia, but about appropriation and generally more defensive of the culture's prerogative to define itself.

Re: French chef asks to be stripped of three Michelin stars

#107

Post by forgottenpass »

ue_ wrote: post #95
PurpleRamen wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foreigners can say it's tasty, but local people undertand the chemistry and culture of specific ingredients and why it was choosen for a dish. That's not specific for a japan, but there is big culture around those thinking in japan. It's similar to how pop-culture-nerds can explain you every little reference in a movie or game, and explain you the history of specific genres, features and franchises. For a cook, it mi…

>but local people undertand the chemistry and culture of specific ingredients and why it was choosen for a dish So can foreigners who are familiar with Japanese food, or non-ethnically Japanese people in Japan. I understand your analogy to pop-culture nerds but I don't think it applies here - one can become on the same level as the nerd and talk to him in that way, but this chef is exclusionary and saying that no mat…

this chef is exclusionary and saying that no matter how much expreience a "foreigner" has with Japanese food, he can never understand it or properly judge it.

You're torturing the quote to look for intent that simply is not there. Maybe he does feel that there is no level of assimilation sufficient to judge Japanese food, but it's simply not there. It's an imprecise blanket statement made in the context of reviewers showing off their lack of assimilation with judgements seen as very incongruous with local tastes.

Re: French chef asks to be stripped of three Michelin stars

#108

Post by mantas »

ue_ wrote: post #93
chongli wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

xenophobic undertone It's another facet of gentrification. A restaurant owner may really love having a small, local clientele of regulars and a very good atmosphere due to that fact. Then one day he gets awarded a Michelin star and suddenly thousands of tourists descend on his place and swamp it with unwanted business. Is it xenophobic to suggest he might prefer to go back to the previous situation?

>Is it xenophobic to suggest he might prefer to go back to the previous situation? This is totally a wrong interpretation of what I was saying. I was only commenting on that line in particular, not saying that what he was doing in general is bad, but the pernicious idea that only Japanese are qualified to judge Japanese food is something I find needlessly exclusive and overall false; this is what is xenophobic, not t…

> but the pernicious idea that only Japanese are qualified to judge Japanese food is something I find needlessly exclusive and overall false

It's Japanese food for a reason. That's how Japanese see it and that's the taste they value. Once everybody start judging it, it's likely to change to match their tastes. Japanese food made to taste good for non-Japanese wouldn't be Japanese food anymore. Japanese-inspired? Yep.

It's like pizza. Is Hawaii pizza "Italian food"? I wouldn't say so. I know many people who can't stand true Italian pizza, but love all those Italian-pizza-inspired foods.

Re: French chef asks to be stripped of three Michelin stars

#110

Post by mantas »

scotty79 wrote: post #109
kodfodrasz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are not.

Yes, they are.

Yet we don't allow random traveler to vote in local elections.

Modern travel is big specifically because the world is diverse place. If all societies would try to include anyone from anywhere, they'd become similar and traveling wouldn't be as great.

Post reply on HN