Underground Restaurant Movement 101

Many people who are passionate about food have been following the stories about Zingara Cucina and the supposed global movement towards alternative dining scenes. There seems to be as much interest in attending as there are nay sayers.

It’s really easy to knock these ventures, but they do in fact work. When you have not received an invitation there is an element of saving face in saying that you don’t care for such things. I know I have a tendency to do this, but inevitably I am an eternal optimist and find myself all too often in the ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ camp. This time however, it is a case of been there, done that.

With this in mind the following discourse is your own guide to setting up a similar venture, based on my own experiences. If it’s something you aspire to, have faith and steel yourself for an interesting exercise. Be careful to only publicise your group in relevant places and be mindful of the potential pitfalls. You will become more aware of the fickleness of human nature and witness some of the ugliness in mankind. By the same token you will also be left with some great memories and love the outcome of your efforts.

I wish you all the best in your own culinary adventures.

How to set up your own vaunted
underground restaurant movement

What you will need:

1. Social networking skills

2. Hospitality Industry contacts

3. Event Management or Production skills

4. Marketing or PR skills

5. Social Media contacts

6. Spare time & the ability to call in favours

7. A passion for what you are doing (or Enormous Balls/an ability for self promotion)

Optional:

Exceptional entrepreneurial spirit

Selling skills in lieu of one or all of the above

Partners with any of the above skills

First, recruit six to twelve of your friends who will become your core group. Choose people whose company you enjoy, but also have the ability to compellingly brag about their experiences. Food appreciation is not necessary, as long as you, or one member of your group is considered a gastronomic aficionado by the rest of the posse. These people will be entitled to attend every future event and will provide the means for the initial growth of the group.

Add a venue to the mix. To begin with it could be the home of one of your group, but once started you will need to keep a keen eye out to spot potential venues. Beg, borrow or use your cunning to get yourself into quirky locations. Failing that, find yourself a location scout who is willing to do contra deals or an event manager who already has access to venues. Venue Logistics should include access to toilets and possibly lighting.

If the venue does not include facilities, your production skills/event management co-ordination should come into play for the hire or borrowing of anything you need from Linen and flatware to porta loos. Call in favours, exchange items for other stuff you’ve been given that you don’t need, swap invitations or freebies for goods and services.

Create a roster of chefs who can help you out, this could include your fellow diners or industry professionals. Best case scenario - find up and coming chefs who are busting a gut to show what they can do outside the confines of their working hierarchy. Let them work out for themselves what they will cook and how. Work with them on a budget per head for the meal. They have access to food suppliers and equipment, so leave that to them.

Sourcing wine can be through a wine rep or you could approach local wineries yourself for some contra. This way a different wine maker can be featured each time. Promise to include the Winery’s branding on all publicity material in exchange for the grog. They do it for art gallery openings - they may do it for you. Use your network; find people who can call in favours.

Wait staff may come from the venue or could be your kid sister and friends looking for pocket money. To find your entertainment, walk around the city and peruse the buskers. There are talented people out there happy to work for a small fee. Be quirky, a string quartet is more appropriate to a wedding - unless they have a quirky playlist – so also consider a magician, a mime troupe or a DJ on L-Plates from one of the DJ schools.

Decide on a name. Be conceptual - it could be an utterly nonsensical name - but ensure it is something that adds to the group with some mystery. Once decided, extend invitations, get someone in your group to design something that looks professional and includes sponsor logos. Make sure that the text within the invitation is used to hype the anticipation, but don’t reveal the venue. Ensure that there is an RSVP date and if your mates are unreliable, get a deposit.

Once you have established who will be attending, follow up with phone calls to build excitement amongst your group. Release the location of your venue on the day of the event via sms or email. Some groups have been known to further heighten the anticipation by establishing a set meeting point instead, where a hired vehicle waits to whisk them en masse to the venue. Collect your money upfront from your guests and if the venue’s bar is providing beverages, have them agree to allow your group to pay per order.

Make it a great night with your best hosting skills. Take the time to chat to everyone individually. By the time the meal has been consumed the posse needs to be convinced that they are onto something really special. You want them spreading the good word with their contacts and you want them to recruit people who can bring something to the movement, from wit and repartee to tangible things that can help fuel the running of future events.

Don’t hold the next gathering too soon after the first. Try for a gap of at least 6weeks to allow sufficient time for the desire for a second outing to build. Include more people next time by inviting your friends to bring friends.

Gradually build the size of the group via personal hype. Mention it in emails, talk about it on forums or facebook, Myspace or with colleagues on intranets. You will find that the founding members of your movement and their guests will do likewise. Anyone who has attended will become an ambassador for your movement. When you have got to the point where you are over subscribed and limiting numbers it’s time to build a website and get it discussed in blogs. Then, if you have a media contact, milk it. If someone of note has attended your gatherings, milk it: talk, talk, talk and talk!

The hype will continue to snowball externally, but you must ensure that the nights are still special enough to support the upswing in expectations that comes with the hype, so cap the numbers at each event and mix up the group. Underground movements are an alternative form of networking, and for the best results you must ensure there is a synergistic mix of personalities. At this stage, only the initial members should have the option to come every time, though you’ll find that they don’t as time goes by.

By limiting who comes and when, you build further anticipation. The harder it is to get in, the more desirable it becomes. Be aware though, the bigger it gets, the higher the expectations and the harder it is to manage. With size comes significantly more work and it is often at this point that underground dining experiences self-combust. As in any growing business you arrive at the point where there is a choice to be made. Do you take on more partners, franchise the concept, make it a serious enterprise and sell out, or pack it in while the going’s good? The decision is yours.

I chose the path of the enigma over fame or financial gain. It is in my nature to do this, but not necessarily your path. Whatever you choose, enjoy the ride.

The 200lb Muffin Club

The room was abuzz with chatter as the staff descended with the main course and glasses were charged. Candles flickered giving everyone a perfectly romantic glow.

The playboys were working the room as I finished re-counting the money. A Photographer chatted animatedly to a Banker while an Ad Man was chewing the ear of a florist. One of my dining companions had pulled up the piano stool and was beginning to launch into a piece on the grand piano.

As the waitress bent over me with a plate she said, “Can I come to your next club night? I’ve never seen a better looking group of people – and you’re all having such a good time."

I laughed and said, “You’ll need to have a friend who is already a member of the club…
…or convince one of these guys to bring you next time.”

There has been a fair amount of media coverage on Zingara Cucina as a self-proclaimed underground restaurant movement in Melbourne. It has had an unnatural amount of coverage in the traditional media with many wild claims being made by the protagonists. It’s proving to have its fans and detractors, causing quite a kerfuffle in the blogasphere. Even Facebook has two groups devoted to the desire to eat at Zingara.

Last week journalist Ed Charles speculated that it was in fact an elaborate ruse. I wonder is it really a fake, or some elaborate self-promotion for the individuals involved? Based on my own experiences, I wondered if the founders were trying to drum up collaborative support in order to bolster their ambitious claims. If so, they are doing it in a very clumsy way. I believe that time will tell and that this enigma will eventually be laid bare.

I too once hosted an underground dining movement. The Two Hundred Pound Muffin Club was a dining club in two incarnations. The first was in the late eighties and the second was in the mid nineties. Some outings were in restaurants, some were rural and a few were event based. They were an absolute hoot; I made a ton of friends and watched the group evolve in a way that left me with a deep interest in social anthropology.

As a bon vivant, the people who gravitate towards my company have a slightly hedonistic urge, so it’s not hard to find dining companions. In my twenties I was a much more experienced diner than my friends, having grown up with parents who embrace the term Foodie, and who took me fine dining from an early age. Looking around me I realised that there was a niche for orchestrated fine dining experiences where my friends could broaden their food and wine knowledge, and thus was born my concept of a club.

At the time of the second incarnation, I was beginning to meet some young chefs socially. Most were about to break into their own ventures and were hungry for an audience, so I set up my club around these sorts of venues. I would work with the restaurant on the menu and a wine selection and we would come to an agreement on the price per head. They got an audience of budding gastronauts who went on to publicise the venue socially and some became repeat visitors.

The Club offered not only an epicurean experience, but also a simple forum where members could meet like-minded people. Most extended their social networks and quite a few people met their future spouses there. One couple have even framed the menu from the night where they met. As I recall, the woman in question garnered three phone numbers that evening, so the guy she ended up with was very proud of himself.

As the host, it is a very big task to undertake this kind of venture. Ensuring that you have the right numbers, adequate resources and that the financials are worked out accordingly is stressful. The success of these ventures rests on the right PR and hype. As I mentioned to Ed, the food doesn’t have to be great or even the best element of the night. You are selling the sizzle, not the sausage. The key is to convince people that they are a part of something particularly unique, that it is in fact, a ‘money can’t buy’ experience.

Ultimately we are all drawn to the desire to be considered just that little bit better than the next man. The coveted ‘hard to get invitation’ can arouse anxiety and at the same time will draw criticism, but it is the base desire for a certain cachet that leads to the evolution of underground movements, whether they are gastronomically inclined or otherwise. Regardless of the public’s distrust of PR, marketing and spin, the deployment of these tactics are pivotal in guaranteeing your club’s success. After all, you are actually making something out of nothing, without which you have a standard dinner party or fancy picnic.

The bottom line though is that these clubs are great fun to be a part of and can be a heady experience for all who attend.

Tomorrow: Underground Dining 101, or how to start your own underground restaurant movement.