The New Chef: Now you see them...Part I

photo by letsfrolictogether

The best ones fly under the radar.  If you look carefully, open your eyes with a Matrix-like focus, you will see the invites in your e-mailboxes and your Facebook feeds.  Secret little gatherings of people for dinners and after parties all ending with the warning (?) that these events are "invite-only".  Huge portions, exotic foods, multiple courses and the best ones...the best ones have some pretty exotic locales.  People are liking eating strange foods in strange places with strange people and there are many people out there who are all too happy to accommodate them by creating culinary venues that are there one moment and gone the next.

Cellar Door is a supper club in San Diego that maxes out at about 12 guests.  They are a couple team who enjoys just making food for friends.  They have a following of a couple thousand people who clamor to get in when they do one.  For a little while and for a simple donation people are treated to delicious meals with large portions, multiple courses and interesting, new people in a private setting.  It is e-mail invite only and more often than not, you have to know someone who knows someone.

photo by letsfrolictogether

Pop-ups are a broad term that I have been throwing about, but in reality there are shades of difference in a lot of these unique dining experiences.  The one thing that binds them, however, is the fact that they are not "brick and mortar" spaces.  This means that these are singular events that take place in a space and then are gone.

The upside to this is that there are a lot unique foods being served out there.  Most brick and mortar restaurants have to set up for large crowds day after day, night after night.  They are forced to ride a line of being prepared for a bunch of people ordering the same thing or with few derivations.  The pop up only has to do this one night.  Pop-ups can get away with kicking it up a notch.  There is no need hold anything back when you are doing a pop up.

The Food Truck...
The brick and mortar restaurant is not now nor will it ever be obsolete.  We are just looking at different food delivery systems and that requires some outside of the box thinking.  Or maybe just thinking in another box?  We live in an increasingly interior world and a lot of people choose not to go out and are getting tired of pizza and Chinese food.

It is amazing to see the world and America in particular getting deeper and deeper into the food truck craze.  Smaller menu, faster service, more "intense" food on the go is garnering a significant sector of the market and making itself appealing to talented people who had to face the huge barrier to entry...MONEY.

Chris and Chelsea have decided to go the Kickstarter (you can support them here) route to get funding for their idea.  The great part about their idea is that where others would have needed a few more thousand dollars to get into a building. they are able to do what they do on the road.  They can come to their customer and leave only tire prints when they leave.

Food trucks are grabbing and holding that ground that had once belonged to fast food places while simultaneously shrugging off the notion that they are somehow less than a brick and mortar restaurant.  Some are doing a whole lot with a very little and filling the gaps that a lot of places are leaving behind in the name of catering to larger crowds.

What does all of this mean?  Where are they going?  Are these things futuristic or are they throw backs to the past.  I like to think that they are the solutions to problems that we have seen all over and the inevitable result of people beginning to take their food seriously.

I decided to throw this blog post out there because every so often, something catches my eye and makes me wonder where we are headed and whether we will continue to solve the problems.  What does food scene 2020 look like?