Supposedly their “tickets” to the dinners are NFT’s…?
I’m sure they will do very well here in L.A., but the whole ethos and messaging about “disrupting the fine dining scene” and “creating a community here in LA” kind of contradicts the fact that only the ultra wealthy will be able to eat their food.
Honestly, I would rather fly to a different country than have a special meal here at these prices. It’s mind blowing. Will their food be 3-4x better than Providence? Hayato? Kaneyoshi? etc.? It really doesn’t warrant spending that much unless you have a whole lot of $$$$ to blow.
Edit: I see alcohol is included, so if there selection consists of insanely expensive wines, whiskies, etc and you’re extremely into that sort of thing, I could understand why it’s $1500 for a meal there. Still crazy though
I’d want a lot more information than that. How would one determine that it wasn’t a complete rip-off? If it was called “Trump something something”, then we could be sure.
Price: $12,000 USD (incl. taxes & fees) for parties up to 8 guests.
Seems similar to high-end catering / private chef only they provide the venue as well. Didn’t someone recently post about a catered dinner with wagyu, caviar, and truffles that was around $1,000 a head?
the idea of creating a community/disrupting fine dining scene doesn’t have to do with the community of people eating, it has to do with the community of chefs/staff that work with them.
Well paid staff, physical/mental health resources, incubator labs to work on their craft, normal hours per week worked. More disruptive in the sense the environment they are providing for their staff to flourish down the line.
They explained the ethos to me a few months ago so it’s not entirely fresh in my mind, but that’s the basic jist of it.
Price is certainly high, but these private party meals with all star chefs are pretty expensive. There’s quite a few famous chefs that are talked about on this board that do similar and have similar pricing - it’s just not publicized they are even doing these private meals unless you are going to the dinner.
To my knowledge, Habitue and Shoku are pretty much the only two that even advertise that they do dinners.
I guess habitue was ready to expand clientele? It’s still a screening process from what I understand. There’s only four dates and I’m sure multiple parties will apply.
That makes sense. I guess these all star chef’s have found out that it is much more profitable to do this business model than work for someone else at a restaurant (thinking of Aitor Zabala/ Jose Andres) or own their own restaurant and all the costs associated with it.
I know I’m going on a rant, and I’m all for chefs/cooks getting better wages, access to mental health, better working conditions, etc, but is this all at the cost of the diners (which seems to be the case here)? Because other than this model specifically for the ultra wealthy, it would take generations to change the current expectations people have when it comes to the cost of dining out. I would assume 95% of people will simply cook at home if the entire industry got on board and a “normal” meal would be in the hundreds of dollars range. Would you go to Mcdonald’s if a burger became $25? Or your local taco vendor would charge $12 a taco? What if your typical run of the mill Thai spot would be $300 for two people? Shunji would charge $700 a person…I don’t have the answer, but It’s an interesting question for sure.
These private dinners are the equivalent of pagani/bugatti/koenigsegg in the auto world. Huge flexes for those that can afford them, rarely heard about or seen, and specifically for people with more money than they know what to do with.
If anyone on this board goes, I would be interested to see what it’s all about.
I can only imagine that their uni was hand fed only the finest of kelp and caressed throughout its life,
the wagyu was flown from Japan on a supersonic jet minutes after it was slaughtered,
and that the views of LA are equivalent to seeing the 7 wonders of the world
It is the same reason why foie gras is “banned” in California and we don’t have a more fundamental discussion about places like Cowschwitz and procedures around Cafo - it is easy to pinpoint to a very specific “problem” and pretend that you are doing something but actually this way you are only avoiding serious thoughts and actions. Do I believe these chefs want to change the general restaurant industry - No. Do they want to find a business model that gives them a constant money flow and a chance to build something more sustainable for them - Yes (and they should try to be honest about it and don’t BS about changing the industry with a business model that 2 year old smoking weed would recognize as unsustainable at scale)
And they shouldn’t sit together with VC guys so often as they use the same typical BS buzz word bingo I am used from biotech VC guys
