Feminine Driving the Hospitality Industry

Feminine Drives the Hospitality Industry
What is the feminine? What is the current hospitality industry in relation to the feminine?
Care for me. Nurture me. All of these relate to an individual’s ideal concepts of being mothered and mothering. Although sexual relations have changed considerably in recent years, when asked ‘what are the favorite comfort foods of your childhood,’ most individuals respond with the special foods their mothers prepared for them. Even individuals with absent, harried, or culinary incompetent mothers have the culturally idealized image of the female giver of sustenance and nurturing within their collective, if not their personal memory.
After a hard day at work, with mum far away, what does the average individual turn to in his or her own life for sustenance but the hospitality industry. It could be a place for drinks and friends, a place to get favorite comfort foods, or simply a place where he or she knows the food will be prepared in a standardized fashion, without surprises — yet accompanied with at least he illusion of enough individual care to his or her own needs that the food and the dining experience does not seem generic. Families with children also depend upon seeking this feminine impulse within the hospitality industry. Mothers may be nurtured by being relieved of their culturally expected food preparation duties to their children, children may engage in the eating of prepared fantasy foods, such as chips and burgers and sundaes named after cartoon characters, and couples with children can enjoy quality time with one another.
The Plan
Like women today, London Restaurants strive to be all things to all people. The recently opened “Ark,” for example, states that though it is “candle lit” with “rustic chic and chilled music, seating 60 people over 2 floors,” it offers “freshly prepared food, from an interesting menu that caters for everyone, including vegetarians and children.” Thus Ark strives to be amicable to couples as well as to children and to those with less than ordinary dining needs. (www.arkrestaurant.co.uk) This is not unusual for a London restaurant in particular, as most successful restaurants in the city must not reject patrons, even if some restaurants strive to create an aura of exclusivity. Ultimately success is based upon customer desires for certain foods and an establishment’s willingness to accommodate all people. A restaurant, particularly a London Restaurant in a city known more for dining experiences than quality of food must open up its arms in a feminine and maternal embrace, rather than say it will admit sophisticated gourmets only.
Interestingly enough, the online London Restaurant guide specifically associates the few ostentatiously masculine restaurants it advertises with what is American, noting recently, for instance, when taking a man out, “according to historians,” the origins of Father’s Day “are firmly rooted in American soil. The first Father’s Day was honored as early as 1908, in West Virginia,” though “as with most popular ideas, from across the pond, we Brits were soon to cotton on,” and that to please dad, or any man, take him to TGIF. The site says this, it should be noted, in a momentary turning away from its usual stress upon English establishments. (http://www.londonrestaurantsguide.com/popups/articles_fathers_day.asp)
The Paradox
Like a woman, a London restaurant must be all things to all people, yet offer something that is unique and exclusive that makes people feel as though they are being cared and catered for like special children, and that their special needs are being indulged for an evening. Yet the industry itself remains dominated in a masculine fashion, in terms of chefs and owners, and London itself contrasts and constructs itself as feminine against more masculine dinning areas and arenas from American, which offer less ambience, or from more haute cuisine concerned areas of the world, such as Italy and France, where menus, chefs, and owners are more likely to dictate the needs of the diner’s palate and the customers, rather than respond to the customer’s own perceived comfort and needs of the moment.