Yesterday I got my copy of the periodic Zagat Buzz email newsletter, and one of the articles linked to is an interesting report on what chefs would like to see more and less of in the new year. You can read it here.

Chefs seem to like the idea of open kitchens, viewable from the dining area, which is the ultimate in transparency. They use words like intimate and homey to describe such kitchens. Sounds great to me.

Overall chefs seem to be looking for more authenticity in both raw materials and their preparation. Almost to a person they say they’ve had enough of “molecular gastronomy,” of which Ferran Adrià, Heston Blumenthal, Wylie Dufresne and Grant Achatz are considered the more notable practitioners, even if they don’t embrace the term itself.

As an aside, here’s an open letter from 2006 from two of the aforementioned chefs, Adrià of El Bulli and Blumenthal of the Fat Duck, as well as Thomas Keller and Harold McGee. It’s called Statement on the ‘new cookery’ and it’s good reading. In fact the parallels to winemaking are striking, but that’s not the point of this post.

The point of this post is this quote from Chef Roland Passot:

What You’d Like to See Less Of in 2008: “Blogging by non-food professionals/experts: I’d rather see more accomplished food writers/critics who I respect reporting on food and dining. Let the professionals do their work. Blogging these days is often too influential in negative ways for chefs and restaurateurs.”
– Roland Passot, chef-owner, SF’s La Folie, among others

It’s mind boggling, this quote.

Chef Passot is an accomplished restaurateur, and La Folie has earned great reviews from Zagat for years. Zagat, if you’re unaware, is a rating guide created by aggregating the reviews of regular, everyday patrons. Micro-bloggers if you will. And, amazingly, Passot throws them all under the bus.

He seems to be concerned with two things: people writing about food whom he doesn’t respect, and negative reviews that harm restaurateurs.

To the first concern, which is undeniably elitist, I can only say blame the internets. There is no putting this genie back in the bottle, so best to get used to it, if not embrace it.

But even if you are an unrepentant elitist, things aren’t really all that bad.

Anyone can start a blog, that’s true. You don’t need to know any particular skill – other than how to wield a knife and fork without dropping your food on the ground. But no one, and this is key, is forced to read a blog about food reviews. If such a blog has any influence at all given the incredible, ongoing, daily competition for our attention, it has earned that influence. The market for attention is remarkably efficient. Anyone who has bootstrapped their way to influence, whether online or off, deserves respect.

The broader point is that to spread word of mouth for your restaurant or winery you should be encouraging people to talk more (hopefully even a little about you), not less. Every happy customer (which, hopefully, is most of them) should be trained how to write a review or post a bulletin board topic before they are allowed to leave your dining or tasting room! After all, their review might end up being aggregated in Zagat some day.

Which brings me to Passot’s second concern: negative comments. There is nothing to fear from the masses if your motives are correctly aligned with your customers needs. If the talk happens to be negative, this is valuable feedback. Fix the problems and get better at treating normal people well. The talk will improve, I assure you.

I think most people get this by now. Those that don’t are starting to stand out like a fart in a warm car.