Cooking for the locals

In the second season of the UK version of Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, they featured a fine dining restaurant in Scotland with a classically trained French chef. The chef had the skills, the assistants, the tools, the ingredients, and full backing from an owner who loved his food. And his food wasn’t the garbage Ramsey usually spat out into a napkin after picking through the dish and popping a piece into his mouth. It really only had one problem – the dishes were too complicated. On the plate they looked beautiful, but the diners had no idea what they were eating.

The chef said he was trying to educate the palate of his diners, but of course, the restaurant was mostly empty. The chef was trying to earn a Michelin star, a grading system I’ve written about recently. One star means you’re worth a visit if passing through town. Two stars is worth a detour. And three stars means you are the destination.

Each of those designations implies you have a different audience with a different set of expectations. Michelin stars give you reputation and reach, and no stars means you’re cooking for the locals who are going to judge you and recommend you based on their own experience.

That chef was waiting for the Michelin guide inspector to sweep in like a knight on a horse to rescue his restaurant from obscurity.

As a writer with no reach or reputation I need to cook for the locals. That doesn’t mean pandering to the lowest-common denominator. It just means I can’t expect the reader to be as open to whatever experience I’m serving. Their needs are more immediate and local. They haven’t made a special trip to read my work. If I want their recommendation, I need to educate myself about their tastes and needs.