Food bloggers and cameras - Page 2

I've never read the linked forum before this, but man, anyone else reading "crash and burn" or at least a big fall for Alinea?

I think it's interesting. Alinea has always been a very open place, what with the eGullet stuff before they even opened. It has been a place for people to play ideas back and forth off of each other. I don't think Achatz ever says anything like "wow is this idiot for real" although he might be thinking it. It usually comes in the form of trying to open a conversation on the topic. Is it unprofessional? It might be. I don't think it ever starts that way, but the conversation can quickly turn that direction.

It seems like he is struggling to keep up with the kinds of craziness that he should expect now that chefs have become celebrities and there are tons of pretentious food snobs / paparazzi coupled with the pickiest of the wealthy that expect to be totally catered to for every whim.

Could be a rough time ahead if he isn't very careful.

To expand on this: I don't necessarily think it's a good thing what he is doing. But I have a hard time saying that it is bad or unprofessional in the way he presents it. Like I said, it oftentimes turns unprofessional, but I don't think it is intended that way or begins that way. I think it is just a symptom of the food culture now. Grant Achatz has a microphone under his mouth or a spotlight on his head with basically every action he makes. It is the fact of celebrity that chefs have taken on. You can't tell me that if a customer came in and was really pissed off that he couldn't get the filet of venison he had a month ago because the menu changed, that Julian wouldn't have said something similar. I mean, you can tell me that, but I most likely won't believe you. Because chefs get pissed at customers. And sometimes they are right to do so, like when someone is disrupting other customers with their video cameras. And sometimes chefs get pissed at customers when they shouldn't. But I do think that this kind of thing happened back in your kitchen days, the only difference was that chefs in general didn't have the voice (small v, ala facebook, fora, twitter) or Voice (capital V, as in food blogs, TV shows, etc) that made those bitching sessions available to the general public.
Now don't get me wrong, because I still believe that this kind of thing can be very bad. I also think that it is inevitable as chefs get more and more famous. I just think that perhaps Achatz, and other chefs, should be a little bit more discretionary about badmouthing the hand that feeds them.

Well, the menu didn't really change. Honestly, I know what he would have done, because one time a guy came in and requested a filet mignon "black and blue" with jalepeno peppers. Julian grumbled, went into the staff meal box, grabbed a jalepeno pepper, sliced it super thin and made it into the M in a circle Masa's logo. Of course, he laughed the whole time and thought the guy was an ass, but nobody outside the kitchen ever knew. I think publicizing things like that is a mistake, but like you said, that is the culture now. Personally, I am not sure it is a positive.