A funny thing about food is that you don't need to eat it to appreciate it. You can revisit David Gelb's 2011 documentary, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, or his subsequent work on Chef's Table, a docuseries that paired sweeping orchestral music with close-ups of food. You can witness the creation of elaborate bites on Top Chef, stan a tormented genius on The Bear, or browse images on Instagram of carefully plated culinary masterpieces. You will probably still want to eat it all, but this abundance of cultural attention makes the message clear: Chefs are artists worthy of devotion, because they can transform raw material into something sublime. Restaurateurs are another matter. As the procurers of finances and managers of staff, they're often seen as the hard-nosed businesspeople behind the whimsical auteurs. Yet the best of them are also auteurs, I would argue. They know how to create something special too: They are architects of the inexplicable, know-it-when-you-see-it thing called...
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