Egotarian. Now there's a word to conjure with; a semantic shiny boiled sweet of a word to suck on as we ponder this next wave in food culture. Invented by Alan Richman, who wrote eloquently and volubly in GQ magazine recently about the rise of the egotarian chef in America, it denotes quite succinctly one whose realm is not only the kitchen, but also your palate. No sir, you are no longer in charge; in fact, it's not about you at all.
There's a definite trend in the restaurant world at the moment, an increasingly theatrical, masculine (there are NO female chefs doing this), forceful inclination to put the food right up there IN YOUR FACE and get everyone jumping up and down about it. Does that sound odd? Surely the food should be foremost? It is the star of the show, the reason for the moolah, the honey in the pot, so to speak. Or is there a smidgen of "Look at me! Aren't I fantastic?" about some restaurants; a touch of "My way or the highway" about the way the menus are written, tasting menus in particular?
BBC2's Restaurant Wars has been an excellent case in point. The French, once a dusty old ballroom, much beloved by its regulars who ate the same thing three times a week, but were the shimmery gold of the restaurant world - regulars - has become Simon Rogan's Waterloo to win a Michelin Star in Manchester. He treated it as a war, stripping the ballroom of its faded grandeur and regulars, openly disdainful of its history, its silver service, its trolleys and à la carte menus, introduced a breathtakingly punitively-priced tasting menu - and only a tasting menu. His only response to concerns from regulars left without a second home was "I'm bringing in new customers", leaving "so you can sod off if you want to choose your own food" hanging unsaid, but understood, in the air.
The French's tasting menus cost £59 for 6 courses or £84 for 10 and that's without wine. There be money in them thar Manchester hills, we hope... But is it viable if you're only offering a one-stop menu? Surely as a customer, if you like a restaurant you want to return, but you might - just potentially - want to eat something different. And you might, even if you were keen on the tasting menu - not want to eat everything on it. What if I don't want to eat - and actually I really don't - raw ox cheek in coal oil? But Rogan has put it there, and the implication is if you don't want to eat it, you can bugger off elsewhere with your unsophisticated palates; we, as chefs, whose wages you are paying, are not going to put ourselves out for you.
Similarly, across Manchester, entrepreneur Tim Bacon launched Aiden Byrne into culinary space at Manchester House, where he toils in an open kitchen creating incredibly impressive-looking and theatrical smoking turf dishes or Flintstone-esque ribs imprisoning a few hunks of steak and potatoes for - gulp - £57 a pop. Here the tasting menu, again the only choice on a Saturday night, is £95 for 13 - check it, THIRTEEN - courses. Who can eat that much food and still appreciate it? Who can blow £200 without wine on a meal out? And would you want to go back to have the same meal again and again, even if you could afford it? Apparently Bacon and Byrne think you can, and while you're at it you can sit in indebted silence as the waiter continues his deathless monologue parading the dishes you just want to frickin' eat.
And no matter where you go, some hotshot neo-Heston has created his own version of these theatrics - just check out Great British Menu, again on BBC2 for some equally ridiculous shenanigans - which seem to smack of "Look at meeee and how clever I am and how I can charge £xx for MY OWN FOOD", rather than, say, a slightly less hubristic approach whereby the kitchen turns out clever, interesting food for its own sake, rather than the ego of the chef.
So there you go. Have at it - Egotarianism. Do you love a tasting menu, or would you rather exercise a little customer democracy and choose your own food that you're paying for?
