Nice Restaurants Are Ruining the World

Published on Monday, May 21, 2007, by Christy Harrison / Edit Post

The effects of overconsumption and habitat destruction on the food supply are most evident when it comes to seafood, but produce shortages are actually a very real threat. According to Pierre Gagnaire, one of the biggest names in chefdom, demand for top-quality fruits and veggies is also on the rise, and that will ultimately drive their prices to untenable heights. Whence this inflated demand? All those international minichains of fine-dining restaurants.

Like, for example, Gagnaire’s, which includes a couple of places in Paris and offshoots in Hong Kong and London. He knows firsthand about the strains that these new spots are putting on the purveyors of top ingredients:

My suppliers are used to working for maybe three or four restaurants but now they are getting calls all the time from new restaurants opening up.

All the more reason for these places to source their ingredients locally, right? As long as they open in areas where food actually grows—that is, not in countries like Japan or Australia. Otherwise, the world might be better off if celeb chefs confined their expansionist tendencies to cookbooks and TV shows.

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  • Nice food production is usually much more environmental friendly than industrial one. often organic. That's why it tastes so much better (some exceptions include obviously Caspian sea caviar). So the rising supply, if it may be a problem in Gagnaire's professional life, is excellent news, at it is an incentive to develop more fine food production. Therefore, fine restaurants are doing exactly the...+READ

    Nice food production is usually much more environmental friendly than industrial one. often organic. That's why it tastes so much better (some exceptions include obviously Caspian sea caviar). So the rising supply, if it may be a problem in Gagnaire's professional life, is excellent news, at it is an incentive to develop more fine food production. Therefore, fine restaurants are doing exactly the opposite of ruining the world, they are actually contributing to sustainable development. Even in the example of caviar, high prices and low supply have fostered the emergence of caviar farms that result in high quality products such as the Cavia d'aquitaine (arguably not comparable to Caspian Sea's caviar but still delicious and suitable for many uses of caviar. It releaves pressure from Caspian Sea).

    And of course it is indeed an incentive to get local products, which is excellent news. In Paris, the growing demand for good vegetables originated in fancy restaurants but the resulting quality supply now benefits all local markets and has revived local production (la ceinture verte).

    Too bad if Gagnaire doesn't like it.-COLLAPSE