I read once a tweet that said: "I Love The Bear but if a local sandwich shop serving the neighborhood closed to become a fancy restaurant for a white elite, I would pray for that restaurant to fail everyday."
@@thevikingbear2343 seen it happend many times and you always loose a great place you can go to on the regular for somewhere you maybe visit twice a year.
don't they still sell sandwiches? and it's the only thing profitable as said by Sugar lmao It does seem like Carmy is honestly just failing with their fine dining venture so I hope that in S4 it does somewhat fail(which is implied in the end of S3) and they end up being a more casual dining place so that they make good food without the unnecessary toxicity fine dining demands
@@Richmond-j9b Yes, they do have a window that they sell the sandwiches out of. What I don't understand is why Cicero/Uncle Jimmy puts up with such a tremendous level of waste. New menu every day? That's literally insane.
@@KushKiki yeah, honestly I feel like Carmy really knows how unsustainable the current system is but his self-destructive tendencies makes him want to overwork himself so that he has an "excuse" to not work on his personal problems (mainly talking to Claire) which feels like exactly what he did in the past just so he won't have to resolve his family problems
I've also been saying this since S2 semi-jokingly. What really shocked me was hearing people say it like it was a criticism of the show and not part of the point.
I wanted to be a chef as a kid, until I realized that it's not about the love of great food, it's just about the prestige of being able to afford incredibly expensive food. Some of the best food I've ever had has come from one person in a truck smiling, chatting, and having a great time. That's the food that I want to celebrate.
Some of the best food I've ever had: leftovers friends or co-workers from another culture shared. Sometimes presentation isn't flamboyantly pretty like fine dining food, but I've already learned to associate it with amazingness. Often, the food they share with me is never offered in restaurants, even ones emphasizing their culture's food, because they consider it "unmarketable."
I wanted to use my military educational benefits to go to the culinary institute, but thought my back injury would make running a kitchen difficult. Blessing in disguise knowing what I know now. I love cooking, as an amateur at home for the people who just appreciate the meal.
The best food that I, and I'm sure anyone else has ever tasted, was something that my mom cooked last minute late at night because I was hungry. Mac and cheese, a PBJ, it doesn't matter because it was made with love.
I went to culinary school for a little bit but after a brief stint in an apprenticeship, which is arguably better than an internship, I discovered I don’t do well in high stress environments like that. The low pay, lack of health care, long hours, and dangerous atmosphere outweighed any joy I got out of it. Anyone who is a chef must be passionate about what they do
And it's high stress for no reason other than ego. Of course you shouldn't make customers wait far too long, but there's no reason to make people run around. Tbf, if you have to have everyone running around, that just says to me your kitchen needs organising.
@@beasttitanofficial3768 I wholeheartedly agree! I swear the heat in the kitchen is a huge contributor to how pissed off everyone is on a line. This line of work is not for the faint of heart! Also it may be a controversial opinion but the front of the house gets paid way more than they should in comparison to the back of the house. Don’t get me wrong servers deserve tips but some of them are making so much more working a part time job than the cooks that are often working over 40 hours a week for next to nothing, because “they have to keep labor down”
@@NeighborhoodBasketCase I can't attest to that because in new zealand we don't have much of a tipping culture and everyone makes at the very least the legal minimum wage. Cooks often make more than servers because it requires more training.
@@beasttitanofficial3768 I can attest to that. In Canada servers are paid at least minimum wage unlike in the US, but we also have a huge tipping culture on top of that. When I worked BOH in college, the fellow college students working FOH were making their month's rent in tips alone in just 3 shifts. It's absolutely not fair because how much tips they got also depended on how fast the kitchen was, but us in the kitchen never got a cut of the tips. And most of us cooks were only making a dollar extra an hour in wages than FOH, so they were absolutely making double or triple our wages when accounting for tips.
It doesn’t compute to me how fine dining establishments can charge almost a thousand bucks a head and still claim they need free labour to survive. Surely there’s room to change a few things
There is a general issue with not just these fine dining establishments, but dining establishments in general. That being that any dining business that is not a fast food joint seems to actually struggle unless they exist in nearly perfect conditions, specifically made for them, and potentially abuse their workers. No idea what causes this, because one would think it would be the lack of clientele and expense for good chefs and ingredients, at least for fine dining, but that is not the case, they underpay their workers and use free labor. That is no excuse of the fine dining industry which seems to be a factory of misery in general, but at least in some regions of the world it does seem to be a general issue of an entire industry.
Fine dining is a weird mix between creative art and military levels of discipline, and it suffers from the same toxicity. The menu even shows just how much the art has been lost on the people who attend fine dining restaurants simply to flaunt their status. At the end of the show its fitting to see that the true reason of making food is to feed someone, and the simple joy of a happy customer satisfied with their meal. And you dont need fine dining to achieve that.
Ruby Payne distinguishes food as one of the ways classes have hidden rules. For lower, middle and upper classes, food is valued for its quantity, quality, and presentation, respectively.
@@JamesDecker7 these aren't goals, it's about hidden rules of belonging. So, you don't bring a 6-pack of microbrews, you bring a case of Pabst, or, you pour a single handcrafted ale chilled in mountain snow imported from the Alps into an 18th century beer stein. No matter what your intentions, you won't be accepted into a higher (or lower) group unless you know the hidden rules. Ruby Payne's work is interested in fostering upward social mobility. How it relates to The Menu, is that the Chef had reached the pinnacle of social mobility, but he came from the lowest, just as the escort did. But both had learned through painful lessons how to move amongst each level. She escapes because her request brings him back to his sentimental beginnings, but maintains all 3 values: quantity - it was too much for her to eat, quality - it was made with the freshest ingredients, and presentation - it was made to order, perfectly, quintessentially. Once again, Anya plays a chess master role.
As another person who learned to bake some simple breads in order to give myself something other than the sugar-laden excuses available to me in the tiny town I was living in, I wanted to pop in and recommend a book: the Breadbaker's Apprentice by Peter Reinheart. It's framed as this fancy chefy book, but actually goes through and breaks down not only the science of different forms of bread, but also how each step of the process should look and feel, teaching how to adjust your dough for when it's stupid humid outside or your scale is out of batteries and so you've had to guess on your weights and measures. I mention this book because it's such a good example of what I wish the food industry could do more--share. The exclusivity of fine dining is really what gets me. There's no sharing of how things are made, no delighted ranting to your nearest coworker about this new technique you want to try or how good this altered recipe tastes. Food is such a communal experience at its best and should be celebrated as such, not jealously guarded by the elite chefs and diners rich enough to afford it. Great video--thanks for sharing.
I've never watched the show, but I did watch Skip Intro's video about it. It struck me that they kept saying that the sandwich take-out was actually the only part of the restaurant that was making money. This gave me the feeling that perhaps the next season will be the realization that making really good sandwiches for regular people is a better business model than trying to collect Michelin stars. But again, that's just from watching someone else talk about the show, and I'm not sure he even came to the conclusion I did.
Well, no rrestaurant tying to get a star makes money. A single star restauant roughly breaks even on the food they serve and then service cost have to be offset from drinks. If you go to a single star place and drink water, they will operate at a loss. When a place is aiming to get a star, they already have to put in the cost, but they have to keep their prices below those of stared restaurants, so they will inevitably bleed money until they get stared. For 2 and 3 stars the labour costs go up so much, that they aren't ever self-sustainable, they need somebody willing to be a Patreon and take the loss, quite regularly that's high prize hotels that book it on their marketing budget. Of course making sandwiches for eveybody is a betterr business model, but it also comes at a cost - it means you end up really restrricted in where you can take it and you have to make a lot of them, which also becomes factory like. I've also watched the skip intro video and in that, as well as this one I keep returrning to Marx' views on alienated vs. unalienated labour and find that the Beef and the Bear both have alienated labor, it's not like any of the people working on the sandwiches have a true love of their job. And working conditions in these types of places also suck, there's a reason McJobs are called that. There's a risk in romanticizing diners and steet food booths to a degree they don't earn. There is a middle ground, hich are the places you have dinner at for aniveraries, which you can't aford regularrly, but that are local spots for special occasions. These places are generally where you want to work, because you don't have to do volume and you don't have to strive for perection, just for "so good it will make people come back for their 40th birthday, after eating here for their 30th", I think cuising pushing the boundaries should exist, but I'd want to see it publicly funded, and thereby coming with stricter controls on the work envirronment.
Yeah, I dont think this is a good criticism of the show. It obviously is just taking a longer way to tell this story, with taking sometime multiple multiple multiple failures, and ruining your life and the lives around you to be forced to change. Its very bojack horseman in its writing/story. The restaurant WILL fail or at least they'll be forced to go back to being a sandwich shop. Except with better working conditions, and hopefully the abolishing of the chef hierarchy Carmy brought.
Funnily enough...my dad chose not to go into the field because being Black was a liability (he got to experience that in brewing and tech instead) so we just make fancy ass food at home. Once, my stepmother was freaking out about Thanksgiving. I'm not a morning person, never have been. She literally SHOVED ME OUT OF THE WAY because I wasn't moving fast enough and inevitably asked me to leave the kitchen (which was huge btw) because I was "Just getting in her way" after waking me up at 5am. It was so bad I had a chat with my father about it because even he knows better than to speak to me like that or body check me so hard I bruise (I did). At some point we all sat down and she started apologizing but I cut her off and said "if you're not enjoying the process of hosting, cooking all of this food etc, why are you doing it? Holidays are not supposed to be about the spectacle, it's about being together." She never hosted a big to do after that again. Maybe she felt obligated to have the same level of quality as her catering jobs but, it was our house there was no need for all of that. My father and mother actually used to do weekly dinner parties. They were always huge affairs. Same irritating energy as luxury food. I've HAD luxury food. I had to go to McDonald's after. It's not filling enough. I am a hungry human I like proper food. I also don't like the Pris Fixe menu system; I have food allergies you're not going to dictate what I eat, *I* am. While it's ok for elevated food to exist, it should be a joyful, positive space. In its current iteration it isn't. I actually collect cookbooks and I'm always trying to make my food prettier and more delicious because it's what I want to do; I do consider it art I can eat, but the constant harassment of friends and such to open a restaurant is annoying. I don't want to do that. I don't want to manage people. I know I have asshole tendencies and I prefer not to indulge them. And knowing that this media is how the general public sees the space in a post Bon Apetit kitchen world, I'm not sure how I feel. I just know I don't want to open a damn restaurant or work in one (again).
@@lowwastehighmelanin omg I feel this so much especially the part about ppl telling you to open a restaurant. The idea of management in any form makes me feel like I’m gonna cringe into oblivion and high stress environments literally turn me into a grinch lol I like making good food for the ppl I care about. Seeing them nourished and happy from something I made is more than enough for me. I’m good on the gold infused chicken nuggets or whatever tf they selling to rich folks 💀
Bread is on my "last meal" list. Your absolutely right about it. And if the bear doesn't end with Carmy going bank to making sandwiches I'll be disappointed.
The insistence that suffering is needed for great art is fuelled by both entitlement and ignorance. It is all over the world of music, the idea of the tortured genius. I know musicians who actually cultivate life threatening addictions because it is more "authentic". Call it the Red Shoes myth. Moira Shearer stated publicly that it is ridiculous to imply that one can't be a great dancer without the horrible sacrifices Vicky makes in that film.
@@jeffreychandler8418I don't think it works if artists are killing themselves. I'm pretty happy and I think I make pretty good art. I think I'd be able to make better art if I wasn't being exploited and poor.
I don't think that original "reading" of The Bear is wrong, I think we're still in the Rising Action point of the story. Once the restaurant was rebuilt and Cam started flexing, he also started pushing people away and controlling everything neurotically. I think the review will probably be bad and they'll have to scale back and in the process feed their community, which will actually make them profitable AND the environment will be healthier as a result.
imo he is wrong because The Bear ALREADY showcases exactly how chasing the approval of the fine dining world actually is making them: 1. lose focus of how the gentle process of crafting and getting to experience a good dish is just as important as the result (like in the one take episode where everything is chaotic and at the end Carmy tastes the meal that one guy was working on literally for fun, or the omelete scene, as well as Sydney goes around Chicago to try food) 2. all miserable and traumatized 3. neglect the community they should be feeding (the flashbacks to the old restaurant, the sandwich takeaway scenes, i would argue even the scenes where one of the famous chefs retires and they all spend time together just for fun)
Fine dinning is not about food nor about art. It's a sadomasochistic performance around morbidly adding value to something ephimeral, just to declare you have a higher status. Which for me is the very definition of tastelessness
One of Contrapoints early videos talks about this in reference to the Buzzfeed series "Worth It." The hosts try a certain food at drastically different price points. In one episode, they ate a $2000 pizza with "squid ink dough topped with foie gras, winter black truffle, osetra caviar, stilton cheese, and 24 karat gold leaf." And it ... wasn't good. Those ingredients don't even make sense together, it's just a collection of expensive stuff on a squid-ink crust. You can watch the sadness come over their faces, realizing that maybe our society is a fraud. Because a bad pizza is whatever, but a two thousand dollar bad pizza is an insult. Why does it exist?? Why???
@@Marygoore- The thing with artistic disciplines is that no matter how "fine" or "trascendental" the piece in question is considered, you often have ways to experience it at affordable prices, if not for free. Obviously I'm talking about experiencing it, not "owning" it: art ownership is an entire discussion in itself. Fine dinning as it's portrayed here is an experience that seem to focus in it's exclusivity above anything else. As I said, at some point feels like just adding value to something just to accentuate the notion that most people wouldn't afford to experience it, as if that in itself is what makes the experience
Iykyk. Art is more than what they sell in galleries. High end salons follow this exact method. Loads of stimulants and abuse for the wealthy. Again, if you know you know.
I definitely think the bear worships fine dining a little too much, especially with Richie's arc of learning to appreciate the 'art' of it all and find drive and enjoyment in his work, but aside from that, this feels like a total misreading of The Bear. We see the only non work relationship that Carmy has fall apart due to his inability to keep his head out of the kitchen, we see his treatment of his staff and colleagues parallelled with Fields' treatment of him and we constantly hear about the unsustainable nature of The Bear itself but also the entire industry. More importantly, we see that Syd is capable of doing her job without abusing those beneath her and we see that the unsustainability of the restaurant is multiplied greatly by Carmy's changing menu, a decision that wasn't supported by any of the other characters. I think the dynamic between Carmy and Syd is supposed to show us how the inustry works, and has worked for years, versus how it *needs* to work if it wants to continue.
Without getting into the abuses in the industry, this reminded me of reading that the highly recommended and discussed wines tend to not be ones that you or I like: That most experts have grown bored with trying to find the "best tasting", and tend to recommend "weird in a good way", which isn't what most wine drinkers want or even recognize. Kind of same with some genres of music: You've heard too much four chords in 4/4, now you want something totally different. This even works in the world of art music or opera: You grow tired of the canon, then of anything "normal", then get into the weird atonal shite that maybe counts as music. And then some people with too much money come along, see "rare and something that the ones that are deeeeeep into this like" and think it must be excellent, without having the experience to understand it or the good taste to know otherwise. IMHO weird wines, Schoenberg, or fine dining isn't something that should appeal to many people regardless of class or wealth. It should appeal to single-minded niche-obsessed weirdos (no offense to weirdos, love you/us!) that want to break the whole thing for new experiences. Slowik would have been so much happier geeking out with like-minded friends, and making money from good food for normies.
Kitchen Confidential is still the best book to show the toxicity of being a line cook and/or chef. It practically says that you are either a chef or you are a normal person
To me, food is about family, culture, and tradition. Fine dining does not mean "good food". The best food experiences I've had never came from a restaurant.
The best part about the Menu is that Cheeseburger at the end. The movie says it's piece that if the Best Chef of the World made a normal food it would be the best piece of food ever made, instead of that "deconstructed bullshit" that is fine dining, as the movie puts it.
I got reminded of a Lessons from the Screenplay video about Whitplash and Black Swan, about abusive teachers and talented students. I like this because it adds a lot about the particular industry and class struggle
I watched The Bear recently, and it reminded of all the reasons I left the restaurant industry years earlier. It is, indeed, toxic in many ways, and I didn’t want to deal with the exploitation. The physical stresses are very real as well, such as bad backs from hours of standing, carrying heavy equipment, and bending, lack of sleep, and a reliance on alcohol and marijuana just to wind down. I can no longer work in industries which require extensive standing because of my restaurant experience, and I have to wear a back brace. Good food doesn’t have to be expensive; it just has to taste good and be nourishing.
honestly my hopes from the bear season 4, from how the story has been processing in regards to carmy's (and in consequence, the bear's) descent into neurosis, isolation and mistreatment of his staff as well as the restaurant's stance as a marker of gentrification, is that the bear gets a bad review, sydney leaves the staff and carmy is at a turning point in which he has to completely rethink everything he's learned and rewire himself in order to become a better person... instead of a the best chef there is. it sounds like a lot for one season but i can see the writers doing that 360 for the story in a way that ties back to the first season and its uplifting of working class stories. or, at least, those are my wishes
Ive never been to a michelin level fine-dining, but I've loved reading about their creations from the "appreciating the art" point. This video made me think about the classical music environment, simply because thats what ive known a little bit. And how widespread between various arts (and elite sports, since we're fresh out of the Olympics) the belief that greatness cant be born without abuse is. I still havent watched whiplash (2014) because im afraid of the flashbacks lol
Has that been your experience? I'm getting my Ph.D in music right now and haven't found any of the schools I've been at to be anywhere close to that level of abusiveness. Ive heard stories from professors from 30 years ago but nothing in the last ten years or so from any prof or student.
@@maluse227 maybe it depends on the country, I'm from Poland where the system starts with state elementary music school and is a remnant of the communist era (and so the USSR training mindset). maybe it's better than it's been in the early 2000s now tho, but I rmr some journalism pieces from like 2020 indicating it is not the case
@@kamilasledz25 yeah maybe it is a eastern european thing, I can say for Canada and for a lot of the States the only times it gets intense is when its an older prof that has a reputation for being awful. But there isn't a conflation with that awfulness making students better anymore. Like there's still a hell of a lot of elitism and a lot of classism at work across the board, but maybe I've just gotten lucky when it comes to the schools I've gone to and the other students I've met from other institutions.
I used to work in a Michelin star restaurant and I ate at the same place. I find it's a worthwhile experience once, but the shine wears off when you're behind the curtain. It's hard to justify the pressure and no work-life balance. Not even doctors should work 80 hours a week, but a dishwasher really shouldn't.
@kamilasledz25 I get it. I was a fine arts major and some of my classes were literally just "draw/paint this still life for 2 hours" and the last hour of class would be hanging it up for the whole class to critique. I didn't consider it abusive, but it was really hard to take as an 18-20 year old sometimes...and I don't know that it was all that helpful ultimately. Idk....I wouldn't want to do it again, but I'm proud of my self for making it thru and graduating. So, yeah....it's kinda like the struggle is supposed to be part of it and make you better. But I think a lot of professions are like that. Like you have to suffer thru the BS and grind your way to the top to PROVE you're worthy.
Even on American tv, when Gordon Ramsay works with children, he proves he can be patient, nurturing and encouraging. I suppose it’s good that he has the ability to control his temper and be a good teacher/leader, but that definitely makes the chef persona he is most famous for modeling a choice to perpetuate a toxic model of the workplace hierarchy
I think common autistic comfort foods demonstrate the joy attained from simple dishes very well. That and the fact Italian food is specifically focussed around simplicity. I do think sometimes simplicity is mistaken for blandness and spice is dismissed as "clouding the flavour" of a dish. All forms of food can be delicious.
I spent over a decade working in kitchens. Finished HS a year early to go to culinary school, had my Culinary degree by the time I was 19. It was my whole life for the better part of my 20s. I'm in my late 30s now, and while it's been almost a decade since I left the industry, I'm still haunted by the scars (physical, mental, and emotional) that the experience left me with.
I got trained in mid range European restaurants. I never worked for any assholes bar one and I didn't work there long. While watching The Bear with my girlfriend I wondered to my girlfriend why Carmy does it because he's never happy. Working somewhere that feeds people good quality food for good prices with good people is an incredible experience. Fine dining is for the birds..
“He’s begun to loathe his patrons, both the ones who refuse to understand his art and the ones who revere him.The film doesn’t offer any explanation as to how Julian reached this point” Isn’t the whole film a list of reasons why Julian hates the fine dining world? He even directly confronts the boyfriend about how his fanaticism makes his work worse.
I went to a fine dining restaurant which has no menu. You just say how many people are coming and you are then served a 4 course meal. It was nice, but because it was just the two of us the chef kept coming to our table to chat. And he had some "interesting" ideas about Europe's history from the 1930s and 40s. The food and wine was awesome though.
In my experience; working kitchen as a woman is so demoralising. I started this year and within 3 months I had to file a HR complaint because one of the guys made incredibly disgusting sexual comments and made all the female staff (and male but to a lesser extent) feel awful. He got no consequences and I didn't get scheduled after that so not feeling to eager to work at restaurants in the future. I love cooking and loved the girls in the service I worked with but them having my back didn't really help when the whole corporation saw me as the issue for not just taking the harassment.
Sal, _The Bear_ is a DRAMA SHOW. The point of the show is to have DRAMA. Not only the interpersonal drama of the characters, but of trying to run a fine dining establishment. So it goes to the good writing that PART of the drama is the lead character becoming the people he hates in the goal of making his brother's place a success a tribute and by the end of the show WILL change. WOOOOOOOOW! IT'S ALMOST LIKE IT'S A SHOW AND THESE ARE CHARACTERS!
This all felt scarily similar to the (high) fashion industry. The long work hours, the unpaid internships, the small, menial tasks, the hierarchies. Makes me nervous to graduate
I think it says a lot about me that I knew Carmy as "that unfairly hot mean chef guy" until this video dropped As always, I loved it and I think you're spot on in your assessment of the material that frames your argument and in your argument itself. PLEASE REST WELL, LOVE YOU SALARI
So that's what the Bear is about. When I heard the title, I thought it was just another thriller about someone who is compared to a bear instead of a fine dining story.
The bear also higlights the "unreasonable hospitality" aspect of the fine dining experience, which I think really cool. The kitchen is no doubt the most toxic part of any restaurant tho. I dropped out of cooking school and still work in hospitality but won't take a kitchen job unless its a one cook on shift deal.
Master chefs, and the toxic kitchens they tend to foster, always struck me as the culinary manifestation of Great Man Theory. Because the abusive environment and cult behavior is ultimately all about control. Because while the head chef decides what's on the menu and dictates how it's prepared, they can't prepare all the dishes themselves. So they have to rely on the chefs below them to follow their orders flawlessly and mistakes can and will negatively impact the head chef's prestige. The toxic behavior is the only way they know to maintain control. And control is what Great Man Theory is really all about. Whether it's a celebrity chef, an auteur filmmaker, a successfully CEO, a victorious general or a beloved head-of-state, it all comes down to how much control they have over the people they command. For the successes and failures of their subordinates are the deciding factor on whether they get the money, the power or the glory they feel they are owed due to their brilliant ideas and decisive leadership.
And to be fair, how is a hyper controlling cult a place that fosters any sort of creativity? This idea that fine dining is some super important art is complete BS. Its akin to art made for kings. Bourgeoisie decadence. Actual revolution and change in food comes from mixing of cultures/feeding their communities. Not egotistical white guys surrounded by yes men serving the 1%. Like ive never met a single person in my life that thinks about fine dining or cares about fine dining beyond the couple days afterward, and usually even if youre middle class or even poor, maybe once in your life someone has taken you to fine dining, or you did it for a very special occasion (10 year anniversary, part of a honeymoon, a graduation present, something). Obviously they all loved what they had, but practically none of them think or care about fine dining besides the temporary high afterwards from being waited on and treated like royalty. Isn't art supposed to touch people? Affect people deeply? Make people think? Fine dining being "art" is hilarious. Or at least any kind of even passably good art. It doesn't make people do or feel ANYTHING longterm. Eating food you've never had before/from a different country or culture is far far far more of an "experience of art", it always makes you think, and often affects you way way later on thinking about and making your own food in different ways. It inspires. No fine dining establishment or popular chef will be remembered by anyone in a 100 years. No one is going to be on their death bed wishing they could have one last immaculately presented truffle BS reduction nonsense dish with random swirls. No. They wish for comfort food, or the food cooked by their loved ones, or an old pillar of the community type of restaurant that was cheap. Like a local sandwich shop with a very kind owner who welcomed everyone with a genuine smile. Fine dining is literally just an extension of food for royalty. Cooking for kings, queens, lords and ladies. And it has never, NEVER been remembered. If you want to actually create art, or food art, do it for yourself and those around you by immersing yourself in community or other cultures. Practice for the love of it in your spare time.
Ah, it is so satisfying to see Salari holding the dough. Thank you for the wholesomeness, I ended up needing it as the video progressed. I used to admire the science of fine dining from watching anime, but I definitely was missing some aspects.
It's the same as any other industry dominated by ego-driven men, they ruin whatever art is inherent in it by chasing glory and upholding an exclusionary culture, and while I'm not caught up with the second season of the Bear, it feels like, letting go of the ego and finding love in the simpler sandwich shop is what's ultimately going to be the journey it goes through. (I'm kind of dissapointed that Boiling Point wasn't in this conversation though)
I've seen Ramsay's Holiday cooking special on Roku, and he's the sweetest of teddy bears in that show. Of course, he's around family. There's no doubt that the US productions are fake af.
the last kitchen i worked in served two different restaurant spaces. we had to know two menus. one of those spaces was high-end enough that the servers could take away up to $2,000 in tips per week. we weren't allowed into the tip pool, nor did we receive health insurance from the employer. i have a scar millimeters away from the big bleed-out vein in the wrist and that knife injury was the only time the kitchen stopped -- and the only time everyone made sure someone was okay after an accident. the sous chef loved pitting us against each other. we weren't yelled at or even given pointers over mistakes; instead, mgmt and owners were told directly, which doomed the cooks who worked there. people had hours cut to give to the sous' personal friend. when the chef left for a different restaurant, he stole my good paring knife. and then after all that chaos, it kind of became expected that we'd all have our after-shift drink together in the second restaurant space and chat in a jovial tone like we were all friends. yes, it's an abusive relationship. anyone thinking "well maybe you just didn't have what it takes" likely doesn't have what it takes to do it at all, and i did it for six years.
I've been to a Michelin star restaurant once, completely by chance, and while it was an interesting experience and the food was pretty good (this was in France, so I expected to at least have good quality food), but I found myself thinking that my mum's feijoada is better lol. It's all so pretentious. Food is art, but art doesn't have to be pretentious.
I didn't know anything about Fine Dining other than it being a luxury. Frankly speaking I didn't expect to get so invested in this topic when I read the title. You absolutely nailed it though and I couldn't take my eyes off for even a second. As always, your work is great and important. I appreciate it a lot.
I don’t know how many of the comments you read through, but I did just want to say that as someone who’s been following your channel for a while, this video in particular really hit home for me. You did a really good job with it. I don’t work in this particular industry, but I am very much in a work environment where the authority is seen as unquestionable, including by my coworkers, and public shaming is also very common here where if someone makes a mistake they get put on blast in front of everyone by the boss. It’s super frustrating at times, especially when you don’t understand the boss’s decision, but since they’re seen as the expert and everyone else thinks of themself as a novice, there’s no solidarity if you do attempt to question that authority at all. It’s a two year agreement and I’m one year into it so I’ve made it halfway there, but it does get really tempting to quit at times. Just goes to show how this kind of work environment goes far beyond only the restaurant industry.
One small critique, i don't know what's going on in the uk, but as a professional chef here in the states i've seen more diversity than modern star wars in this industry. Outside of that I agree with everything else, & i'm looking to push past these things when I open my own fine dining restaurant.
Great video, as someone who use to be a chef with 10+ years of experience, I've always felt like the chefs I work with have been brainwashed into thinking the working conditions of a fine dining kitchen are acceptable or that they know it's not acceptable but the price to pay is well worth it.
Can't believe you didn't reference the greatest critique of fine dining (and breathing), which depicts a humble cook's descent into madness only haute cuisine can cultivate... "Squilliam Returns" jk jk
Dude, I was playing FFXIV while watching this, and I was in Solution 9 when the theme of Solution 9 came on in your video. I thought my brain was broken for a few seconds 😅 Love the use of all the awesome FFXIV music, btw!
I've somehow managed to be largely ignorant of fine dining aside from the occasional blink-and-you-miss-it shots in film, so I had no idea how wasteful and honestly unappetizing these dishes are. Might be a lower-class millenial thing, dunno. Now that I'm aware of it, I hate it, so good job~ Hope you're recovering from your Vin Deebus voice!
"Beauty is useless if you care for efficiency, but shockingly useful if you care for lovability. Yes, beauty is a wasteful luxury but ultimately the only thing people will die for, and make pilgrimages to." - Chateaubriand
quick note: you've mentioned that fine dining restaurants can't sustain themselves financially. I've worked in fine dining for years. It's an inside joke that profit isn't really the point. A lot of times, the restaurants are just being floated by the wealthy people who own them. I have literally seen a 13000 dollar banquet comped. Not a single person lost their job. Yeah, 5 dollars an hour plus tip out? Heard. I gave away a 70 dollar ribeye to my busser last night, and still had prime rib and crab-stuffed shrimp for dinner. I'm not even a chef or a manager. That's just what it's like for us. Ain't been to the grocery store for 2 months.
I think there is a third story to add in here. "Delicious Party Pretty Cure" The version of Pretty Cure that came out the same year that The Bear debuted was also about food and grief, but it went at it in such a different way. "Food Brings Smiles" was the tone of the show and while I'm not sure they handled their villain very well, there were parallels being drawn between food and grief of our lead and them. Near the end, due to reasons, the Cures briefly time traveled and Yui got the chance to quietly eat Onigri with her (currently) dead grandmother. And when all food disappeared, it is that same Onigri that ended up saving the day. It was just interesting how it took the same discussion of food and grief, and just had it be mostly simple food as the main bits.
I just ate at a restaurant that is attempting to be fine dining for the first time and I was really disappointed. It was plated beautifully and the food was well cooked but the presentation made the meal terrible. Putting beautiful little flowers on top that add no flavor but get caught in your throat. Making simple wonderful dishes into complicated small dishes. I definitely see the value in going to a restaurant when everything is perfectly cooked and they understand flavor/texture in an incredible way, but you really don't have to get to the fine dining level to find that kind of food.
I don't really get it, this video is trying to sway us by saying that Salari can't afford to pay for 400+ dollar meals any time but doesn't say that _you aren't necessarily required or mandated to do so_, you can go to those places as fine dining restaurants at *any* given time -- also isn't this indirectly insulting the people who do stay in the field and do the hard work/time/practice, so we should bastardized and devalue their do diligence because of this illusion? Okay so then I would say this: WHERE DOES IT END?.... is he trying to say we should *collapse* these type of establishment w/o understand any of the ramifications or potential consequences in doing so, nor the idea what would happen to all the other dining areas in the same field or above it/below it? So forget about getting any kind of change, let alone the idea of a reality outside of the kitchen as put. Like I don't understand his goal here, seriously did he said that because he doesn't do fine dining that nobody else shouldn't due to these issues that btw haven't been properly addressed at least not without corporative hand waves. Or what was to stop him for only doing fine dining maybe in 1-3 years for like once inside of a month on a day like a anniversary or even a for a birthday? That's not a problem, plenty of people, those on tight budges have/can save up money to go somewhere that they've wanted to be it for a year/1 day/a few hours... and if it's bad? Well that's *on* *them*. So what? Have people suddenly just committed a crime or made a sin by going to these establishments because it's either too much money for too little? If that's the case then what exactly would Salari suggest to take its place? (solely bread doesn't count) While it may be true that the West usually enables these bad practices from cult-like food creation culture to insane failure, food critiquing from being reviewed too highly/lowly and non-criticism work ethic avenues that are just enabled, like okay? But that ain't exactly telling us anything new here, the West has been enabling *ALOT* of bad things, if human history is anything, that's been going on for years even not centuries 🤨 And so far I yet to see someone effectively altercate this path actively adopt for change in this regard so that ain't changing any time soon. No content creator, no youtuber or otherwise.
But also... can we really say it "turned into that"? Fine dining is just the modern version of haute cuisine and some version of cooks being militarily trained to create huge amounts of artfully prepared, cooked and presented food is probably in existence as long as huge social divides exists in human history. Like, I know medieval cook books (which were not actually cook books in the sense that they told someone how to do stuff, letting someone write such a cook book was just another thing wealthy people did to show their wealth and in that case probably also the creativity and talent of their cooks) with some crazy elaborated recipes. Like putting 7 differently sized birds into each other in very elaborate ways with the smallest bird having an egg in it and then letting someone cut it perfectly so everyone gets their equal share of all the different bird meats and a little bit of the egg as well (meat carving was not the task for chefs, though, it was usually done by one of the guests like a knight or some other noble man as a sort of test, like cutting food exactly right and serving it was considered a sort of art that was necessary to be good at to be well respected among their fellow nobles and failing at it could harm a knight far more than losing a fight). And there is already the concept of a chef who is usually depicted as in a very bad mood and in depictions usually stands in the middle and gives orders to the legions of cooks around him.
I thrive in high stress environments and love the challenge of the kitchen as a chef. That being said I do feel the toxicity is NOT a part of being a chef, nobody should put up with that. Also you will (most likely) not be a better chef under restaurants like these. You will become the bully or get a burnout and food will become an obsession not a passion.
I'm a chef and I came up within the culture you depicted. In some regards, conforming to the brigade is valuable: you learn to contribute to the art effectively, and it trains you to be hard (while filtering out the wimps and the underachievers), but it can be exactly as toxic as you described. I'm also a woman and the misogyny is still present in the industry.
Thanks for sharing this information. As someone who left the field despite loving food and cooking I'm constantly forced to explain myself and worse I get a lot of shit for warning young people about the way the industry functions
I had lots to say but I think "the best thing since sliced bread" is more about the convenience of not having to slice off every slice of bread anymore after the mechanical bread slicer was invented and used to sell presliced bread rather than any comment about how rightfully excellent bread itself is.
Food is meant to be a social experience. The nice thing about that is that it can be incredibly cheap. Fine dining is so far past the point of diminishing returns that it only exists as a novelty, not an elevation of the art.
The way I’ve understood the fundamentals of this videos by staying half-awake during livestreams lol jk Also, Salari makes great desserts. Join the cooking streams.
as someone with ARFID (an ED that makes eating physically challenging at times; affects appetite and hunger in wild ways) the entire culinary industry and the way most people talk about food is WILD to me lmao. People talk about "enjoying the experience" or wtf ever and I'm like "I'm just trying not to throw up while eating a peanut butter sandwich" skldjfhglksjdfhglksdjfhg It's also a major factor in why I personally despise "fine" dining - all they do is throw scraps in a pile, sometimes wiht the NASTIEST combos imaginable, and act like they're shitting gold when 99% of their ingredients would make me vomit if I even SMELLED it being in the same room. I don't understand the term "fine dining" because literally everything that fits into "fine" dining is hardly even food. Like forget the serving size! The thing they made! Isn't food! And I don't mean that by what many people seem to think with "it's actually art" like no, becky, you can't just throw 780 different things into a pile and call it "art" all you made is a compost pile, I don't trust nor respect it. Maybe I'm just jaded by poverty but everything about the industry at "high level" seems like it's all fake. There's no way anyone *enjoys* any aspect of "fine" dining, right?????
I don’t actually think The Menu is about the world of fine dining-I think it’s about cinema, with fine dining being a stand in I think most characters representations are obvious, but most poignantly Tyler represents video essayists and film enthusiasts and the while the film shows nothing but utter contempt for us knows we will still worship it for its craft And I never felt more attack by a film cause yes, The Menu is lambasting me and I only praise it all the more for this masterful commentary
I wanted to be a chef growing up then i worked in a few kitchens and was appalled at the culture. I now am a committed home chef who works a normal job.
I worked for a while as a Kitchen Porter on many restaurants in London, they just fill the ranks with Agency staff and I tell you this. When they wanted to elevate me to Commis Chef they literally told me in the place I trialed for, if you stay here you will leave the whole industry in 6 months, I did not even take 1 to leave xD forever, F hospitality I rather go to my Chinese buffet at least I know Im going to eat until I am full and they do everything by the bulk with less of a feeling of being exploited in a Kitchen.
I have had the privilage to eat at a number of michelin star restaurants over my life. It's neat, it can be an interedting experience, the food is good. Would I ever go if my meal wasn't being paid for by someone else? Not a chance. I have gotten so much more from hole-in-the-wall, mom and pops', places. It's never as pretty, and not often as performatove. Hiwever, when you have a local joint, that cares about their food, and likes being a part of the community they operate in, it is just so much better.
Another great movie that explores the same theme of the toll that fine dining takes on the people within the machine, the dehumanization and depersonalization it demands for both people and animals, and the way it affects the people who consume the artistic product they create is ‘Pig’ (2021) starring Nicolas Cage and Nick Wolf. I highly recommend it, especially to anyone who likes very heavy handed storytelling films.
I get the appeal of going to a fine dining restaurant, but particularly in certain places it would be hard to figure out if something is meant to be eaten (decoration or food, a fun game when you're hungry and there's not a lot of food on the plate)
I once ate a table decoration flower at a perfectly standard Chinese restaurant. I am legally blind, though. I did hear of a friend of a friend (who was at a fine dining restaurant) mistaking his tiny little towelette for a palate cleansing mint. He ate it.
My company once had us go to a fine dining restaurant and overall it was just kinda awkward. Every food had to be accompanied with a detailed speech about it. It was the rare occasion that I left restaurant genuinely hungry. I just hate the idea that just because I was there, I was somehow better, because at the end of the day, that's what it's mostly about. Taking pictures, it's expensive, fancy bragging right.
I read once a tweet that said:
"I Love The Bear but if a local sandwich shop serving the neighborhood closed to become a fancy restaurant for a white elite, I would pray for that restaurant to fail everyday."
@@thevikingbear2343 seen it happend many times and you always loose a great place you can go to on the regular for somewhere you maybe visit twice a year.
don't they still sell sandwiches? and it's the only thing profitable as said by Sugar lmao
It does seem like Carmy is honestly just failing with their fine dining venture so I hope that in S4 it does somewhat fail(which is implied in the end of S3) and they end up being a more casual dining place so that they make good food without the unnecessary toxicity fine dining demands
@@Richmond-j9b Yes, they do have a window that they sell the sandwiches out of. What I don't understand is why Cicero/Uncle Jimmy puts up with such a tremendous level of waste. New menu every day? That's literally insane.
@@KushKiki yeah, honestly I feel like Carmy really knows how unsustainable the current system is but his self-destructive tendencies makes him want to overwork himself so that he has an "excuse" to not work on his personal problems (mainly talking to Claire) which feels like exactly what he did in the past just so he won't have to resolve his family problems
I've also been saying this since S2 semi-jokingly. What really shocked me was hearing people say it like it was a criticism of the show and not part of the point.
I wanted to be a chef as a kid, until I realized that it's not about the love of great food, it's just about the prestige of being able to afford incredibly expensive food. Some of the best food I've ever had has come from one person in a truck smiling, chatting, and having a great time. That's the food that I want to celebrate.
That person in a food truck doesn't get to call themselves a chef? Why not?
And why can't any chef at any level love creating/cooking?
Some of the best food I've ever had: leftovers friends or co-workers from another culture shared. Sometimes presentation isn't flamboyantly pretty like fine dining food, but I've already learned to associate it with amazingness. Often, the food they share with me is never offered in restaurants, even ones emphasizing their culture's food, because they consider it "unmarketable."
I wanted to use my military educational benefits to go to the culinary institute, but thought my back injury would make running a kitchen difficult. Blessing in disguise knowing what I know now. I love cooking, as an amateur at home for the people who just appreciate the meal.
The best food that I, and I'm sure anyone else has ever tasted, was something that my mom cooked last minute late at night because I was hungry. Mac and cheese, a PBJ, it doesn't matter because it was made with love.
I went to culinary school for a little bit but after a brief stint in an apprenticeship, which is arguably better than an internship, I discovered I don’t do well in high stress environments like that. The low pay, lack of health care, long hours, and dangerous atmosphere outweighed any joy I got out of it. Anyone who is a chef must be passionate about what they do
And it's high stress for no reason other than ego. Of course you shouldn't make customers wait far too long, but there's no reason to make people run around. Tbf, if you have to have everyone running around, that just says to me your kitchen needs organising.
@@beasttitanofficial3768 I wholeheartedly agree! I swear the heat in the kitchen is a huge contributor to how pissed off everyone is on a line. This line of work is not for the faint of heart!
Also it may be a controversial opinion but the front of the house gets paid way more than they should in comparison to the back of the house. Don’t get me wrong servers deserve tips but some of them are making so much more working a part time job than the cooks that are often working over 40 hours a week for next to nothing, because “they have to keep labor down”
@@beasttitanofficial3768 also drug abuse is incredibly common in the industry, I guess it’s easier to run around when you’re on stimulants
@@NeighborhoodBasketCase I can't attest to that because in new zealand we don't have much of a tipping culture and everyone makes at the very least the legal minimum wage. Cooks often make more than servers because it requires more training.
@@beasttitanofficial3768 I can attest to that. In Canada servers are paid at least minimum wage unlike in the US, but we also have a huge tipping culture on top of that. When I worked BOH in college, the fellow college students working FOH were making their month's rent in tips alone in just 3 shifts. It's absolutely not fair because how much tips they got also depended on how fast the kitchen was, but us in the kitchen never got a cut of the tips. And most of us cooks were only making a dollar extra an hour in wages than FOH, so they were absolutely making double or triple our wages when accounting for tips.
It doesn’t compute to me how fine dining establishments can charge almost a thousand bucks a head and still claim they need free labour to survive. Surely there’s room to change a few things
a few less yachts for the owner
There is a general issue with not just these fine dining establishments, but dining establishments in general. That being that any dining business that is not a fast food joint seems to actually struggle unless they exist in nearly perfect conditions, specifically made for them, and potentially abuse their workers. No idea what causes this, because one would think it would be the lack of clientele and expense for good chefs and ingredients, at least for fine dining, but that is not the case, they underpay their workers and use free labor.
That is no excuse of the fine dining industry which seems to be a factory of misery in general, but at least in some regions of the world it does seem to be a general issue of an entire industry.
C A P I T A L I SM
Fine dining is a weird mix between creative art and military levels of discipline, and it suffers from the same toxicity. The menu even shows just how much the art has been lost on the people who attend fine dining restaurants simply to flaunt their status. At the end of the show its fitting to see that the true reason of making food is to feed someone, and the simple joy of a happy customer satisfied with their meal. And you dont need fine dining to achieve that.
@@vtheory7531 yes I loved the little moment in the end where the chef smiles as he's making the cheeseburger.
In the series Good Omens, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse is Starvation. They're presented as a fine dining chef
Ruby Payne distinguishes food as one of the ways classes have hidden rules. For lower, middle and upper classes, food is valued for its quantity, quality, and presentation, respectively.
Each class wants what requires “high resources” in that class to get once the prior prerequisites are met.
@@JamesDecker7 these aren't goals, it's about hidden rules of belonging. So, you don't bring a 6-pack of microbrews, you bring a case of Pabst, or, you pour a single handcrafted ale chilled in mountain snow imported from the Alps into an 18th century beer stein. No matter what your intentions, you won't be accepted into a higher (or lower) group unless you know the hidden rules. Ruby Payne's work is interested in fostering upward social mobility.
How it relates to The Menu, is that the Chef had reached the pinnacle of social mobility, but he came from the lowest, just as the escort did. But both had learned through painful lessons how to move amongst each level. She escapes because her request brings him back to his sentimental beginnings, but maintains all 3 values: quantity - it was too much for her to eat, quality - it was made with the freshest ingredients, and presentation - it was made to order, perfectly, quintessentially. Once again, Anya plays a chess master role.
As another person who learned to bake some simple breads in order to give myself something other than the sugar-laden excuses available to me in the tiny town I was living in, I wanted to pop in and recommend a book: the Breadbaker's Apprentice by Peter Reinheart. It's framed as this fancy chefy book, but actually goes through and breaks down not only the science of different forms of bread, but also how each step of the process should look and feel, teaching how to adjust your dough for when it's stupid humid outside or your scale is out of batteries and so you've had to guess on your weights and measures.
I mention this book because it's such a good example of what I wish the food industry could do more--share. The exclusivity of fine dining is really what gets me. There's no sharing of how things are made, no delighted ranting to your nearest coworker about this new technique you want to try or how good this altered recipe tastes. Food is such a communal experience at its best and should be celebrated as such, not jealously guarded by the elite chefs and diners rich enough to afford it.
Great video--thanks for sharing.
I've never watched the show, but I did watch Skip Intro's video about it. It struck me that they kept saying that the sandwich take-out was actually the only part of the restaurant that was making money. This gave me the feeling that perhaps the next season will be the realization that making really good sandwiches for regular people is a better business model than trying to collect Michelin stars. But again, that's just from watching someone else talk about the show, and I'm not sure he even came to the conclusion I did.
Well, no rrestaurant tying to get a star makes money. A single star restauant roughly breaks even on the food they serve and then service cost have to be offset from drinks. If you go to a single star place and drink water, they will operate at a loss. When a place is aiming to get a star, they already have to put in the cost, but they have to keep their prices below those of stared restaurants, so they will inevitably bleed money until they get stared. For 2 and 3 stars the labour costs go up so much, that they aren't ever self-sustainable, they need somebody willing to be a Patreon and take the loss, quite regularly that's high prize hotels that book it on their marketing budget. Of course making sandwiches for eveybody is a betterr business model, but it also comes at a cost - it means you end up really restrricted in where you can take it and you have to make a lot of them, which also becomes factory like. I've also watched the skip intro video and in that, as well as this one I keep returrning to Marx' views on alienated vs. unalienated labour and find that the Beef and the Bear both have alienated labor, it's not like any of the people working on the sandwiches have a true love of their job. And working conditions in these types of places also suck, there's a reason McJobs are called that. There's a risk in romanticizing diners and steet food booths to a degree they don't earn. There is a middle ground, hich are the places you have dinner at for aniveraries, which you can't aford regularrly, but that are local spots for special occasions. These places are generally where you want to work, because you don't have to do volume and you don't have to strive for perection, just for "so good it will make people come back for their 40th birthday, after eating here for their 30th", I think cuising pushing the boundaries should exist, but I'd want to see it publicly funded, and thereby coming with stricter controls on the work envirronment.
Yeah, I dont think this is a good criticism of the show. It obviously is just taking a longer way to tell this story, with taking sometime multiple multiple multiple failures, and ruining your life and the lives around you to be forced to change. Its very bojack horseman in its writing/story. The restaurant WILL fail or at least they'll be forced to go back to being a sandwich shop. Except with better working conditions, and hopefully the abolishing of the chef hierarchy Carmy brought.
Funnily enough...my dad chose not to go into the field because being Black was a liability (he got to experience that in brewing and tech instead) so we just make fancy ass food at home.
Once, my stepmother was freaking out about Thanksgiving. I'm not a morning person, never have been. She literally SHOVED ME OUT OF THE WAY because I wasn't moving fast enough and inevitably asked me to leave the kitchen (which was huge btw) because I was "Just getting in her way" after waking me up at 5am. It was so bad I had a chat with my father about it because even he knows better than to speak to me like that or body check me so hard I bruise (I did). At some point we all sat down and she started apologizing but I cut her off and said "if you're not enjoying the process of hosting, cooking all of this food etc, why are you doing it? Holidays are not supposed to be about the spectacle, it's about being together." She never hosted a big to do after that again. Maybe she felt obligated to have the same level of quality as her catering jobs but, it was our house there was no need for all of that. My father and mother actually used to do weekly dinner parties. They were always huge affairs. Same irritating energy as luxury food. I've HAD luxury food. I had to go to McDonald's after. It's not filling enough. I am a hungry human I like proper food. I also don't like the Pris Fixe menu system; I have food allergies you're not going to dictate what I eat, *I* am.
While it's ok for elevated food to exist, it should be a joyful, positive space. In its current iteration it isn't. I actually collect cookbooks and I'm always trying to make my food prettier and more delicious because it's what I want to do; I do consider it art I can eat, but the constant harassment of friends and such to open a restaurant is annoying. I don't want to do that. I don't want to manage people. I know I have asshole tendencies and I prefer not to indulge them. And knowing that this media is how the general public sees the space in a post Bon Apetit kitchen world, I'm not sure how I feel. I just know I don't want to open a damn restaurant or work in one (again).
@@lowwastehighmelanin omg I feel this so much especially the part about ppl telling you to open a restaurant. The idea of management in any form makes me feel like I’m gonna cringe into oblivion and high stress environments literally turn me into a grinch lol
I like making good food for the ppl I care about. Seeing them nourished and happy from something I made is more than enough for me. I’m good on the gold infused chicken nuggets or whatever tf they selling to rich folks 💀
Shouke have been faster lazy bones
Bread is on my "last meal" list. Your absolutely right about it. And if the bear doesn't end with Carmy going bank to making sandwiches I'll be disappointed.
The insistence that suffering is needed for great art is fuelled by both entitlement and ignorance. It is all over the world of music, the idea of the tortured genius. I know musicians who actually cultivate life threatening addictions because it is more "authentic". Call it the Red Shoes myth. Moira Shearer stated publicly that it is ridiculous to imply that one can't be a great dancer without the horrible sacrifices Vicky makes in that film.
The really strange thing is that, I think this mentality survives because it *works*, just at great cost
@@jeffreychandler8418I don't think it works if artists are killing themselves. I'm pretty happy and I think I make pretty good art. I think I'd be able to make better art if I wasn't being exploited and poor.
@@snailart14 I do agree with this. It's one of those old holdovers that has some merit but also lots of baggage
@@patriciahammondsongs I think people who have that safety like stories of how those without are actually okay the way they are.
It’s kind of funny to me that Food Wars captured this outlandish, cultish approach to excellence in food.
I don't think that original "reading" of The Bear is wrong, I think we're still in the Rising Action point of the story. Once the restaurant was rebuilt and Cam started flexing, he also started pushing people away and controlling everything neurotically. I think the review will probably be bad and they'll have to scale back and in the process feed their community, which will actually make them profitable AND the environment will be healthier as a result.
I hope this is the direction they are going with too
imo he is wrong because The Bear ALREADY showcases exactly how chasing the approval of the fine dining world actually is making them:
1. lose focus of how the gentle process of crafting and getting to experience a good dish is just as important as the result (like in the one take episode where everything is chaotic and at the end Carmy tastes the meal that one guy was working on literally for fun, or the omelete scene, as well as Sydney goes around Chicago to try food)
2. all miserable and traumatized
3. neglect the community they should be feeding (the flashbacks to the old restaurant, the sandwich takeaway scenes, i would argue even the scenes where one of the famous chefs retires and they all spend time together just for fun)
Fine dinning is not about food nor about art. It's a sadomasochistic performance around morbidly adding value to something ephimeral, just to declare you have a higher status. Which for me is the very definition of tastelessness
One of Contrapoints early videos talks about this in reference to the Buzzfeed series "Worth It." The hosts try a certain food at drastically different price points. In one episode, they ate a $2000 pizza with "squid ink dough topped with foie gras, winter black truffle, osetra caviar, stilton cheese, and 24 karat gold leaf." And it ... wasn't good. Those ingredients don't even make sense together, it's just a collection of expensive stuff on a squid-ink crust. You can watch the sadness come over their faces, realizing that maybe our society is a fraud.
Because a bad pizza is whatever, but a two thousand dollar bad pizza is an insult. Why does it exist?? Why???
"Sometimes things that are more expensive are worse"
@@Marygoore- The thing with artistic disciplines is that no matter how "fine" or "trascendental" the piece in question is considered, you often have ways to experience it at affordable prices, if not for free. Obviously I'm talking about experiencing it, not "owning" it: art ownership is an entire discussion in itself. Fine dinning as it's portrayed here is an experience that seem to focus in it's exclusivity above anything else. As I said, at some point feels like just adding value to something just to accentuate the notion that most people wouldn't afford to experience it, as if that in itself is what makes the experience
Iykyk. Art is more than what they sell in galleries. High end salons follow this exact method. Loads of stimulants and abuse for the wealthy. Again, if you know you know.
The black swan also illustrates this toxic trend in art/sports
I definitely think the bear worships fine dining a little too much, especially with Richie's arc of learning to appreciate the 'art' of it all and find drive and enjoyment in his work, but aside from that, this feels like a total misreading of The Bear.
We see the only non work relationship that Carmy has fall apart due to his inability to keep his head out of the kitchen, we see his treatment of his staff and colleagues parallelled with Fields' treatment of him and we constantly hear about the unsustainable nature of The Bear itself but also the entire industry. More importantly, we see that Syd is capable of doing her job without abusing those beneath her and we see that the unsustainability of the restaurant is multiplied greatly by Carmy's changing menu, a decision that wasn't supported by any of the other characters.
I think the dynamic between Carmy and Syd is supposed to show us how the inustry works, and has worked for years, versus how it *needs* to work if it wants to continue.
Without getting into the abuses in the industry, this reminded me of reading that the highly recommended and discussed wines tend to not be ones that you or I like: That most experts have grown bored with trying to find the "best tasting", and tend to recommend "weird in a good way", which isn't what most wine drinkers want or even recognize. Kind of same with some genres of music: You've heard too much four chords in 4/4, now you want something totally different. This even works in the world of art music or opera: You grow tired of the canon, then of anything "normal", then get into the weird atonal shite that maybe counts as music.
And then some people with too much money come along, see "rare and something that the ones that are deeeeeep into this like" and think it must be excellent, without having the experience to understand it or the good taste to know otherwise. IMHO weird wines, Schoenberg, or fine dining isn't something that should appeal to many people regardless of class or wealth. It should appeal to single-minded niche-obsessed weirdos (no offense to weirdos, love you/us!) that want to break the whole thing for new experiences. Slowik would have been so much happier geeking out with like-minded friends, and making money from good food for normies.
Kitchen Confidential is still the best book to show the toxicity of being a line cook and/or chef. It practically says that you are either a chef or you are a normal person
To me, food is about family, culture, and tradition. Fine dining does not mean "good food". The best food experiences I've had never came from a restaurant.
The best part about the Menu is that Cheeseburger at the end. The movie says it's piece that if the Best Chef of the World made a normal food it would be the best piece of food ever made, instead of that "deconstructed bullshit" that is fine dining, as the movie puts it.
I got reminded of a Lessons from the Screenplay video about Whitplash and Black Swan, about abusive teachers and talented students. I like this because it adds a lot about the particular industry and class struggle
I watched The Bear recently, and it reminded of all the reasons I left the restaurant industry years earlier. It is, indeed, toxic in many ways, and I didn’t want to deal with the exploitation. The physical stresses are very real as well, such as bad backs from hours of standing, carrying heavy equipment, and bending, lack of sleep, and a reliance on alcohol and marijuana just to wind down. I can no longer work in industries which require extensive standing because of my restaurant experience, and I have to wear a back brace. Good food doesn’t have to be expensive; it just has to taste good and be nourishing.
honestly my hopes from the bear season 4, from how the story has been processing in regards to carmy's (and in consequence, the bear's) descent into neurosis, isolation and mistreatment of his staff as well as the restaurant's stance as a marker of gentrification, is that the bear gets a bad review, sydney leaves the staff and carmy is at a turning point in which he has to completely rethink everything he's learned and rewire himself in order to become a better person... instead of a the best chef there is. it sounds like a lot for one season but i can see the writers doing that 360 for the story in a way that ties back to the first season and its uplifting of working class stories. or, at least, those are my wishes
They should hire you to write the script I much prefer your ideas than what they are doing to the show+
Yesss! I'm on board with this.
Ive never been to a michelin level fine-dining, but I've loved reading about their creations from the "appreciating the art" point. This video made me think about the classical music environment, simply because thats what ive known a little bit. And how widespread between various arts (and elite sports, since we're fresh out of the Olympics) the belief that greatness cant be born without abuse is. I still havent watched whiplash (2014) because im afraid of the flashbacks lol
Has that been your experience? I'm getting my Ph.D in music right now and haven't found any of the schools I've been at to be anywhere close to that level of abusiveness. Ive heard stories from professors from 30 years ago but nothing in the last ten years or so from any prof or student.
@@maluse227 maybe it depends on the country, I'm from Poland where the system starts with state elementary music school and is a remnant of the communist era (and so the USSR training mindset). maybe it's better than it's been in the early 2000s now tho, but I rmr some journalism pieces from like 2020 indicating it is not the case
@@kamilasledz25 yeah maybe it is a eastern european thing, I can say for Canada and for a lot of the States the only times it gets intense is when its an older prof that has a reputation for being awful. But there isn't a conflation with that awfulness making students better anymore. Like there's still a hell of a lot of elitism and a lot of classism at work across the board, but maybe I've just gotten lucky when it comes to the schools I've gone to and the other students I've met from other institutions.
I used to work in a Michelin star restaurant and I ate at the same place. I find it's a worthwhile experience once, but the shine wears off when you're behind the curtain. It's hard to justify the pressure and no work-life balance. Not even doctors should work 80 hours a week, but a dishwasher really shouldn't.
@kamilasledz25 I get it. I was a fine arts major and some of my classes were literally just "draw/paint this still life for 2 hours" and the last hour of class would be hanging it up for the whole class to critique. I didn't consider it abusive, but it was really hard to take as an 18-20 year old sometimes...and I don't know that it was all that helpful ultimately. Idk....I wouldn't want to do it again, but I'm proud of my self for making it thru and graduating. So, yeah....it's kinda like the struggle is supposed to be part of it and make you better. But I think a lot of professions are like that. Like you have to suffer thru the BS and grind your way to the top to PROVE you're worthy.
Even on American tv, when Gordon Ramsay works with children, he proves he can be patient, nurturing and encouraging. I suppose it’s good that he has the ability to control his temper and be a good teacher/leader, but that definitely makes the chef persona he is most famous for modeling a choice to perpetuate a toxic model of the workplace hierarchy
I think common autistic comfort foods demonstrate the joy attained from simple dishes very well.
That and the fact Italian food is specifically focussed around simplicity. I do think sometimes simplicity is mistaken for blandness and spice is dismissed as "clouding the flavour" of a dish. All forms of food can be delicious.
I spent over a decade working in kitchens. Finished HS a year early to go to culinary school, had my Culinary degree by the time I was 19. It was my whole life for the better part of my 20s. I'm in my late 30s now, and while it's been almost a decade since I left the industry, I'm still haunted by the scars (physical, mental, and emotional) that the experience left me with.
I got trained in mid range European restaurants. I never worked for any assholes bar one and I didn't work there long. While watching The Bear with my girlfriend I wondered to my girlfriend why Carmy does it because he's never happy.
Working somewhere that feeds people good quality food for good prices with good people is an incredible experience.
Fine dining is for the birds..
“He’s begun to loathe his patrons, both the ones who refuse to understand his art and the ones who revere him.The film doesn’t offer any explanation as to how Julian reached this point” Isn’t the whole film a list of reasons why Julian hates the fine dining world? He even directly confronts the boyfriend about how his fanaticism makes his work worse.
if the bear doesn’t end with carmy returning to his roots i’ll be so mad
I went to a fine dining restaurant which has no menu. You just say how many people are coming and you are then served a 4 course meal. It was nice, but because it was just the two of us the chef kept coming to our table to chat. And he had some "interesting" ideas about Europe's history from the 1930s and 40s. The food and wine was awesome though.
In my experience; working kitchen as a woman is so demoralising. I started this year and within 3 months I had to file a HR complaint because one of the guys made incredibly disgusting sexual comments and made all the female staff (and male but to a lesser extent) feel awful. He got no consequences and I didn't get scheduled after that so not feeling to eager to work at restaurants in the future. I love cooking and loved the girls in the service I worked with but them having my back didn't really help when the whole corporation saw me as the issue for not just taking the harassment.
Sal, _The Bear_ is a DRAMA SHOW. The point of the show is to have DRAMA. Not only the interpersonal drama of the characters, but of trying to run a fine dining establishment. So it goes to the good writing that PART of the drama is the lead character becoming the people he hates in the goal of making his brother's place a success a tribute and by the end of the show WILL change. WOOOOOOOOW! IT'S ALMOST LIKE IT'S A SHOW AND THESE ARE CHARACTERS!
This all felt scarily similar to the (high) fashion industry. The long work hours, the unpaid internships, the small, menial tasks, the hierarchies. Makes me nervous to graduate
I think it says a lot about me that I knew Carmy as "that unfairly hot mean chef guy" until this video dropped
As always, I loved it and I think you're spot on in your assessment of the material that frames your argument and in your argument itself. PLEASE REST WELL, LOVE YOU SALARI
So that's what the Bear is about. When I heard the title, I thought it was just another thriller about someone who is compared to a bear instead of a fine dining story.
The bear also higlights the "unreasonable hospitality" aspect of the fine dining experience, which I think really cool. The kitchen is no doubt the most toxic part of any restaurant tho. I dropped out of cooking school and still work in hospitality but won't take a kitchen job unless its a one cook on shift deal.
A business that must depend on free labor should not exist. If it means the end of fine dining, so be it.
Master chefs, and the toxic kitchens they tend to foster, always struck me as the culinary manifestation of Great Man Theory. Because the abusive environment and cult behavior is ultimately all about control. Because while the head chef decides what's on the menu and dictates how it's prepared, they can't prepare all the dishes themselves. So they have to rely on the chefs below them to follow their orders flawlessly and mistakes can and will negatively impact the head chef's prestige. The toxic behavior is the only way they know to maintain control.
And control is what Great Man Theory is really all about. Whether it's a celebrity chef, an auteur filmmaker, a successfully CEO, a victorious general or a beloved head-of-state, it all comes down to how much control they have over the people they command. For the successes and failures of their subordinates are the deciding factor on whether they get the money, the power or the glory they feel they are owed due to their brilliant ideas and decisive leadership.
And to be fair, how is a hyper controlling cult a place that fosters any sort of creativity? This idea that fine dining is some super important art is complete BS. Its akin to art made for kings. Bourgeoisie decadence.
Actual revolution and change in food comes from mixing of cultures/feeding their communities. Not egotistical white guys surrounded by yes men serving the 1%. Like ive never met a single person in my life that thinks about fine dining or cares about fine dining beyond the couple days afterward, and usually even if youre middle class or even poor, maybe once in your life someone has taken you to fine dining, or you did it for a very special occasion (10 year anniversary, part of a honeymoon, a graduation present, something).
Obviously they all loved what they had, but practically none of them think or care about fine dining besides the temporary high afterwards from being waited on and treated like royalty. Isn't art supposed to touch people? Affect people deeply? Make people think? Fine dining being "art" is hilarious. Or at least any kind of even passably good art. It doesn't make people do or feel ANYTHING longterm. Eating food you've never had before/from a different country or culture is far far far more of an "experience of art", it always makes you think, and often affects you way way later on thinking about and making your own food in different ways. It inspires.
No fine dining establishment or popular chef will be remembered by anyone in a 100 years. No one is going to be on their death bed wishing they could have one last immaculately presented truffle BS reduction nonsense dish with random swirls. No. They wish for comfort food, or the food cooked by their loved ones, or an old pillar of the community type of restaurant that was cheap. Like a local sandwich shop with a very kind owner who welcomed everyone with a genuine smile.
Fine dining is literally just an extension of food for royalty. Cooking for kings, queens, lords and ladies. And it has never, NEVER been remembered.
If you want to actually create art, or food art, do it for yourself and those around you by immersing yourself in community or other cultures. Practice for the love of it in your spare time.
Ah, it is so satisfying to see Salari holding the dough. Thank you for the wholesomeness, I ended up needing it as the video progressed. I used to admire the science of fine dining from watching anime, but I definitely was missing some aspects.
It's the same as any other industry dominated by ego-driven men, they ruin whatever art is inherent in it by chasing glory and upholding an exclusionary culture, and while I'm not caught up with the second season of the Bear, it feels like, letting go of the ego and finding love in the simpler sandwich shop is what's ultimately going to be the journey it goes through. (I'm kind of dissapointed that Boiling Point wasn't in this conversation though)
Ego-driven white men in particular, considering how eurocentric fine dining tends to be.
@@fmadiva Yes I can feel the butthurt flowing withing you :D Cope and Seethe about the greatness of the white man :D
I've seen Ramsay's Holiday cooking special on Roku, and he's the sweetest of teddy bears in that show. Of course, he's around family. There's no doubt that the US productions are fake af.
Babe, wake up. Salari is talking about The Bear.
the last kitchen i worked in served two different restaurant spaces. we had to know two menus. one of those spaces was high-end enough that the servers could take away up to $2,000 in tips per week. we weren't allowed into the tip pool, nor did we receive health insurance from the employer. i have a scar millimeters away from the big bleed-out vein in the wrist and that knife injury was the only time the kitchen stopped -- and the only time everyone made sure someone was okay after an accident. the sous chef loved pitting us against each other. we weren't yelled at or even given pointers over mistakes; instead, mgmt and owners were told directly, which doomed the cooks who worked there. people had hours cut to give to the sous' personal friend. when the chef left for a different restaurant, he stole my good paring knife. and then after all that chaos, it kind of became expected that we'd all have our after-shift drink together in the second restaurant space and chat in a jovial tone like we were all friends. yes, it's an abusive relationship.
anyone thinking "well maybe you just didn't have what it takes" likely doesn't have what it takes to do it at all, and i did it for six years.
6:09 There’s a chef called Dan Souza who has a whole story about the horrors of a fine dining kitchen
Never have I wanted to bake, slice, and eat bread as I have watching your video. Hope you have a speedy recovery.
(Vin Deebus)
I've been to a Michelin star restaurant once, completely by chance, and while it was an interesting experience and the food was pretty good (this was in France, so I expected to at least have good quality food), but I found myself thinking that my mum's feijoada is better lol. It's all so pretentious. Food is art, but art doesn't have to be pretentious.
This is one of your best videos to date! I so appreciate your calm presentation and your analytical skills. Great pun in the beginning too ;)
I thought I was absolutely losing it with the Solution Nine music, had to double check I exited the game.
Thanks for making me snort in public 🤣🤣🤣 "I'm Salari, man.."
I didn't know anything about Fine Dining other than it being a luxury. Frankly speaking I didn't expect to get so invested in this topic when I read the title.
You absolutely nailed it though and I couldn't take my eyes off for even a second.
As always, your work is great and important. I appreciate it a lot.
I don’t know how many of the comments you read through, but I did just want to say that as someone who’s been following your channel for a while, this video in particular really hit home for me. You did a really good job with it. I don’t work in this particular industry, but I am very much in a work environment where the authority is seen as unquestionable, including by my coworkers, and public shaming is also very common here where if someone makes a mistake they get put on blast in front of everyone by the boss. It’s super frustrating at times, especially when you don’t understand the boss’s decision, but since they’re seen as the expert and everyone else thinks of themself as a novice, there’s no solidarity if you do attempt to question that authority at all. It’s a two year agreement and I’m one year into it so I’ve made it halfway there, but it does get really tempting to quit at times. Just goes to show how this kind of work environment goes far beyond only the restaurant industry.
One small critique, i don't know what's going on in the uk, but as a professional chef here in the states i've seen more diversity than modern star wars in this industry. Outside of that I agree with everything else, & i'm looking to push past these things when I open my own fine dining restaurant.
Great video, as someone who use to be a chef with 10+ years of experience, I've always felt like the chefs I work with have been brainwashed into thinking the working conditions of a fine dining kitchen are acceptable or that they know it's not acceptable but the price to pay is well worth it.
Can't believe you didn't reference the greatest critique of fine dining (and breathing), which depicts a humble cook's descent into madness only haute cuisine can cultivate... "Squilliam Returns"
jk jk
Dude, I was playing FFXIV while watching this, and I was in Solution 9 when the theme of Solution 9 came on in your video. I thought my brain was broken for a few seconds 😅
Love the use of all the awesome FFXIV music, btw!
I've somehow managed to be largely ignorant of fine dining aside from the occasional blink-and-you-miss-it shots in film, so I had no idea how wasteful and honestly unappetizing these dishes are. Might be a lower-class millenial thing, dunno. Now that I'm aware of it, I hate it, so good job~
Hope you're recovering from your Vin Deebus voice!
Another banger, Salari! Now I want to rewatch the Menu
Vin Debus
"Beauty is useless if you care for efficiency, but shockingly useful if you care for lovability. Yes, beauty is a wasteful luxury but ultimately the only thing people will die for, and make pilgrimages to." - Chateaubriand
The sad thing is: This is true for any industry that involves "passion" in your job. Be it media, sports or science.
quick note: you've mentioned that fine dining restaurants can't sustain themselves financially.
I've worked in fine dining for years. It's an inside joke that profit isn't really the point. A lot of times, the restaurants are just being floated by the wealthy people who own them.
I have literally seen a 13000 dollar banquet comped. Not a single person lost their job.
Yeah, 5 dollars an hour plus tip out? Heard. I gave away a 70 dollar ribeye to my busser last night, and still had prime rib and crab-stuffed shrimp for dinner. I'm not even a chef or a manager. That's just what it's like for us. Ain't been to the grocery store for 2 months.
I think there is a third story to add in here. "Delicious Party Pretty Cure" The version of Pretty Cure that came out the same year that The Bear debuted was also about food and grief, but it went at it in such a different way. "Food Brings Smiles" was the tone of the show and while I'm not sure they handled their villain very well, there were parallels being drawn between food and grief of our lead and them. Near the end, due to reasons, the Cures briefly time traveled and Yui got the chance to quietly eat Onigri with her (currently) dead grandmother. And when all food disappeared, it is that same Onigri that ended up saving the day.
It was just interesting how it took the same discussion of food and grief, and just had it be mostly simple food as the main bits.
I just ate at a restaurant that is attempting to be fine dining for the first time and I was really disappointed. It was plated beautifully and the food was well cooked but the presentation made the meal terrible. Putting beautiful little flowers on top that add no flavor but get caught in your throat. Making simple wonderful dishes into complicated small dishes. I definitely see the value in going to a restaurant when everything is perfectly cooked and they understand flavor/texture in an incredible way, but you really don't have to get to the fine dining level to find that kind of food.
I don't really get it, this video is trying to sway us by saying that Salari can't afford to pay for 400+ dollar meals any time but doesn't say that _you aren't necessarily required or mandated to do so_, you can go to those places as fine dining restaurants at *any* given time -- also isn't this indirectly insulting the people who do stay in the field and do the hard work/time/practice, so we should bastardized and devalue their do diligence because of this illusion? Okay so then I would say this: WHERE DOES IT END?.... is he trying to say we should *collapse* these type of establishment w/o understand any of the ramifications or potential consequences in doing so, nor the idea what would happen to all the other dining areas in the same field or above it/below it? So forget about getting any kind of change, let alone the idea of a reality outside of the kitchen as put.
Like I don't understand his goal here, seriously did he said that because he doesn't do fine dining that nobody else shouldn't due to these issues that btw haven't been properly addressed at least not without corporative hand waves. Or what was to stop him for only doing fine dining maybe in 1-3 years for like once inside of a month on a day like a anniversary or even a for a birthday? That's not a problem, plenty of people, those on tight budges have/can save up money to go somewhere that they've wanted to be it for a year/1 day/a few hours... and if it's bad? Well that's *on* *them*. So what? Have people suddenly just committed a crime or made a sin by going to these establishments because it's either too much money for too little? If that's the case then what exactly would Salari suggest to take its place? (solely bread doesn't count)
While it may be true that the West usually enables these bad practices from cult-like food creation culture to insane failure, food critiquing from being reviewed too highly/lowly and non-criticism work ethic avenues that are just enabled, like okay? But that ain't exactly telling us anything new here, the West has been enabling *ALOT* of bad things, if human history is anything, that's been going on for years even not centuries 🤨
And so far I yet to see someone effectively altercate this path actively adopt for change in this regard so that ain't changing any time soon. No content creator, no youtuber or otherwise.
Pain is French and means bread and I you didn't make that joke even once during the video T_T
Shout out to the Brilliant use of the tantalus FFIX-Dawntrail version song in the beginning!
Excellent. You put into words what I have innately understood to be true. Bravo.
Don't add elbow grease into your bread. Butter or olive oil is plenty of fat!
Not my best pun tbh... But I love it😂 😂
But also... can we really say it "turned into that"? Fine dining is just the modern version of haute cuisine and some version of cooks being militarily trained to create huge amounts of artfully prepared, cooked and presented food is probably in existence as long as huge social divides exists in human history. Like, I know medieval cook books (which were not actually cook books in the sense that they told someone how to do stuff, letting someone write such a cook book was just another thing wealthy people did to show their wealth and in that case probably also the creativity and talent of their cooks) with some crazy elaborated recipes. Like putting 7 differently sized birds into each other in very elaborate ways with the smallest bird having an egg in it and then letting someone cut it perfectly so everyone gets their equal share of all the different bird meats and a little bit of the egg as well (meat carving was not the task for chefs, though, it was usually done by one of the guests like a knight or some other noble man as a sort of test, like cutting food exactly right and serving it was considered a sort of art that was necessary to be good at to be well respected among their fellow nobles and failing at it could harm a knight far more than losing a fight). And there is already the concept of a chef who is usually depicted as in a very bad mood and in depictions usually stands in the middle and gives orders to the legions of cooks around him.
I thrive in high stress environments and love the challenge of the kitchen as a chef.
That being said I do feel the toxicity is NOT a part of being a chef, nobody should put up with that. Also you will (most likely) not be a better chef under restaurants like these. You will become the bully or get a burnout and food will become an obsession not a passion.
Fantastic video as per usual. Thanks Salari!
I'm a chef and I came up within the culture you depicted. In some regards, conforming to the brigade is valuable: you learn to contribute to the art effectively, and it trains you to be hard (while filtering out the wimps and the underachievers), but it can be exactly as toxic as you described. I'm also a woman and the misogyny is still present in the industry.
Thanks for sharing this information. As someone who left the field despite loving food and cooking I'm constantly forced to explain myself and worse I get a lot of shit for warning young people about the way the industry functions
I had lots to say but I think "the best thing since sliced bread" is more about the convenience of not having to slice off every slice of bread anymore after the mechanical bread slicer was invented and used to sell presliced bread rather than any comment about how rightfully excellent bread itself is.
Food is meant to be a social experience. The nice thing about that is that it can be incredibly cheap. Fine dining is so far past the point of diminishing returns that it only exists as a novelty, not an elevation of the art.
The way I’ve understood the fundamentals of this videos by staying half-awake during livestreams lol jk
Also, Salari makes great desserts. Join the cooking streams.
as someone with ARFID (an ED that makes eating physically challenging at times; affects appetite and hunger in wild ways) the entire culinary industry and the way most people talk about food is WILD to me lmao. People talk about "enjoying the experience" or wtf ever and I'm like "I'm just trying not to throw up while eating a peanut butter sandwich" skldjfhglksjdfhglksdjfhg
It's also a major factor in why I personally despise "fine" dining - all they do is throw scraps in a pile, sometimes wiht the NASTIEST combos imaginable, and act like they're shitting gold when 99% of their ingredients would make me vomit if I even SMELLED it being in the same room. I don't understand the term "fine dining" because literally everything that fits into "fine" dining is hardly even food. Like forget the serving size! The thing they made! Isn't food! And I don't mean that by what many people seem to think with "it's actually art" like no, becky, you can't just throw 780 different things into a pile and call it "art" all you made is a compost pile, I don't trust nor respect it. Maybe I'm just jaded by poverty but everything about the industry at "high level" seems like it's all fake. There's no way anyone *enjoys* any aspect of "fine" dining, right?????
I don’t actually think The Menu is about the world of fine dining-I think it’s about cinema, with fine dining being a stand in
I think most characters representations are obvious, but most poignantly Tyler represents video essayists and film enthusiasts and the while the film shows nothing but utter contempt for us knows we will still worship it for its craft
And I never felt more attack by a film cause yes, The Menu is lambasting me and I only praise it all the more for this masterful commentary
Old Testament through New Testament, "bread" means "food" in the Bible, and "food" spans both sustenance and sharing.
I think the orginal writer of the bear was replaced off by someone who has different views from his.
Feel better Salari!
If a fine dining establishment cannot survive without free labor, then it doesn't deserve to survive.
I wanted to be a chef growing up then i worked in a few kitchens and was appalled at the culture. I now am a committed home chef who works a normal job.
just need to say that hearing the solution 9 bgm in this video made me think I was hallucinating
I worked for a while as a Kitchen Porter on many restaurants in London, they just fill the ranks with Agency staff and I tell you this. When they wanted to elevate me to Commis Chef they literally told me in the place I trialed for, if you stay here you will leave the whole industry in 6 months, I did not even take 1 to leave xD forever, F hospitality I rather go to my Chinese buffet at least I know Im going to eat until I am full and they do everything by the bulk with less of a feeling of being exploited in a Kitchen.
I wanna express how lovely it is to hear the soft tunes of FFXIV in your videos ^-^
Recognized many beloved night time themes here \o/
I have had the privilage to eat at a number of michelin star restaurants over my life. It's neat, it can be an interedting experience, the food is good. Would I ever go if my meal wasn't being paid for by someone else? Not a chance.
I have gotten so much more from hole-in-the-wall, mom and pops', places. It's never as pretty, and not often as performatove. Hiwever, when you have a local joint, that cares about their food, and likes being a part of the community they operate in, it is just so much better.
Another great movie that explores the same theme of the toll that fine dining takes on the people within the machine, the dehumanization and depersonalization it demands for both people and animals, and the way it affects the people who consume the artistic product they create is ‘Pig’ (2021) starring Nicolas Cage and Nick Wolf. I highly recommend it, especially to anyone who likes very heavy handed storytelling films.
11:50 It’s actually ‘Hegde’ (Haig-ray) and not ‘Hedge’.
For a second I wondered if i had left ffxiv open on my pc and then i realized it was coming from the video lmao
Undue abuse is probably the main culprit, not just in fine dinning, but in everything else.
I get the appeal of going to a fine dining restaurant, but particularly in certain places it would be hard to figure out if something is meant to be eaten (decoration or food, a fun game when you're hungry and there's not a lot of food on the plate)
I once ate a table decoration flower at a perfectly standard Chinese restaurant. I am legally blind, though. I did hear of a friend of a friend (who was at a fine dining restaurant) mistaking his tiny little towelette for a palate cleansing mint. He ate it.
My company once had us go to a fine dining restaurant and overall it was just kinda awkward. Every food had to be accompanied with a detailed speech about it. It was the rare occasion that I left restaurant genuinely hungry. I just hate the idea that just because I was there, I was somehow better, because at the end of the day, that's what it's mostly about. Taking pictures, it's expensive, fancy bragging right.
Vendibus, I thought the same as Salari that in the bear, they would realize the fine art that it is to make a great sandwich.
veen dibus, isn't that the arc of "chef" (2014)? it's been a while but i think so. maybe they didn't want to copy
Vin Deebus should be my new half-elf warrior in D&D ;)
So culinary Uncle Roger may start to review this video! 🤭
Hearing the music while playing FFXIV confused me for a moment, because I was not in any of the areas where those songs play
15:46 Salari opened the reading room
Clocking my Vin Deebus, thank you!
man i hate authoritarianism sm
I haven't seen the Bear yet, but it's giving Whiplash :^)