The Future of Luxury Might Be Chicken Nuggets

Dear Pros,

You've got editorial director of special projects, Mel Hansche, here this week. I'm still thinking about the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, where I moderated a lively panel as part of the new American Express x Resy Trade Program by F&W Pro. The topic fit the rarified mountaintop setting: Beyond Truffles and Caviar — What Luxury Means Now.

For decades, luxury in restaurants came with a recognizable and predictable uniform: white tablecloths, formal service, expensive ingredients, quiet dining rooms, and a hefty check at the end. Today, what constitutes "luxury" feels much more elastic. Three industry veterans joined me onstage to explore different interpretations of modern luxury.

Simon Kim, CEO of Gracious Hospitality Management — the group behind the multi-location COTE Korean Steakhouse and New York's fried chicken and Champagne palace COQODAQ and the new Bar Chimera — argued that luxury has become far more multidimensional than it used to be, thriving just as easily in high-energy dining rooms as in hushed ones.

"Ultimately, the definition of modern luxury is freedom," he said. “The customer has the freedom to choose. They can choose a vintage Dom Pérignon P2 or P3 or a $10 Martini. They can wear a three-piece suit or a T-shirt and a Yankees hat. That choice defines the luxury of today."

For Cassidee Dabney, executive chef of The Barn at Blackberry Farm, the destination property in Tennessee that has helped define a distinctly American expression of luxury accommodation and dining over the past 50 years, it's more about storytelling, emotion, and time.

"I find that time is luxurious, and I think the storytelling behind that time is luxurious because you're giving the guests something they can't have anywhere else in the world. It's a fleeting luxury that you can only get at one place at one time, and then after that, it's done. It's capturing a moment, a glimpse in time. I think that's luxurious," she said.

Sourcing, seasonality, and storytelling also play a big role at the intimate 20-seat Michelin-starred Feld restaurant in Chicago, run by chef-owner Jake Potashnick. He represents a new generation of chefs redefining luxury through what he calls "relationship-to-table" fine dining, rooted in direct partnerships with farmers and producers.

"I talk with my team a lot about value propositions. It's really important to me because when we don't serve traditional luxury ingredients, how do you create value when you're charging tasting-menu prices? We do it by proving we've thought through all the tiny little details from the tableware to our ability to answer a question about where each strawberry came from," he said.

Generational differences play a role. Kim and Potashnick noted that baby boomers seem to have a more traditional expectation of luxury as quiet opulence, whereas millennials and Gen Z seem more willing to embrace luxury in a more playful mode.

Later that evening, at Food & Wine's annual party atop Aspen Mountain, the night's longest line formed at Kim's station serving COQODAQ's now-famous chicken nuggets topped with freshly shaved black truffles next to the stage where Run the Jewels performed. If anyone needed proof that luxury has loosened up, there it was.

For more Pro insights from the Trade Program, we've got a wealth of stories below.

Cheers,
Mel