A meal with wine in a top fine-dining restaurant could in the future cost as much as €1,000 per person, an eminent Dublin restaurateur told a conference in the city on Tuesday.
Chapter One co-owner Ross Lewis said “wealthy individuals” would seek the “ultimate luxury” in fine dining and would be willing to pay the highest prices for it.
Lewis, who also owns Osteria Lucio in Dublin, told the Iput-organised panel event on the future of dining that the best restaurants will remain those that have “emotional equity”.
“You always remember with a restaurant how it makes you feel,” Lewis said.
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He said small employers in the sector are under much more pressure at the moment than restaurants backed by larger groups.
“Larger restaurants backed by private equity can lose money for up to three years,” Lewis said, adding that such establishments are “eating the lunch” of smaller places.
“It’s an uphill battle.”
Robbie Bargh of London-based hospitality agency Gorgeous Group told the gathering of chefs and restaurant-owners that restaurants sometimes get too “obsessed” with their food, neglecting the other pieces that complete the jigsaw of a dining experience. Factors such as lighting and glassware should be taken very seriously in helping to create the “emotional correction” diners are seeking, he said.
Food writer Tim Hayward, best-known for his time at the Financial Times and the Guardian, said the smartest way to appeal to multiple categories of customer at the same time is to use “the ancient tool of hospitality”. He said this sees a host taking a customer into their control and the customer yielding to this. Hayward emphasised the importance of simple eye contact.
Marina O’Loughlin, Financial Times columnist and former restaurant critic at the Guardian and the Sunday Times, agreed, saying: “You want to walk in and for somebody to make you feel as if you belong.”
On the future of fine dining, O’Loughlin said people had been predicting the death of fine dining for a decade and a half, but that such restaurants had not disappeared. There will always be a new chef out there “who wants to paint your face with raspberry jam”, she said.
