A recent Comment is Free piece suggested that expensive London restaurants are extravagant, luxurious and ‘a grotesque display of opulence.’ The writer (a restaurant reviewer for The Spectator) thinks, or at least writes, that Novikov, Fable and Chiltern Firehouse are just a ‘tax-efficient playpen’ catering exclusively to the ‘international rich’. Quite frankly, I don’t really care. I have absolutely no right to vent hatred onto expensive restaurants or their customers just because they happen to be in a part of the country that’s more economically successful and diverse than mine, or because they’re richer than me. I respect the rights of restaurant reviewers to hold an opinion about something other than the food and service somewhere and I strongly believe that food has inherent social, hence political, qualities. What gets to me is when people who eat, for free and regularly, in such restaurants decry them as all being uncaring, hateful cathedrals of sin.
As the article’s a typically sanctimonious CiF rich-hating populist whine, I expected the comments to be broadly split between assertion, intolerance and bigotry – and I was right, as one dived in, accusing a restaurant of being a ‘tax-pimped wankpit.’ Well, congratulations for getting so worked up over expense-funded clickbait. To use a CiF favourite, the ‘doublethink’ the writer demonstrates is astounding. Perhaps, if she feels so strongly, she could potentially stop going? Might she be able to restrain herself from having others pay for her to eat the food of the 1%? Could she, shock horror, possibly see that going on to attack restaurants has a bearing on her reviews of the same place? Because I’m not prepared to cross paywalls to read more, I can’t quote her reviews. I would happily lay a fiver on none of them containing something like ‘the foie gras and gold leaf burger was a masterstroke in progressive political dining; a cheap, blue-collar food garnished with the capitalist and inhumane and wrapped in a New Statesman or Nietzsche. Your call.’ Equally, please let me know if her bit about ‘Harry’s Bar, where a slice of cake costs €32 – and is worth it’ at any point mentions ‘in a global financial crisis where the wealthiest feel recovery before everyone else, the joy of seeing Venetian fishing crew on the next table, necking Bellinis in dirty sweaters and spending a fortune on some air wrapped in calories speaks volumes about the financial situation and freedom from body image pressure we’ve achieved.’
Avoiding accusations of hypocrisy when your work is posted online and comment sections attached is probably impossible. The human mind is too confused and our thoughts too nebulous, and there are some messed up people out there who do nothing but assault the opinions and articles of online writers. I quite like how the writer tries to include social issues into her view of dining, and respect her for being an online mercenary, writing whatever for whoever if they pay. However, like it or not, readers will believe that an article reflects the true beliefs of the writer, and the reader is the one with the money. Until we change and start to like articles for the quality of the writing itself, and not the convictions of the author, maybe arguing two sides on two fronts is a bad idea. Comment may be free, but you have to earn integrity.
As the article’s a typically sanctimonious CiF rich-hating populist whine, I expected the comments to be broadly split between assertion, intolerance and bigotry – and I was right, as one dived in, accusing a restaurant of being a ‘tax-pimped wankpit.’ Well, congratulations for getting so worked up over expense-funded clickbait. To use a CiF favourite, the ‘doublethink’ the writer demonstrates is astounding. Perhaps, if she feels so strongly, she could potentially stop going? Might she be able to restrain herself from having others pay for her to eat the food of the 1%? Could she, shock horror, possibly see that going on to attack restaurants has a bearing on her reviews of the same place? Because I’m not prepared to cross paywalls to read more, I can’t quote her reviews. I would happily lay a fiver on none of them containing something like ‘the foie gras and gold leaf burger was a masterstroke in progressive political dining; a cheap, blue-collar food garnished with the capitalist and inhumane and wrapped in a New Statesman or Nietzsche. Your call.’ Equally, please let me know if her bit about ‘Harry’s Bar, where a slice of cake costs €32 – and is worth it’ at any point mentions ‘in a global financial crisis where the wealthiest feel recovery before everyone else, the joy of seeing Venetian fishing crew on the next table, necking Bellinis in dirty sweaters and spending a fortune on some air wrapped in calories speaks volumes about the financial situation and freedom from body image pressure we’ve achieved.’
Avoiding accusations of hypocrisy when your work is posted online and comment sections attached is probably impossible. The human mind is too confused and our thoughts too nebulous, and there are some messed up people out there who do nothing but assault the opinions and articles of online writers. I quite like how the writer tries to include social issues into her view of dining, and respect her for being an online mercenary, writing whatever for whoever if they pay. However, like it or not, readers will believe that an article reflects the true beliefs of the writer, and the reader is the one with the money. Until we change and start to like articles for the quality of the writing itself, and not the convictions of the author, maybe arguing two sides on two fronts is a bad idea. Comment may be free, but you have to earn integrity.