In Sunday's New York Times Magazine, there was an interesting article by Mark Bittman about the franchising of great chefs. The article covers how world renowned chefs, including Alain Ducasse, Joël Robuchon and Daniel Boulud, are expanding into restaurateurism, trading on their name and the cooking that is represented by that name.
It is not that there is anything wrong with the branding that the chefs are doing because it is financially a good move for them and, in some cases, good for diners who have world-class cuisine more readily accessible. For the chefs, opportunities like these are outstanding.
The opportunity for the chef is not necessarily good for the diner, though. The name of the chef makes it sound as though he (or she) will be preparing the food, not just consulting and providing a name, and diners end up paying for the name itself - just as they do when they choose the national brand of breakfast cereal over a store brand. Unlike the cereal analogy, the very nature of the food is that it is not mass produced; the technique of the chef preparing it is what is promised by the price. The best chef might be fortunate enough to have a staff that is as outstanding as he is, but as the name spreads across the globe, those odds become far slimmer and quality is increasingly likely to suffer.
When this happens, what are people paying for? The cache of claiming to have eaten "haute cuisine"?
If so, when did that become more important than the quality of the food itself?
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