Heard a line cook call a dish 'chef-driven' and it made me pause

I was listening to a podcast interview with a restaurant owner in Austin, and he kept using the term 'chef-driven' to describe his menu. He said it at least five times in ten minutes. It got me thinking about how that phrase gets thrown around now, like it's a marketing word instead of just the normal way a kitchen should run. Does calling a place 'chef-driven' just mean the cooks get to make the food now? I feel like the real work, the specials and the daily fixes, always came from the chef anyway. Has anyone else noticed this term becoming a bit empty, or does it still mean something specific to you?

3 comments

3 Comments

shah.barbara28d ago

Oh god, the "chef-driven" thing cracks me up because I once worked at a place where the "chef" was just a dude who watched a lot of Food Network and called frozen burger patties "grass-fed pucks." I called myself a "home cook driven" once at a dinner party and everyone just stared at their plates. The term really is just marketing fluff now, like "handcrafted" or "locally sourced" when your tomatoes came from the same Sysco truck as everyone else's. Makes me wonder if I should start calling my scrambled eggs "chef-adjacent" just to see what happens.

reeseanderson2mo ago

My buddy's food truck in Tempe has 'chef-inspired' painted on the side, but he just microwaves frozen taquitos.

gavincraig2mo ago

My cousin paid $14 for "artisanal" fries that were just Ore-Ida crinkles from a bag. The fancy truffle salt was regular table salt.