During an international culinary event known as the Gelinaz! Shuffle , chefs from around the world riff off of each other’s recipes. For this year’s event, rather than swapping kitchens as has been done in the past, participating chefs stayed put, transforming each other’s dishes “into something as radical and personal as possible” in their own kitchens.
In a staggering display of racism during the Shuffle, chef Gianluca Gorini of Michelin-starred restaurant daGorini in Italy — who had received eight new recipes from Victor Liong, chef-owner of Lee Ho Fook in Melbourne, Australia — posted a photo to Instagram of himself along with five members of his team (and a child), all wearing conical hats, and some pulling their eyes to the side in a clearly racist gesture.
Toronto restaurateur Jen Agg took a screen capture of the offensive post, which has since been deleted, and shared it to Twitter that evening: “Much feted Italian restaurant daGorini did an event for @THEGELINAZ shuffle and here is a pic the chef Gianluca Gorini posted. It’s got way more likes than comments at the moment which is….staggering and gross and sadly, unsurprising. Truly f–ked.”
In his attempt at an apology, which Gorini addressed directly to Liong and “all” (accompanied by a portrait that does a better job at conveying exasperation than remorse), the Italian chef claimed that the post “was dictated by the excitement and enthusiasm that the confrontation with a new culture has generated in our daily work.”
He opens the caption by positioning himself as naive — “I never thought that a photo could generate all this” — offers a perfunctory plea — “I apologize to all those I have offended” — and finally concludes with an invitation for Liong to come to Emilia-Romagna as his guest, “to celebrate the meaning of the relations between different cultures and make a four hands dinner together.”
Liong hasn’t responded publicly to the post, although Gorini’s “apology” has elicited its fair share of condemnation. Among the most biting is from the owners of Los Angeles cookbook store Now Serving , Ken Concepcion and Michelle Mungcal, who commented: “Really, dude? Blame it on the rain, blame it on Italy, ZERO ownership or accountability. If this is your country’s fault — how come when I worked an event with Massimo (Bottura) and his wonderful (Osteria) Francescana team, not ONCE did they great myself or the other Asians in the kitchen with slant eyes, bamboo hats, and faux bowing???”
Restaurant Chez Saint-Pierre in Le Bic, Que., and Montreal restaurants Foxy and Mon Lapin were among the other nearly 150 restaurants that participated in this year’s Shuffle. Gelinaz!, which as Eater points out, has been faulted in the past for its lack of gender diversity, has yet to acknowledge the ramifications of Gorini’s post.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
