2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:20
Here we are reduced to the same level as schoolchildren who are requisitioned the stickers of the players.
We adults too, in fact, have our stickers and our teacher of the red pen, ready to requisition them as soon as we exchange one under the counter during the lesson.
But our stickers have the features of a smartphone, the school desk has been transformed into a restaurant table while instead of the teacher there is the restaurateur who has even started to be a censor of costumes.
In fact, the fashion mentioned Italo Pedroni was the enlightened precursor (and of which Dissapore has already told you), to requisition our multimedia appendix in a more or less absolute way depending on the place, with the noble intention of stemming the obsessive-compulsive control craze of tablets or smartphones in all moments of the day, stopping at traffic lights and even sitting in a restaurant, a mania also known as "phubbing".
And in the wake of the Osteria di Rubbiara, the first restaurant in which, in the early 90s, Italo Pedroni had inaugurated the nice custom of letting customers leave their mobile phones at the entrance, in a pretty little box complete with a padlock, to appreciate better the omelette with balsamic vinegar or chicken with lambrusco, many other places around the world have joined the trend of "stop phubbing".
The Bedivere of Beirut, in Lebanon, which accompanies the kind request with a 10% discount on the account of those who join, or, returning to Italy, the Refettorio Simplicitas, a unique place in the center of Milan where the mobile phone is not completely prohibited but silence is a must, complete with a decibel meter and bell in case you want to request even more silence.
And now the trend of technological clean-up has also landed at the Eataly Hamburgheria in Turin: those who manage to leave their mobile phones in the black phone box at the cash desk throughout the meal will receive a complimentary dessert.
And all this because it seems that chefs and restaurateurs, in their further capacity as preachers and floggers of sinister anti-social habits, find it unfortunate that their selected ingredients, their dishes and their commitment to preparation are not fully enjoyed.
As well as neglecting our neighbor, sitting side by side at the same table.
However praiseworthy and original these initiatives may be, one wonders if there is really a need, or rather, if we really need a tutor-restaurateur who shows us the right way for the simple duration of a meal, freeing us from our vices multimedia just the time of a braised in Barolo wine knowing full well that, once through the door of the restaurant, we will return to our usual activities, including phubbing.
However, one wonders what sense this detox diet has and what it is for: a bit like pedestrian Sundays in which citizens are forced to leave the car parked for the holiday, returning to take it back and clog the air with fumes to the remaining six days of the week.
In short, this crusade by some restaurateurs seems to be yet another publicity stunt to make people talk about themselves, to have easy advertising and visibility, passing off as very normal - and legitimate, mind you - commercial interests for noble ethical-moralistic purposes.
But above all by contributing, with their unique initiative, to feed that social and multimedia world from which, in words, they would like to detoxify us.