Identify-dropping to get a coveted desk at a preferred restaurant isn’t unusual. However name-dropping a well-known chef’s well-known restaurant to get a desk…for an much more well-known musician? That’s a bit of bit weird. But that’s precisely what seems to have occurred at chef and proprietor Pim Techamuanvivit’s Japantown restaurant Nari earlier than musician Kayne West got here in for dinner.
In response to reporting from the Chronicle, somebody known as the upscale Thai restaurant asking for a last-minute reservation for “a desk of Noma individuals” — Noma being the award-winning Denmark restaurant that lately launched a line of vegetarian and vegan garums. When the occasion arrived, chef and Noma proprietor René Redzepi (or anybody affiliated with the restaurant) had been nowhere to be discovered. As a substitute, a server realized West and his entourage had settled into the restaurant’s semi-private eating room.
Patricia Chang
Sarcastically, Techamuanvivit advised the Chronicle the not-very-elaborate ruse was completely pointless, as she would have been each keen and capable of accommodate the group if they’d known as and named dropped the world-famous musician’s personal identify. However that doesn’t imply she let West and his group off the hook for the stunt.
“I did go to the desk and requested, so which one in every of you labored for my pal Rene? Oh sure I did,” Techamuanvivit tweeted on Thursday afternoon.
I did go to the desk and requested, so which one in every of you labored for my pal Rene? Oh sure I did.
— Pim Techamuanvivit (@chezpim) July 1, 2021
A lady on the desk merely replied “He’s not right here,” she advised the Chron.
The group was well mannered, undemanding, and loved the meals, in accordance with Techamuanvivit. They ate som tum mamuang (spicy mango salad with cashews), gaeng rawang muan (roulade of rooster in inexperienced curry) and gaeng kua pla (black cod with curry), the proprietor additionally mentioned.
With Nari being one in every of San Francisco’s most high-profile eating places, it’s not just like the workers is unaccustomed to seeing celebrities within the eating room. Nonetheless, some had been “very, very fangirl-excited” to see West, whereas others had been disillusioned to not see Redzepi, Techamuanvivit mentioned. And whereas it could by no means make whole sense to most of us why one of many world’s most well-known musicians (or somebody on his behalf) would want to name-drop another person in an try and get preferential remedy, perhaps the thriller caller was simply excited they didn’t must eat McDonald’s for dinner.
