Style over substance: Do celebrity chefs matter?
The G9 chefs had been chosen by Ferran Adria, of the now-defunct, triple-Michelin-starred Spanish restaurant elBulli, and the group had been scheduled to give a presentation on the topic of gastronomy and social responsibility.
The event drew a surprisingly large crowd.
After last year's G9 meeting, in Lima, Peru, a scathing piece by British food writer Jay Rayner described the group's mission statement, entitled "Open letter to the chefs of tomorrow," as "an act of ... such ludicrous self-regard you'd need an oxygen tank to get your breath back."
That pronouncement delivered a satisfying dose of schadenfreude to those exasperated by the cult of the celebrity chef.
Perhaps as a result of this and other criticisms, the presentation I saw in Tokyo was modest but somewhat unfocused.
The chefs talked about food as a medium of cultural exchange, expressed hope for the recovery of areas in northeastern Japan affected by the March 2011 earthquake and lauded developments in sustainable agriculture made in Japan.
All hot air?
It makes sense that chefs should want to promote sustainable and ethical food production, biodiversity and environmental conservation, but what had sparked the negative reactions in Lima?
Maybe it was the reference to being a "bridge with other countries," or the assertion that chefs "practice a profession that has the power to affect the socioeconomic development of others" that prompted the world to roll its eyes.
Creative types make overblown statements about their contributions to society all the time, and the idea that star chefs have big egos is news to no one.
The thing that rankled was the elitism associated with the industry as a whole, and the realm of fine dining in particular.
"Food at that level doesn't connect with everyday lives," a friend told me when I brought up the question of whether top chefs can bring about shifts in public consciousness.
Another friend was more dismissive: "Why do people care about what chefs think anyway?"
Reality check
Thanks to their strong presence in the mass media, chefs now enjoy an unprecedented level of fame.
Reality TV shows such as "Top Chef" and "MasterChef" have ushered the profession into popular culture.
There are countless blogs devoted to food, and food-centric websites such as Eater get millions of hits per day.
"Chefs today have become celebrities in the same way that supermodels were celebrities in the 1990s," Brazilian chef Alex Atala told me.
In many ways, it's an apt comparison. A number of similarities exist between the worlds of fashion and food.
Food, like fashion, has become highly fetishized, styled and photographed for seductive spreads in glossy magazines.
The parallels are closer between high fashion and haute cuisine: both are born of opulence, and both rely on a niche audience of wealthy patrons for their survival.
More on CNN: Ferran Adria, the wizard of gastronomy
Comments