I don’t know what your personal version of hell is, but one of mine is the idea of being the center of attention in a way I did not personally orchestrate. I remembered this as I read a press release about a new restaurant “experience” at Supper Club in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where ordering the $5,000 “Diamonds are Forever” martini — a martini with a diamond bracelet draped over the lip of the glass — sounds like it unlocks the restaurant’s Final Boss. “Lights dim, marquee lights illuminate the room, service pauses, and the cocktail arrives as a full-scale production designed to create a memory as valuable as the drink itself.” Amazingly, this is far from the only restaurant serving martinis with diamond jewelry.
Luckily, I’m not financially comfortable enough to buy a $5,000 bracelet in any context, much less one in which it’s brought to me swimming in gin and vermouth. But it’s increasingly common to find restaurants touting “experiences,” like tableside martini carts, bread and butter service, or desserts that are set on fire. This makes perfect sense. Take equal parts “the camera eats first” and “every restaurant is on thin ice and willing to try anything to get people in the door,” and you have the perfect conditions for the bread and butter basket becoming a one-act play.
What is a restaurant? Is it a place where you eat, or a place where food is the backdrop to an atmosphere? At this moment, the definition seems to be in flux. Previously, I had at least thought it wasn’t a place where one bought jewelry. But the restaurant grinding to a halt and you being brought a diamond bracelet like the spoiled star of My Super Sweet 16 is being sold as a restaurant experience. And it feels like the apex of a long journey of restaurants attempting to tempt customers with bells and whistles, sometimes literally.
The argument is that when considering a full-service restaurant, diners are no longer tempted by a mere meal, but by the spectacle and personal touch of a cocktail served in a circle of burning embers, something that is impossible to get at home. It’s expensive to get there and it’s expensive to eat there, so the bar to coax one out of the house is just higher. For many diners, good food just isn’t enough. In this economy, we need bread and circuses, dammit.
A lot of what we associate with this kind of service now comes from the grand restaurants of early 20th century France, where service from a Guéridon, or fancy cart, allowed the restaurant control over the dish until the last possible second. You can also see it in service traditions from dim sum to churrasco. Often, it allows servers to collect larger tips and coax onlookers to order more elaborate meals. And I get it. I’m not some heartless Anton Ego immune to the delights of watching my guacamole being made to my liking right next to the table, even if the exact same process would have happened in the kitchen.
There is the thrill of participation, feeling like the audience member chosen to aid in a magician’s trick, watching closely and still winding up shocked at the prestige. Done right, these performances can bring you closer to a dish, allowing you to understand the process that builds a meal into something larger than its parts. The screaming flames of flambéed bananas foster do their work as you smell the rum’s alcohol sting transmuting into caramel. And crucially, the spotlight remains on the server dexterously handling fire in the middle of a crowded room, rather than the guests who ordered it.
But too often, these elaborate experiences seem like a lazy stand-in for actual hospitality. For every thoughtful explanation of the dish being prepared in front of you, there are too many carts clanging up the aisles, upselling you on caviar, or doing something at the table that isn’t actually that impressive to watch and mostly serves to interrupt your conversation. Once, I saw a literal traffic jam as three carts attempted to maneuver past each other, blocking at least one diner from getting to the bathroom. It’s all shock and awe, dazzling you with knives and fire, stripping you of your will to question whether the tiramisu, a dish that famously involves soaking for hours, really needed to be made a la minute (which, yes, has become a thing at quite a few restaurants).
It’s maybe no surprise that, as Americans say they can only really afford to go to a restaurant for special occasions, more otherwise neighborhood restaurants are turning themselves into places for special occasions, fighting tooth and nail to prove that they are indeed “worth it,” whatever it is. On paper it seems like a decent business plan, that any restaurant can be a place where you can enjoy both a casual Tuesday night family dinner and a raucous weekend bachelorette party. But half the work of hospitality is expectation setting, ensuring guests know not just what they’re getting but also how they should be. Should they dress up? Should they expect to be able to carry a quiet conversation? Is it date night or party night? The Olive Garden is not Cafe Zuni is not Eleven Madison Park.
Throwing a bunch of experiences into the mix turns the experience of hospitality into a mullet, an unsettling mash of business and partying, restaurants trying at once to be casual and friendly and also a big top pageant. (I partially blame all you freaks who love when the whole staff comes out to sing you “Happy Birthday.”) You can never let your guard down. Around the corner, a flaming cart might be approaching. With the trend at its peak, I hope that soon the firecracker cocktails and tableside steak performances return to being a sometimes thing. Let a girl eat.
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