21-04-2016

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David Chang of Momofuku announces: stop banning taking pictures of the dishes. A growing trend

There’s been a turnabout, especially in the Angl

There’s been a turnabout, especially in the Anglo-Saxon gourmet scene, where many prestigious restaurants forbade guests to take pictures of their dishes: the capitulation to Instagram seems inevitable. The most famous and recent case is that of David Chang, who was one of the first to say enough at Momofuku Ko

There’s a small viral video which for some time has been appearing in social network timelines, with which, often enough, we spend time publishing frivolous things (too). It shows three Afro-Americans enter a fast-food, order three sandwiches and... when it’s time to eat two of them look at the third one severely as he bites his burger before taking a picture.

It’s an excellent emblem of how the idiosyncrasy of photographing anything served on our table is now global, pervasive, and goes far beyond taking pictures of dishes that really deserve to be remembered: for their beauty and originality, as well as the fact we don’t come across them everyday.

It’s certainly not a coincidence that while there’s been a constant growth in social communication in the past few years, and meanwhile a growth in the eagerness to share everything we do with friends and virtual acquaintances, many fine dining restaurants have taken a rather strict position towards those pulling out a smartphone to photograph the dishes.

It happened in France, for instance. In 2014 chef Alexandre Gauthier at restaurant La Grenouillère, one Michelin star in La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, ended in the newspapers across half the world for what looked like a real manifesto against photos when dining. «There’s a place and time for everything – he said – we do everything to give our clients a unique, special moment. But to do so, we need them to turn off their mobile phones».

Beside him there was also another fellow countryman, tri-starred Gilles Goujon, who from his L'Auberge du Vieux Puits, in Fontjoncouse, piled it on: «If guests post their photos on social networks, all the surprise for our work disappears. Plus the pictures are often of very low quality, and don’t offer a good representation of our dishes».

Yet even before that, in great Anglo-Saxon food capitals like London and New York, notices had appeared in the menus, inviting guests not to take pictures: Gordon Ramsey did so on the banks of the river Thames just like Tom Aikens, in the Big Apple one of the first to put this ban was David Chang, patron chef of the many Momofuku restaurants, as reported in January 2013 in this post on the New York Times. In particular, the ban to guest-photographers appeared when he opened the small Momofuku Ko, in 2008.

One of the many satirical photos on the theme to be found online

One of the many satirical photos on the theme to be found online

And it’s exactly there that, as announced by Chang himself in this article written for American website Lucky Peach, the ban has been removed. Reading the words of the famous chef, one can understand the ban to photographs was caused by the tendency of some clients to transform their table into a real set. With lights, flashes, whole minutes spent building the perfect scene. An attitude which, especially in a small restaurant, would hassle the service and the other guests, on top of ruining the quality of the food, prepared with great care.

Yet Chang admits he didn’t consider how this ban could annoy his guests: «I wasn’t thinking about them. I was thinking about our perspective as chefs and owners, about being judged on how good the food tasted, not how it looked». There has been a positive side though: «We were in a bubble for seven years. No one knew what we were making. There was a sense of excitement; there was a sense of journey; there was a sense of discovery».

David Chang

David Chang

Enough now: while moving to a new, larger location, the light has turned green for amateur photographers. This is also thanks to the technological development that allows “food porn” enthusiasts to take nice photos quickly, using their phone. There’s a turnabout in the trend, and not only for Chang: many chefs are surrendering to Instagram and other social platforms. It’s the same for Simon Rogan, patron chef at Fera at Claridge's in London, who tells the Evening Standard: «Social media changed everything. It’s acceptable now to pull out your phone and start taking pictures. Ten years ago that just wasn’t OK».

How about Italy? Over here there has probably never been such a unanimous front in the past against photos when dining, thus we cannot speak of a real turnabout. Yet it will be interesting to go into detail, listening to the point of view of those directly interested. This is what we’ll soon do on these very pages.

1 – to be continued


Dal Mondo

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by

Niccolò Vecchia

Journalist, based in Milan. At 8 years old, he received a Springsteen record as a gift, and nothing was the same since. Music and food are his passions. Author and broadcaster at Radio Popolare since 1997, since 2014 he became part of the staff of Identità Golose 
Instagram: @NiccoloVecchia

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