Restaurant Mocks Trendy Eateries By Dressing Up As One For Halloween
In DepthIf you’re anything like me, you’re a bitter, jaded misanthrope with ill will towards all mankind annoyed by the rising wave of trendy new restaurants selling shit like artisanal ice. Luckily, one Chicago restaurant took Halloween as an opportunity to mock the living hell out of places like that.
Last year, Real Kitchen became well-known for pretending to dress up as famous Chicago eatery Alinea; in the words of their own voice-over to open the video, “last year we mocked someone’s lifetime of hard work all the way to 15 minutes of fame.” This year, they released a video about their own supposed attempts to transform, for one night, into the trendiest of trend places, and the results are kind of spectacular.
“With an unproven mid-level line cook as a chef, the first step of our transformation was already completed,” the narration says, as Chef Nick Schmuck* stands idly by as his kitchen starts to catch fire. Next up was the name: “our name wasn’t quite inane enough, so we pored through the thesaurus until we came up with ‘Veritable Scullery.’ Then we threw in ‘the’ and an ampersand just for good measure.” They weren’t done, either: “We took the money we were going to spend on comfortable, functional chairs, and procured some blacksmithing aprons from the 1400’s [for the chefs].”
The best part of the video has to be their take on pretentious cocktails, which I can’t even describe other than to say it involves “over 200 ingredients” (including pepto bismol) and an “ice chef” taking the time to “freeze your ice cubes to order.” You really should go watch the video, for this part if no other reason.
Ultimately, Real Kitchen decided “maybe that doesn’t sound look a good idea,” and fell back on a tried and true method for bringing people through the door: free cupcakes.
It should go without saying that this is one of my favorite stories of the year; it’s enough to warm even my Halloween-hating heart. Well done, Real Kitchen.
* Eesh, I thought I got unlucky when it came to the last name lottery.
Image via Real Kitchen Chicago/Facebook.