In the movie The Freshman, Mathew Broderick plays a boy from Vermont who ends up working with a criminal family who runs a pop up restaurant called The Gourmet Club. The idea was supposed to be that people would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the privilege of eating an extremely endangered species of animal, though it later turned out to be a scam where they served nothing but ordinary sea bass and chicken.
If you’ve seen the movie, you may have wondered about the concept of pop up restaurants. Do they really exist? Well, it turns out they do and they are all the rage amongst the culinary elite in some cities.
A Chance for Chefs to Show Off to a New Crowd
While famous names like Wolfgang Puck see no need to show off their talents anymore, up and coming chefs have taken to the idea of pop up restaurants with gusto, making them a fixture in places as diverse as the U.K. and California.
The idea here is for people to experience a new chef who may have talent but who doesn’t have quite the oompf to get themselves into their own restaurant and earn a traditional review. Instead, they go to these pop up restaurants that open for a night or a few nights and offer a chance for a culinary adventure.
A Modern World Takes it All In
The revolution in pop up restaurants has been fueled by the likes of Twitter and Facebook where the latest places to host such a dinner are posted. People go to these restaurants hoping to get ahead of the crowd.
Rather than follow the droves who flock to a restaurant after the place has gotten rave reviews by the critics, fans of pop up restaurants say that the appeal for them is the chance to taste foods from new chefs who can amaze them for just one night only.
While thankfully it’s not quite the “thrill” of eating a Komodo Dragon (the endangered animal from The Graduate), it’s still one of those ephemeral, passing moments that people cherish.
Jim Balis' Blog 