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Nobody Can Agree on Whether to Love or Hate Restaurant Week

A restaurant-week fan.
A restaurant-week fan.

Among the dining public, Restaurant Week stirs one of two emotions. Some people loathe it, think it’s for amateurs, think it’s a rip-off with limited menus and bad service. Others quiver at the prospect of dining at an elite restaurant for a lower-than-normal price. Well, it seems chefs are just as divided as the rest of us.

For the proponents, there’s Jason Santos: “I want to make sure the menu is killer. If I have to take a little bit of a hit, I’m fine with that,” Santos told the Globe.

For the skeptics, Gordon Hamersley: “If I was a new restaurant starting out, I might do it, but it’s more important to maintain our good reputation for food and service … We are not in the business of giving away food.” He also says that RW “creates havoc” in the dining room.

Michael Leviton took to the Globe earlier in the week to pen a longer piece on why his restaurant, Lumiere, doesn’t partake: “At $33.12 a meal during Restaurant Week, it’s not feasible anymore for us to serve the food we normally do, or even to serve a reasonable facsimile,” he wrote.

As of now, we don’t believe that the Phantom Gourmet has weighed in.

Restaurant Week a Balance of Cost, Quality [Globe]
Why Restaurant Week Doesn’t Work for Me [Globe]

Related: Is Restaurant Week Worth Its Salt?

Nobody Can Agree on Whether to Love or Hate Restaurant Week