A Leaf From the Book of the Future of Restaurant Guides and Rankings
In my most recent article, I discussed what restaurant guides and rankings have done for the hospitality industry and for the consumers, but also how they are at risk of being commoditised and made irrelevant.
Since then, I’ve been thinking about the question of what a different future could look like and I thought about a future where artificial intelligence takes hold.
I imagined a virtual restaurant recommendation service that would make recommendations like an old friend, opinionated but perfect. I thought about the idea of a new guide that serves a different purpose other than ranking quality of food, service and ambience, and how that could give a boost to the restaurant industry at the same time offer something meaningful for the consumers.
In this last article of this series, I invited my fellow editor to bring these thoughts to life, and use them to paint a picture of what a day could be like for a busy person who is fairly discerning about food, and imagine a different way of making restaurant choices .
Below is her story.
A Day in May
By Alice Huang, with contributions from Florent Bonnefoy.
It was a very good day yesterday.
My phone buzzed at 10:30am and a message from Grace flashed across the screen:
“Good morning Florent, you have 2.5 hours free today, sandwiched between your 11am-12pm meeting and 2:30–3:30pm meeting. The most convenient area for you to have lunch is in Tollington Grove. I have made a reservation for you at Rough and Roof for 12:30pm. It’s just the place for you. Here are the details of the restaurant and how to get there. Let me know what you think of the place afterwards.”
I was not familiar with Tollington Grove and was glad Grace found somewhere suitable for lunch. I didn’t want to just eat anywhere I come across and I didn’t want to be eating at a place too far from the location of my second meeting. The traffic is impossible these days. I had never heard of Rough and Roof but I trusted Grace.
I have known Grace for only two months. Grace’s knowledge of the restaurant scene is impressive. More impressive though is in this short time, she has come to know as much as what there is to know about my taste for food and restaurants, my preference for the ambience I want for different meals and my food habits. Furthermore, Grace seems to be able to sense my mood and her timely recommendations have lately been pretty much flawless, for at least 90 percent of the time anyway. I have granted her full access to my daily schedule, my travel records and plans, and the comments I made after different restaurant meals. A couple of days ago, I trusted her with access to my financial records and my book of contacts.
It’s startling to watch Grace learn. In the beginning, it wasn’t quite so seamless, but with access to more information and my constant feedback, Grace has learnt well, and at a phenomenal speed. She has mastered not only a staggering amount of data but assimilated that with what she’s picked up on my lifestyle, mood, needs and preferences. Her restaurant recommendations are now more and more accurate, more and more predictive, more and more intelligent.
Grace lives in my pocket on my smartphone. She is my digital food concierge and exists in the form of an app. Created by Augmented Intel Corp., everything Grace does is based on intelligent machine learning. Grace is equipped with an immense processing capacity; her central neural system houses a sophisticated web of advanced algorithmic programmes. Her synthetic thoughts are delivered in a voice, language and an accent of my choosing. Not many people know, but Augmented Intel Corp. is part of one of the world’s largest restaurant guide publishers.
The commoditisation in the restaurant guide and rankings market and the fierce pace of change in consumer lifestyle and needs have propelled this publisher to venture into creating Augmented Intel Corp. as a means to stay relevant. In the product launch press release, Grace was described as a prototype and the company promised subscribers unique, micro version-updates of Grace’s central neural system every 40 seconds as Grace completes a learning cycle.
Anyhow, it turned out that Rough and Roof is a hidden gem. The chef, Pedro Benjawan, Brazilian of Thai descent, is 24 years old and somewhat new to the restaurant scene. A high school drop-out, he was unable to find work and fell into hard times. At 19, he became homeless and had to sleep rough. But Pedro managed to teach himself to cook while wandering the city scavenging for anything edible that’s been thrown away by others.
In a small, rent-free space provided by Tollington Grove’s local authority, Pedro opened Rough and Roof, where he concocts with quite some culinary flair what he describes as “city street food with grit”, stirred by memories of his past experience of having to eat just about anything to keep from starving to death. A man of the city, Pedro wants to use his food to support city farming and to help make the food supply chain sustainable, so he buys all his ingredients fresh only from local rooftop farms. The menu which changes every day is limited but well put together, admirable really given the constraints of what’s available day-to-day.
The team that works at Rough and Roof are volunteers. There is not much service to speak of, but I have to say that the passionate team more than make up for that with their deep knowledge of the ingredients used and how they are grown (the majority of the service staff are roof-top agriculturists).
The restaurant décor was utilitarian, rough and ready. The seating was neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, but the music was certainly uplifting. My favourite songs from Arcade Fire and Anita Mui were playing and everyone seemed to be in a good mood.
Rough and Roof is hardly known outside Tollington Grove, but I later found out that locals love the place. More, they adore Pedro for the heart he puts into his food, his dedication to his mission, the strength of his character, and the sense of cohesion and pride that he and his team have brought to the local community. There is a general feeling that he can be and should be a role model to young people.
Grace did well to find it, nothing and no one else could have unearthed this neighbourhood gem. It was perfect for what I needed yesterday — no, in fact, I didn’t know what I needed, I only knew what I didn’t want, Grace had pre-empted my need, again.
Talking to Pedro and his team and eating at Rough and Roof fuelled more than my stomach. It inspired me for my second meeting with the parent company of Augmented Intel Corp., in which I advised that Chef Pedro and his team be immediately recognised by their real-time Most Worthwhile Places to Eat guide and ranking. I felt the accolade would bring the right attention to a chef whose efforts in life and mission in food have been so inspirational, and whose team has been so dedicated in working with him to bring about positive community effect through food. I hoped this recognition would bring Rough and Roof more patronage.
So, yesterday was indeed a very good day; it was gratifying, and I must remember it — let me see, yesterday was 5 May 2020.
Back from the future, there is no Grace, and Augmented Intel Corp. does not exist. Tollington Grove is fictitious and Rough and Roof is just a figment of my fellow editor’s imagination.
But let’s say 5 May 2020 was to come, what should a restaurant guide publisher do now to prepare for that day? How do we as consumers feel? Or perhaps this day would not come as told and you have a different vision of a reality that you think would materialise.
Food+ Journal would welcome hearing your reaction and comments. And if you have your take of a story from the future you’d like published in this journal, please write to the editors here by 6 June 2018 to indicate your interest.
