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Nothing is Cooler Than Going Out to Dinner

Five takeaways:

1. This fascinating article explores evolution in the cultural prominence of restaurants, and status-based restaurant culture– a shift that begins in the 1980s and has been on the rise in the social media age.
2. Mull argues that the restaurant world has been completely shaken by social media, which fuels human competitiveness and materialism. Restaurants become landmarks through social media hype and in many cases begin designing their menus and interiors to cater to the Instagram set. The hype leads to reservations becoming harder and harder to get, which in turn leads to more hype.
3. Restaurants did not always have this place in our culture. Before, restaurants had been viewed as a “side dish” to a night out at the theater or the movies. The 80s made them the “main dish,” as celebrity chefs like Wolfang Puck rode to fame and turned their restaurants into destinations.
4. In the 2000s, writer and television host Anthony Bourdain asserted to the public that restaurants were themselves important cultural hubs, where worlds and cultures could be richly experienced. Restaurants became a part of being a cultured citizen of the world.
5. Mull notes that the result has been a “reservation frenzy” in which people are desperate to get reservations at hot new restaurants. She also notes that this frenzy is less about the food than it is about status: “What matters is putting your butt in the seat that everyone else wanted.’

From Amanda Mull at The Atlantic:
Read the whole story.

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