91–100 of 138 posts
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You are nailing his actual opinion better than anyone else on here. No need to apologize.
Big difference, he's not trying to leave Yelp.
I find it odd that he prefers losing all three stars over losing only one star. If he's willing to lose stars, can't he just ignore Michelin and simply cook the way he wants? I'm reminded of Ron Blaauw, a Dutch 2-star chef who was also tired of the pressure of his 2-star fine-dining restaurant (not sure if it was Michelin or just the kind of restaurant), so he started his more informal "Gastrobar" for just a quick bi…
If he just continues on and loses one or more stars then, no matter how public he is about the restaurant's change of direction, it will be widely regarded as a demotion. Opening a second, more informal eatery might not appeal to him for any number of valid reasons. It seems reasonably clear that the ongoing cost in terms of anxiety and, to some extent, the freedom to change or loosen up things is simply not worth th…
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>“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…
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?
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 the desire to shut one's restaurant off in the face of pressure. However if he is only shutting it off to "foreigners" then it really is xenophobic to do so, but understandable nevertheless.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>“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…
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…
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 matter how much expreience a "foreigner" has with Japanese food, he can never understand it or properly judge it. This is not unique to Japanese food, I have seen this exact line echoed by a famous Japanese architect too with regard to his work.
If he so wishes he should cater to people familiar with food, if anything those people are more "on his level" than a random Japanese person, so I really can't see why he's drawing the line at "Japanese" rather than at "familiar and experienced with food". I'm sure most Japanese just gulp down the food, and some surely do complain.
Real experience or not, I think this kind of attitude has little place in modern society.
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>I suspect they are? I mean, if they weren't showing up then the restaurant would be out of business, no? Sorry, I was under the impression that he's talking about the Michelin rating people showing up and telling them how good or bad his food is rather than simply visiting and writing a guide which contains his restaurant. I can understand the pressure of being on the list and maintaining one's position, but there's…
English may not be his native language and I'm just speculating. To me, it read more about the pressures exerted and the desire to not have to conform to an ideal presented by people who aren't members of the same culture. I'm not sure that qualifies as xenophobic, or even a bad thing. Should a Mexican restaurant be pressured into serving food that is more acceptable to the Canadian palate? (Pressured, not forced.) F…
A little nitpick, but "-phobia" suffix does not strictly mean fear, though that is its origin. It can also mean hatred.
>Should a Mexican restaurant be pressured into serving food that is more acceptable to the Canadian palate? (Pressured, not forced.)
No? I never said that; he shouldn't be pressured, but merely the act of serving foreigners or having his restaurant listed is not pressure to change -- in fact, if he changed, wouldn't that defeat the whole point of the rating system? He was rated on the Japanese food he serves, not the Canadian food.
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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.
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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.
If you have a book that gives more nuance to this "a private buisness is not a public space" I would be glad to read it.
When the pursuit of quantitative quality becomes a fetish, it's an OCD-like disorder.