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0:43

Hey everyone, you're listening to It's

0:45

Been a Minute from NPR. I'm Brittany

0:47

Luce. One thing I

0:49

like to say is that food is an easy

0:52

way to read the culture around us. Because

0:55

almost everyone eats, but how

0:57

we eat says more about our values,

1:00

our planet, and our economic realities

1:02

than we realize. And some recent

1:04

food news headlines have had me

1:06

wondering,

1:07

what is up with restaurants

1:09

these days? First, there's the news

1:12

of two fine dining heavyweights closing

1:14

their doors. And then there

1:16

was a showdown in Atlanta. The

1:19

same week Atlanta got its first ever

1:22

Michelin guide. Almost nobody

1:24

talked about it. That's because that

1:26

news was swallowed up by a visiting

1:29

TikTok food critic, whose reviews

1:31

sparked fierce debates and even

1:34

death threats. This may be

1:36

a little controversial, but I feel like

1:39

not since Salt Bay has someone shaken

1:41

up the food world quite like this.

1:44

And all this has had me wondering if there's

1:46

something in the water. If the changes

1:49

in fine dining mixed with the intense

1:51

interest in the fast casual food scene means

1:54

something deeper. So today on

1:56

the show, I want to get behind these headlines

1:58

and find out why.

5:35

restaurant

6:00

is good, then these places get mobbed,

6:02

these places become really, really

6:07

popular. So he has this

6:09

huge following and this real power

6:12

to influence where people are eating. I

6:15

saw

6:17

bits about Keith Lee on

6:19

national morning news programs.

6:22

This has become a really big thing. And

6:24

everybody's following what's happening with

6:26

him in Atlanta. It eventually devolved

6:28

and got so wild that he and his family and some

6:31

of the restaurant owners were getting death threats.

6:33

It was wild. Right. There

6:35

was a whole thing where one of the restaurants that

6:37

he went to had a very similar

6:40

name to another restaurant. So

6:42

then people started going on this

6:44

other restaurant's Yelp page

6:47

or something, a restaurant he didn't even visit and

6:49

started harassing them and leaving

6:52

one-star reviews and DMing them.

6:55

And he had to go on and be like, I never

6:57

went here. Everybody cut this out,

6:59

especially for this place that I literally

7:01

did not go to and you just got the wrong

7:03

name.

7:04

It's

7:06

too much. I'm like, I don't know. It was like lethal

7:08

out here with these Atlanta

7:09

restaurants. But

7:12

he's doing a very specific type of

7:14

food criticism though. And I think he's kind of like,

7:16

it's become somewhat popular now. And

7:19

he's definitely, I think

7:20

become royalty in

7:22

that space of the

7:25

every man who is getting

7:28

some sort of accessible food and

7:31

really focusing on the flavor

7:33

of the food and the service

7:36

that he received and really

7:39

giving people sort of a very straightforward,

7:42

should I eat here or not? Like, should I get pizza from

7:44

this place or not? Should I eat these chicken wings or not?

7:47

Which is actually quite helpful

7:49

in a certain way. To me, it

7:52

feels kind of like new

7:55

for food media to a certain extent, but

7:57

you see his style of food

7:59

criticism.

9:58

different

10:01

extraordinary meal. Hmm that's

10:04

so interesting. I did not expect the Ruth Reischl

10:06

to Keith

10:07

Lee.

10:09

No there's a lot

10:11

there's a lot of history. Hmm it's

10:13

also notable that like all this Keith

10:16

Lee news

10:17

happened at the exact same time

10:19

like the exact same week that

10:22

the Michelin guy dropped its first ever hide

10:24

in Atlanta. That was

10:26

essentially drowned out by

10:29

Keith Lee. What

10:32

do you make of that? People got

10:34

a lot of different opinions about Michelin. When most

10:36

people think about Michelin they

10:39

think of really high-end

10:41

fine dining and that's not necessarily

10:44

what Michelin is always commenting on. They

10:46

talk a lot about not everything

10:48

that they review is a $400 tasting

10:51

menu but I do think that's still the association

10:54

a lot of people have with it. So

10:57

I think for most people who are

11:00

not eating that way the

11:03

idea of Michelin coming to their city

11:05

is just not something

11:07

that feels relevant to their day-to-day eating

11:10

life. Whereas Keith Lee

11:12

the sort of places that he goes to the

11:14

restaurants that he focuses on the

11:17

kind of eating that he focuses on this

11:20

is stuff that a lot of people are eating

11:23

like multiple times a week. If

11:25

you're sitting and eating out of a clamshell

11:28

in your car you're

11:30

eating stuff that's affordable and that you can get to

11:32

go. This is how a lot of people

11:35

eat more often than they eat at some

11:38

wildly expensive Omakase restaurant. Right

11:41

yeah I mean Keith Lee's bread and butter

11:43

is like takeout food. You

11:45

see him eating it in his car all of the

11:47

time. For most of his car or eating it like

11:50

on a couch or something like that like in his house. Right

11:52

exactly. Very much like how come

11:55

Friday night how many of my husband

11:58

are eating typically. And

12:00

like you said, it's getting these takeout

12:02

orders. Often it's on the go.

12:04

And I think that especially the economy

12:06

being what it is, you have

12:09

a lot of people who are

12:10

deciding

12:11

that they would rather go

12:14

somewhere

12:15

where

12:16

they know exactly what they're gonna get

12:19

than go somewhere and take that

12:21

risk and maybe be let

12:24

down. My producer, Alexis,

12:26

has this theory that part of why, reviewing

12:29

this style of restaurant and the way that he does has

12:32

gained so much popularity is that wages

12:34

are down, prices are up.

12:36

And people really want something affordable

12:39

and reliable. Do you see that as part

12:42

of what could be happening here? And have

12:44

we seen

12:45

that

12:46

before happen with popularity

12:49

in food trends? You're right, I think especially

12:51

now, I think the government has not officially

12:53

said that we're in a recession, but it's very clear

12:56

that people are feeling- Something's happening. Every

12:59

day there are layoffs somewhere. Every day eggs

13:01

are $11. Whatever

13:05

he takes. They were

13:07

literally $11 when I went to the store two days

13:09

ago. And I was like, what? So it is

13:11

interesting to see in terms of full service dining, these

13:16

sit-down restaurants that have everything, where

13:19

these trends go. And so in 2008, 2009, when

13:21

we had the recession, you

13:25

saw this really interesting story about the

13:27

recession, you saw this big boom in

13:30

gastropubs. And this was all about

13:33

meaty, rich, quote

13:36

unquote comfort food that

13:38

was still pretty affordable. Maybe

13:41

it had one luxurious ingredient

13:43

in it, right? I feel truffle fries is something you

13:45

saw everywhere. Lobster mac

13:47

and cheese or burgers

13:50

with bacon, or with a ton

13:53

of cheese on them, or brioche

13:55

buns, you know, it was always stuff like that. And

13:58

yeah, you know, it's- that burger

14:00

is more than a burger you get at McDonald's, but

14:03

it is certainly still affordable

14:06

for a night out. You want food

14:08

that you know

14:11

and you like and

14:13

that you don't have to pay that

14:15

much money for. And so that

14:17

really became a huge

14:19

thing. There was also part of it that had to

14:21

do with, you know, a big tradition.

14:24

That's a nose to tail dining

14:26

sort of became really popular too. And

14:30

a lot of that was cost saving stuff

14:32

too, where they're saying, hey, we don't want to waste

14:35

any of this food that costs

14:37

the restaurant money, which then costs the

14:39

customers money. So let's

14:41

do something with liver and then we can sort

14:43

of pass those savings on. Like

14:46

with most trends, you do something

14:48

for a couple years and then people get

14:51

used to it. They get bored with it. They want something

14:53

new, you know, feel like you look at jeans

14:55

and it's like they're skinny, they're wide, they're skinny,

14:57

they're wide, they're up to your belly button, they're down to your

14:59

butt. Like, you know, this is

15:01

just how it works. Coming out of that

15:03

recession, coming out of that trend,

15:06

you had people saying, all right, we're used

15:09

to this style of restaurant. Maybe

15:11

there's something else. And you

15:14

really did see a rise in I think

15:16

what a lot of people jokingly call tweezer

15:18

food of these

15:21

fancy tasting menus and these really

15:23

delicate clading that

15:26

require the tweezers to

15:28

get in there exactly. Like

15:30

all this stuff to just sort of get in there

15:33

and make it look really fancy.

15:35

And so now,

15:38

again, because something is up with the economy,

15:40

but also I think because trends

15:43

just naturally swing back and forth,

15:46

you are starting to see

15:48

a lot more restaurants that are harkening

15:52

back to that gastropub tradition.

15:55

There's something I wrote recently

15:57

where you look at a

15:58

lot

15:59

around the country, a lot of them have

16:02

chicken liver mousse toasts.

16:05

And

16:06

it's everywhere. Everywhere. Places

16:08

where I'm like, I

16:09

wouldn't expect this. You're not French. I wasn't

16:11

thinking. And you're definitely seeing

16:15

fancy burgers again. Fancy fried

16:17

chicken. I was going to say, there's chicken sandwiches

16:19

everywhere. I turn around, there's a chicken sandwich.

16:22

Chicken sandwiches everywhere.

16:24

And really going back to

16:26

that idea of, this is just

16:28

a pub where you can hang out and

16:31

it's not going to be that big of

16:33

a deal. And even if you

16:35

don't have a lot of money right now, you

16:38

can treat yourself to this and you're not going to be

16:40

out a month's rent.

16:41

Coming

16:45

up, Jaya and I talk about what's going

16:47

on in the world of fine dining and

16:49

how pork belly became a must-have

16:52

ingredient on menus. It's delicious,

16:55

but big pork had other motivations

16:57

for getting the bacon. Stay tuned.

17:03

This message comes from NPR sponsor

17:06

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family-friendly fun for all ages at

18:25

amazon.com. As I was

18:28

talking with my producer Alexis, we were preparing

18:30

to talk to

18:31

you. I shared something with her that I tend

18:33

to think about,

18:34

specifically food and fashion. I think of them

18:36

as like

18:38

the two things that you can

18:40

look at if you want

18:42

to understand the world around you. Because I think that

18:44

like getting dressed and

18:46

eating or having the inability

18:49

to do those things, right? They

18:52

are unavoidable. Like those are things

18:54

that are unavoidable for every person every

18:57

day. You're going to put something on and

18:59

you are going to eat. And if

19:01

you don't, that's also something to contend

19:04

with, right? Yeah. I wonder, what does the average

19:06

person not realize about what food

19:09

indicates about us as a culture? Oh

19:12

wow. What a question. It's

19:15

sort of that none of this is necessarily

19:18

an accident. One thing

19:20

that I always think about, bringing

19:24

it back to the 2008-2009 recession dining. You

19:28

probably remember, but for anybody who wasn't

19:31

an adult when this is happening, there

19:33

was the big pork belly

19:35

boom.

19:36

Oh, yes, I remember. Baking everywhere,

19:39

pork belly everywhere.

19:41

That

19:42

happened because

19:44

the pork industry had

19:47

spent a previous amount of time

19:50

selling us on lean pork. Do

19:52

you remember the slogan, pork, the other

19:55

white meat? The other white meat. Yeah, I remember that from

19:57

the 90s. Yeah. On pork loin,

19:59

on cut. of pork that were very

20:02

lean, that sort of maybe

20:04

felt like chicken, everything like

20:06

that. So there were these huge

20:09

reserves of pork

20:11

belly. And then basically,

20:14

they had to offload this somehow.

20:17

Oh my gosh. And so pork belly

20:19

became incredibly cheap. And

20:22

then everybody starts

20:24

cooking with pork belly, everyone starts cooking with bacon

20:26

because it is the cheapest thing that you can get

20:28

at the grocery store. That

20:34

is the sort of stuff that drives what

20:36

we're seeing on the menu. This

20:38

is another big headline in the restaurant

20:40

world that I want to talk about very recently. Celebrity

20:42

chef David Chang closed his flagship

20:44

restaurant, the upscale

20:45

Momofuku Co. And

20:48

it's been announced that Noma, one

20:50

of the fanciest

20:52

of fancy restaurants in the world,

20:54

the restaurant that

20:57

it seems

20:58

the film, the menu

20:59

was based off

21:01

of is closing its doors in 2024. I wonder what's

21:04

going on with the world of fancy

21:06

food? What do you think is behind these closures? Does

21:09

it feel connected to some of the things that we just discussed?

21:12

I think some of it is and some of it isn't,

21:14

which isn't a satisfying answer. But I

21:16

think there are a lot of things at

21:18

play for a place like Noma.

21:20

Noma has gone through a bunch of iterations

21:23

in its lifetime. And I think

21:26

that Renee Redzepi is somebody who

21:28

has been constantly changing,

21:30

constantly trying new things. They're

21:33

closing the restaurant in

21:35

Copenhagen, and pivoting

21:38

to sort of a direct consumer brand.

21:40

They're making like vinegars and

21:43

hot sauces and things like

21:45

that. Momofuku

21:48

now also has a direct consumer

21:50

line, you know, they sell chili crisp, I

21:52

think they sell instant noodles. So

21:55

I do think that once you have an established

21:57

brand like that, it becomes really

22:00

enticing for a lot of people who are like, I was

22:02

never going to go to Copenhagen and be able to

22:05

get a

22:05

reservation at Noma.

22:07

But

22:08

for not that much money, I can have

22:10

a piece of this in my home kitchen.

22:13

And I think that's really appealing. So

22:15

I certainly think that a lot of these chefs

22:18

and restaurateurs have that in

22:20

mind when they're thinking about what they want to

22:22

do. But I also think that

22:24

you do have a lot of chefs out there who

22:28

always just want to try new things.

22:31

And then I feel like for every Noma

22:34

and Mamofuku co that has closed

22:36

recently, there is another

22:39

fine dining establishment that's

22:41

open. You know, we're kind of like seeing

22:44

the rise of the

22:47

fast casual chain. And

22:49

they seem to me

22:51

to be expanding their reach. Like, am I wrong

22:53

in that? Or is that like, no,

22:55

they absolutely are. There was

22:57

something recently where Sweetgreen

23:01

expanded their menu to include

23:03

sort of these dinner plates that are

23:05

larger servings of protein and

23:07

grains. And they're explicitly

23:09

said that they were trying

23:10

to get into the dinner market.

23:12

And I think it's something, especially

23:15

with the effects of the pandemic with maybe fewer

23:18

people going into offices in

23:20

their cities, downtowns, I

23:22

think you have places like Sweetgreen thinking, how

23:25

are we going to keep people eating here

23:27

when maybe the main thing that was driving them

23:29

here doesn't look the same as it

23:31

did three years ago. I'm curious,

23:34

in your professional opinion, are there

23:36

any other restaurant

23:38

or like American dining

23:41

trends in this vein that

23:43

you're seeing

23:44

that are worth noting

23:45

right now? Yeah, you

23:48

know, I think one thing that I am seeing,

23:50

which does sort of tie together all these ideas

23:53

of casual and fine dining

23:55

and are you less

23:58

expensive, more expensive? is you

24:01

do have some restaurants opening up right

24:03

now that are really trying to do

24:05

it all and Trying to

24:07

be everything to everyone, you

24:09

know, maybe they have a $15 pasta on there But

24:13

there is an option somewhere in the corner

24:15

to add $75 worth

24:17

of caviar to whatever you're eating and

24:21

you have a lot of these restaurants now that

24:24

are sort of saying We want to

24:26

be your weeknight go-to for you to bring your

24:28

kids and just hang out but we

24:30

also want to be the place that you come

24:33

and Celebrate your birthday with 80 your

24:35

friends if you want to rent out our private back room

24:38

and we want to be the place that you come on

24:41

a date night or for dessert

24:43

and a drink at the bar or You

24:46

bring your parents just every single

24:48

need that you could have for a restaurant.

24:51

They're trying to cover Yeah,

24:54

I think this makes a lot of sense,

24:56

you know, especially economically where

25:00

in order to make rent you really do have

25:02

to be able to serve

25:04

a

25:05

Wide wide group customer

25:07

base. Yeah. Yeah, whether a lot of these

25:09

restaurants are pulling that off. I

25:12

don't know That remains to be

25:14

seen Giant

25:16

thank you so much for coming on the show. This was so

25:18

much fun to talk about. Thank you so much

25:21

for having me That was

25:23

Jaya Saxena

25:23

correspondent at eater

25:26

This episode of it's been a minute was produced by

25:29

Alexis Williams. Our editor

25:31

is Jessica Placzak engineering

25:33

support came from Maggie Luzhar our

25:36

executive producer is Verlyn Williams

25:39

our VP of programming is Yolanda Sangwenny

25:42

our senior VP of programming is Anya

25:44

Grunman All right, that's all

25:46

for this episode of it's been a minute from

25:48

NPR. I'm Brittany Neesh. Thank

25:50

you You

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