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It's Been a Minute

What restaurant trends tell us about the economy and culture

It's Been a Minute

NPR

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.68.8K Ratings

🗓️ 7 November 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The restaurant industry has been making headlines lately. Fine dining heavyweights are shuttering: Noma announced it would be closing in 2024 and NYC staple Momofuku Ko closed this past weekend. Then, there's the unintentional chaos caused by a popular Tiktok food critic, whose visit to Atlanta was so profound that it drowned out the debut of the city's first ever Michelin Guide.

After seeing all of this, host Brittany Luse wants to know: What's up with restaurants these days? To answer that question, she sits down with writer and Eater correspondent Jaya Saxena to get the lowdown on the most recent food news and the trends that tell us about both our interests and our economy.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This message comes from NPR sponsor, Sony Pictures Classics, presenting the Persian version.

0:05.8

While Lala struggles to balance her real life with her immigrant family,

0:10.0

a revealing secret pushes her and her mother to discover they are more alike than they know.

0:15.7

Now playing. Hey everyone you're listening to it's been a minute from nPR. I'm Brittany loose

0:25.5

One thing I like to say is that food is an easy way to read the culture around us because everyone eats, but how we eat says more about

0:35.8

our values, our planet, and our economic realities than we realize. And some recent

0:41.1

food news headlines have had me wondering,

0:44.0

what is up with restaurants these days?

0:47.0

First, there's the news of two fine dining heavyweights closing their doors

0:52.0

and then there was a showdown in Atlanta.

0:56.1

The same week Atlanta got its first ever Michelin guide.

1:00.0

Almost nobody talked about it.

1:02.6

That's because that news was swallowed up

1:04.8

by a visiting Tik-Toc food critic,

1:07.8

whose reviews sparked fierce debates and even death threats.

1:12.2

This may be a little controversial but I feel like not since

1:16.4

Salt Bay has someone shaken up the food world quite like this and all this has had me

1:22.3

wondering if there's something in the water. If the changes in

1:25.8

fine dining mixed with the intense interest in the fast casual food scene means

1:30.8

something deeper. So today on the show I want to get behind these

1:34.7

headlines and find out why and what Americans are eating right now. To help me do that

1:41.2

I'm bringing on one of my favorite food critics, Jaya Saxena.

...

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