Stuffing your facebook: The kitchen is open online
Chefs take to Twitter and other social media to connect with diners beyond restaurant walls
By the time I've brewed my morning coffee at 7 a.m., Carl Galvan has been Twittering for close to three hours.
Galvan, a sales representative at Supreme Lobster & Seafood in Villa Park, uses the messaging service Twitter to post photos of fish and other seafood Supreme is offering and to interact with chefs interested in placing orders based on those photos.
(Richard A. Chapman/Sun-Times)
They don't them feeds for nothing. Here are some of our favorite Chicago chefs on Twitter:
Grant Achatz of Alinea
Graham Elliot Bowles of Graham Elliot
Homaro Cantu of Moto
"Top Chef" Stephanie Izard soon of the Drunken Goat
Rick Bayless of the Frontera Grill and Topolobampo
Phillip Foss of Lockwood
Rick Gresh of David Burke's Primehouse
Mark Mendez of Carnivale
Since Galvan started using Twitter four months ago, he estimates his sales have doubled.
"What helps the most is that the chefs who follow my updates can actually see the quality of the product we're carrying, in real time," Galvan says.
He isn't alone. As technology has made communication easier and faster, a growing number of chefs and others in the food industry have taken to social media services such as Twitter and Facebook to promote themselves and their projects, interact with customers and fans, offer special promotions -- or just see what all the fuss is about.
Others have taken to setting up their own blogs or writing blogs for larger media groups, such as Alinea's Grant Achatz, who routinely files posts for the Atlantic Monthly's food blog.
Still, some chefs, including Blackbird's Paul Kahan, have been slow to embrace social media.
Kahan's publicist Ellen Malloy thinks perception is part of what's holding them back.
"They actually don't think anyone cares about what they have to say," Malloy says. "They couldn't be more wrong. People are salivating for their words and thoughts almost more than for their food."
With his cookbooks, cooking shows and recent win on "Top Chef Masters," Rick Bayless is as media savvy a chef as they come. When he was looking for an outlet to interact with customers and fans, Bayless set up a Twitter account.
"A friend of mine in California suggested I take a look at Twitter," Bayless says. "I looked at Facebook -- my wife and daughter have Facebook profiles -- but it looked like it would consume me if I dove in.
"Ninety percent of what we do goes on behind closed doors and I wanted to give fans a glimpse behind the scenes on the way toward them becoming vested members of the Frontera family. Twitter seemed like the simplest route to do that."
What Bayless likes about Twitter is its immediacy and ease with which he can post updates.
"I could maintain a blog, like the one I wrote during 'Top Chef Masters,' " Bayless says, "but Twitter has a limit of 140 characters and I can steal away a few seconds to post updates on my phone."
But Bayless' use of Twitter goes beyond promoting all things Frontera. He's become a master of the medium, using it to offer advice to aspiring chefs; post recipes, photos of his backyard garden in Bucktown and videos of trips to Mexico; hold haiku contests, and re-tweet posts from others he finds interesting or amusing.
He has given hearty nods of approval to other restaurants, such as the Wicker Park Greek restaurant Taxim. Bayless wrote that Taxim "does for Greek food what we're trying to do for Mexican."
I even saw Bayless take time out from opening day at XOCO, 449 N. Clark, his new tortas and chocolate shop, to tweet.
Moto chef/owner Homaro Cantu also uses Twitter, but not to the extent of Bayless. Instead, Cantu uses it to tease "Disruptive Food," a project rumored to involve a TV program that he claims will be "the biggest paradigm shift in food over the last 50 years."
"Disruptive Food is the result of over seven years of hard work," Cantu says. "All the patents I've registered and techniques I've implemented at moto such as edible menus are leading up to this."
Cantu has combined his Twitter feed with a Web site (disruptivefood.com) to launch a countdown that will culminate in his big reveal Nov. 13.
Cantu also uses social media to track diners who use Twitter to chart their meals at Moto. Lucky customers have had their meals comped, gotten tours of the kitchen or had the best wine in the house sent to their tables gratis.
"Our staff has online access at all times and they've been trained to look for real-time keywords to identify diners who are Twittering during meals," Cantu says.
Chefs Mark Mendez of Carnivale and Phillip Foss of Lockwood in the Palmer House Hilton also have Twitter feeds, but each takes a different approach to social media.
"I love what [Bayless is] doing with Twitter, but I have to think a bit about what I want to say," Mendez says.
Adds Foss: "It's fun for making a statement in as few words as possible. But I'm not always that person."
Mendez first came across Facebook by accident.
"My high school class was planning a 25th anniversary reunion and some classmates suggested I set up a profile there," Mendez says.
From that point, Mendez searched and sent friend requests to other chefs, restaurant PR reps, food vendors and media. "I think I maxed out friend requests from folks related to the restaurant business," he jokes.
He then started writing on his Facebook page about his approach to cooking and his commitment to using the best and freshest local ingredients possible, and posting photos of the food coming out of Carnivale's kitchen.
"As a chef, it's hard to let diners know what makes you tick," he said. "They look at a larger restaurant like Carnivale differently than a smaller restaurant. My main thing was to let diners and even some farmers know that Carnivale is still a chef-driven restaurant, and that I'm not sacrificing quality of the food for the sake of profits."
A watershed moment for Mendez came with an "open letter to a culinary student" he posted after a line cook quit after two weeks on the job.
The measured tones and eloquence with which Mendez channeled his frustration resonated with other local chefs.
"The Le Cordon Bleu program at CHIC asked me to lecture their students after reading that," Mendez says.
When Foss took the job at Lockwood, his sous chef convinced him to set up a blog, thepickledtongue.com.
Foss soon found that he enjoyed the process of blogging and the response his site was getting from other bloggers and customers. His is one of the best-written blogs by a chef.
"Blogs by other chefs like Curtis Duffy [of Avenues] and Laurent Gras [of L2O] focus on the cuisine," Foss says. "Mine's more about the writing, but not at the expense of the food I'm showcasing."
Foss' earlier blog posts were noted as much for taking on critics for their reviews of Lockwood as they were about the food itself. On the surface it seems detrimental to the success of a restaurant do such a thing.
But if his writing has refined in the time he's been an active blogger, his approach toward blogging hasn't.
"I don't mind being controversial. I try to be outspoken and use my blog as an open forum," Foss says. "Some can take it as they will, but bad publicity is still publicity."
Chuck Sudo is a Chicago free-lance writer.