Graham Elliot (Photo: Anthony LaPenna)
This is absolutely the craziest ass story of the week.
So, according to Eater Chicago, celeb chef Graham Elliot put the word out to his staff at g.e.b. "not to allow (Steve) Dolinsky to eat there." When the acclaimed food writer and television personality showed up for lunch Thursday, he was kicked out after the third course. KICKED OUT.
Dolinsky—as you all know—is ABC-7's "Hungry Hound" features reporter who travels all over Chicagoland checking out the best eats and drinks. But anyway, Dolinsky apparently pissed off Elliot some months ago when he posted a series of seething tweets on his experience at Charlie Trotter's last fall. (It probably also had something to do with this contest Dolinsky held last year: "Top 5 Things To Do With $500, Instead Of Spending It At Trotter's.")
Elliot reached out to Eater to defend his position:
"When he ate at Charlie Trotter's and live tweeted through the whole meal how shitty it was, to me that's so egregiously over the line that I absolutely will not have someone like that at my establishment. ... After the way I saw he disrespected my mentor, I didn't want anything to do with him."
Hmmmmmmm, I get that he's defending his role model, but this ain't Los Angeles or New York. The way folks treat each other in the Midwest is different.
I will be interested to see how this pans out . . .
BTW, Dolinsky tweeted to Elliot that he LOVED the spring risotto.
UPDATE: Dolinksy responds in a blog post titled My First Restaurant Ejection!
Curious if other restaurants/restauranteurs will follow Graham's lead.
ReplyDeleteTaster Graham. Dolinsky can be a huge douche. On opening night of my place there was a tech glitch for the check and panned the place. Every other critic acclaimed the food and service. From that point on he became Steve Douchlinsky!
ReplyDeleteUh oh. You better add in a second "l" in the "Eliot" in the middle of the post, Audarshia. From experience I can tell you the managers there turn into utter pricks if you dare to misspell GEs name.
ReplyDeleteGreat example of a chef forgetting about the fact that part of owning a restaurant is customer service....the great thing about Chicago is that there are so many great restaurants that we don't have to eat the food of an egotistical jerk...and btw a lot of people have complained about Trotters in the last few years....Dolinsky is not Penny but he has the right to his opinions...The great thing about social media is that a restaurant can see the comments and either decide there are things to fix or to ignore....and unlike the past we can now connect with the person and try to fix things for them...
ReplyDelete@Anon 5:06pm: Good looking out. I fixed it! ;)
ReplyDeleteThes Midwesters have picked up the attitudes of the East Coast. I've seen my share of rude people all of Chicago that are in the hospitality thing. I dont think being Midwest has anything to do with it at all.
ReplyDeletegreat response by steve, what an interesting debate :)
ReplyDeletegreat response from steve. interesting debate we've got going :) thanks for sharing and keeping us updated!
ReplyDelete