The Ethics of Fine Dining

Unfiltered thoughts from a very naive outsider

Dining at the restaurant where my partner works is undeniably a magical, once-in-a-lifetime experience—a five-hour extravaganza of luxury where you are treated like royalty, where the staff anticipates your every need before you’re even aware of it, where you taste flavors you have truly never tasted before, and you leave on a high, not quite able to put into words what you & your body just experienced.

juices & wine at the end of our meal. see more photos here >

It also comes at a very high cost. A quote from the article I reference in this voice newsletter:

“Everything luxetarian is built on somebody’s back; somebody has to pay.”
—Kim Mikkola

In the audio clip below, I process out loud my refusal to believe that you can’t have fine dining without backbreaking labor, my realization that this industry will (and already has) become a major part of my life—and that perhaps my stubbornness & naivety will come in handy when we build an equitable version of this in the future.