Eva Bradley: Embracing the 'new' is not always cool

Eva Bradley

It is a long-established fact that everyone is looking for the Next Big Thing. It doesn't matter how fabulous something is, if it's been kicking about for a while without any radical change, people get bored and start looking for something else.

In worst-case scenarios we do it with our relationships, but we even do it in the most mundane ways such as choosing what to spread on our toast in the morning or getting a new haircut for no particular reason beyond boredom with the status quo.

The push for change has spurred some of our greatest cultural achievements. Artists like Picasso and Mondrian had scorn poured on them for breaking the mould along with architects like Frank Lloyd-Wright (of Guggenheim fame) and I. M. Pei (who boldly plonked the glass pyramid in front of the Louvre Museum in Paris).

Don't get me started on what apparent fashion crimes have been committed over the years in the bid to be fresh at all costs.

Eventually, however, the passing of time and the endorsement that comes from a passion for change for change's sake ensured those bold enough to break out of the box were lauded for their achievements.

But at what point do we draw the line and stop admiring the Emperor's New Clothes and just tell the guy he's walking down the street naked? I say when it comes to what you eat.

Food shouldn't be fashionable. It should just taste good. Maybe look a little pretty. And the environment in which one consumes it should be focused on enhancing the experience, particularly the company of the people one is sharing it with.

But try telling that to Aucklanders. Spoiled and bored by years of fine dining on beef, lamb and chicken served with a side of jus and a white tablecloth, those in search of the best seem intent on embracing what in some cases to me seems to be the worst.

In the pursuit of excellence and something out-of-the-ordinary during an under-the-radar weekend away with my husband, I booked us into a restaurant that had recently been named Auckland's second best in a respected poll.

I had the sort of expectations that come from having to book a month in advance and confirm and reconfirm via emails that warned our reservation would be given away after 10 minutes and was only reserved for a two-hour window.

It was in this context that we got shown to our table. And I mean 'our table' in the loosest possible way. There were wooden benches in lieu of individual seats and a rough-sawn length of timber in place of a table. Other diners were spread along its length and we were seated next to them on the end.

But the live jazz was loud enough and the seating spacious enough for this not to matter that much. Until the waiter came in and shoe-horned another couple beside us ... whom we knew.

There's nothing quite as awkward as sneaking to the city for a romantic weekend away and finding yourself next to a mate out on a first date. Which quickly became a double date because of the impossibility of even thinking without being overheard.

I know there's a housing crisis in Auckland but have we really run out of room in our restaurants, too? Or are people just so eager to embrace what's new that slumming it boarding-school style is the new cool?

Ironically we encountered the same sequence of scrum-dining the next morning at brunch and this time listened wide-eyed as our accidental dining companion went into descriptive dialogue about who she 'got with' the previous night and why.

It was with relief that I retreated to the relative uncool of provincial dining out the following week, with boring old tables for two and menus that didn't require a PhD in gastronomy to interpret.

- Eva Bradley is a columnist and photographer.