Our man in the trenches, Hadley Tomicki, braved a secret dinner party and lived to tell the tale. This is that tale.
Corporate food concerns are tripping over their giant clown shoes to prove the presence of actual food inside their food products these days. It’s getting ridiculous.
Recently, I received a vague invitation for a “culinary exploration” with veteran LA chef Neal Fraser. Two weeks later, I arrived on time (my first mistake) at Carondelet House, an event space neighboring MacArthur Park, where everyone idled by the fireplace in a striking high-arched study, drinks in hand.
Dinner was to start at 7. Somewhere past 8:10pm, at the tipping point of saying “Fuck it” and just grabbing some tacos from the nearest food truck, we were ushered inside the dining room. It held two long tables spread with flowers, micro-citrus, modernized stemware and people who self-identify as “influencers” on their W-9s.
Cameras roiled conspicuously from assorted corners of the room. Microphones, clumsily concealed among the centerpieces, were fished out by the more observant among us. Conversations with tablemates revolved around the same recurrent themes. What was this whole thing all about? Who exactly invited us? Where the hell was something, anything, to eat?
Fraser finally manifested to address the assembled, explaining that he had prepared a five-course dinner, promising that it’d be free of weirdness like “camel meat” and that everything would conclude in an adjoining salon for “group sex.” He also assured a big reveal at dinner’s end. One he claimed had already taken him by surprise. A revelation that, once exposed, would turn out to be neither as thrilling as camel meat or group sex. |
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