The Rise of ‘Fake Fancy’ Restaurants Are A Big Reason Why Your Eating-out Experiences Suck

Just because a restaurant looks good doesn’t mean it is

Welcome to The Sauce (formerly The Capsule Panty), Deep travels into food and drink culture written by Charlie Brown, founder and former owner of what was once named Britain’s best independent wine store.

To celebrate the rebrand of The Capsule Pantry into The Sauce, I’m releasing five of my best-performing articles in a week — paywall-free — so you can see what sort of content to expect from me going forward. Don't worry, I won’t usually bomb your inbox like this.

Today is number four: The Rise of ‘Fake Fancy’ Restaurants Are A Big Reason Why Your Eating-out Experiences Suck

I wrote this after getting irritated at the volume of style-over-substance restaurants I’ve seen cropping up.

You almost certainly know of one. A friend has almost certainly taken you to one. And you should never be subjected to them because they’re expensive and they suck.

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After a while, you learn how to spot them a mile off. Restaurants that are all style over substance.

The back bar looks beautiful but stocked with bottom-shelf spirits complete with a bartender who can’t mix a Gin and Tonic.

The wine list is long and in a leather-bound book but largely lifted from a nearby Bargain Booze outlet.

The food may look fancy with its cheffy squirts of balsamic glaze but tastes bland and boring.

The staff are instructed to give silver service but don’t actually know how (or why).

This is what I call the Fake Fancy restaurant. They look rather beautiful and they try to be fancy in their offering, but when it comes to the quality of the drinks, service, and food, they suck.

And they’ll charge you half your monthly salary for the experience.

There are so many of them. I passed at least six on my five-minute walk to the coffee shop this morning. I’ve seen them crop up in cities across the world. I hear the likes of LA is built on them.

Alas, it’s all smoke and mirrors and they’re ruining your dining out experiences. Which, as someone who has spent over a decade at the coalface of quality hospitality establishments, is super upsetting.

Because you should never pay for the privilege of a terrible time.

Here’s how to avoid Fake Fancy restaurants — and what to look for instead.

It’s an aesthetic thing

Instagram has changed the world. Not least in the way places look —bars and restaurants capitalise on their Instragrammable credentials because frankly, Instagram-friendly joints bring in more cash.

Fake Fancy places know this and take neon signs, pretty plates, exposed brick walls, and other viral restaurant elements to heart.

Looking good matters above all else.

I’ve seen this aesthetic everywhere from America to Albania and it’s always a red flag.

For a start, it’s boring — you could be anywhere in the world.

Second, I know first-hand how few hospitality joints have unlimited budgets. If they’re spending the big bucks on making a place look fancy, that’s less to spend on food, wine, and staff.

It says something about their priorities.

That’s not to say all beautiful places are Fake Fancy. I’m sitting in a gorgeous coffee shop right now which serves (IMO) the best coffee in Porto.

But there’s often a vibe that comes with the Fake Fancy restaurant. One that you can pick out after a while. One that says we care more about our looks than anything else.

It feels shallow and leaves you feeling lukewarm about the whole experience.

And that’s not how dining out should make you feel.

HOW MUCH?

I inadvertently let out a burst of laughter when I saw the price of fish in a Fake Fancy restaurant the other day. I was there with a friend who had it on good authority it was a decent joint. His contact was wrong. Not least because the fresh fish they had on the counter a) looked like it had seen better days and b) was SO expensive.

It was at least double what I would expect to pay at some of the best (and least fancy) fish restaurants in town.

Fake Fancy restaurants are almost without exception bad value. If the price of dishes makes you fall off your chair, you may have found one. Especially if the likes of Carmy Berzatto from The Bear isn’t at the kitchen’s helm.

I have to be honest here. In my 10+ years of hospo work, almost all Fake Fancy bars and restaurants have visited or know the owners of are expensive because the owners think they can get away with it. Turn your place into an Instagrammable hotspot and you too can charge whatever you like for 3-day-old fish.

Put it another way. If you’re the owner of a restaurant that cares more about how it looks than the quality of its offering, then you are in business for the wrong reasons — like money. And for that, you need to rip people off.

If the food looks mediocre, the wine list looks boring AF but you need to sell a kidney to eat there, then you my friend have caught a Fake Fancy restaurant. And you need to skedaddle the hell out of there.

Service with a flourish and a fluster

I was in the bar of a Fake Fancy restaurant in Spain last week (for research purposes only I might add) and spent an hour watching classic Fake Fancy service in action.

The directive from the top was clear — make sure you serve with flourishes to match a French three-star Michelin restaurant.

The problem was that none of the service staff were competent — or well-trained — enough to execute the level of service their bosses asked of them.

They would present wine bottles with pomp and circumstance then butcher the opening. They would carve meat tableside which took so long, they forgot about other tables.

In service, the only thing I truly want is for it to be smooth and at an efficient but relaxed pace. Everyone in this particular restaurant was so focused on trying to be fancy, they were flustered, stressed, and well out of their comfort zone.

And diners suffered for it.

If the service in a joint is stuffy but slow, you may be in Fake Fancy territory. Pay for your drink (if they’ve remembered to bring you one) and go.

Fake fancy = fake food

I walked past a Fake Fancy restaurant here in Porto the other day and noticed that everyone at the tables outside was choosing what to order based on the restaurant’s Instagram page. I could see from three feet away that the pictures heavily featured cheffy drizzles of sauce and towers of unimaginative brunch food (eggs benedict again, anyone?)

The food in Fake Fancy restaurants may look Instagrammable but much like all image-crafting, close up it doesn’t deliver what it promises.

These are some tell-tale signs on a menu that a place is Fake Fancy:

• The food could come from anywhere. I’m looking at you, avocado toast.

• The food is served on anything but a plate. Fries in a mini fryer, ravioli hanging from mini washing lines, nachos in a sink — I’ve seen some of this with my own eyes.

• Anything that comes “on a bed” of whatever, has a “reduction” or anything “cooked at low temperature

• An eclectic mix of dishes from around the world, for instance ceviche on the same menu as pizza

• Sushi anywhere except for a proper sushi restaurant

• Only prime cuts of meat

• Too many things going on in one dish (especially those that don’t naturally go together)

Normally a quick sweep over a bar or restaurant’s Google page will tell you everything you need to know about a restaurant’s Fake Fancy credentials.

Forget Fake Fancy. Look for this instead

I’ve written whole articles about what I look for when it comes to eating and drinking out because there is so much to unpack. Ultimately however it boils down to finding substance over style.

The best restaurants and bars often fall into one of three categories:

1. The local joints everyone knows are basic but brilliant and have been for decades.

2. The places where everything is relaxed but fantastic from the food to the service.

3. The real fancy places.

All three have one thing in common — quality. The quality of their food. Of their drinks. Of their service.

It doesn’t matter if it’s an old-man tapas bar in Spain or a two-star Michelin restaurant, if the quality is there, it can look as fancy — or not — as it likes.

Learning how to distinguish the Fake Fancy from the places of substance can take some practice. You can’t always rely on Google reviews — much like humans, there are plenty of people who fall for good looks. You can’t be swayed by aesthetics. You have to use your intuition.

Do your research. Take recommendations from people you trust know what they’re talking about. Be critical and don’t accept anything less than great.

Eating and drinking out has become prohibitively expensive and you deserve to have a good experience every single time you leave the house. Avoiding Fake Fancy joints at least gives you a fighting chance of having one.

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