Chef blames ‘greedy’ diners for restaurant shutdown
A Sydney chef has shut her restaurant down because she says diners are ‘greedy’ and ‘inconsiderate’.
Wafu restaurant in Surry Hills will close its doors in coming months after chef Yukako Ichikawa delivered a scathing review of Sydney diners.
The ‘guilt free’ Japanese restaurant has operated for the past five-and-a-half years but in past years changed their policy to members only.
Members must comply with house rules which include eating everything on your plate and bringing your own doggie bag to take any leftovers home.
However her controversial policies proved unsuccessful, with Ichikawa making the decision to close her restaurant.
In an online statement, she criticised her members for not complying with her rules and not educating their guests about her philosophy.
On entering the restaurant without doggie containers, Ichikawa says: “I could not accept such inconsiderate people. The refusal of this most simple, basic request shows that Wafu’s ways are not respected. Intolerable.”
She also found it offensive when guests would declare that they were full after a meal: “Perhaps this was meant as a compliment, but to me it meant that the utterer had deliberately damaged their body by wasting food through over-eating.”
It’s not just diners in her restaurant that get her goat. Ichikawa also had something to say about Sydneysiders as a whole: “…the disheartening effect of seeing people walking whilst cramming fast-food in jaws that cannot even chew, and the resultant feeling of personal powerlessness. It is hard and depressing, to see fast-food junkies on the street every day.”
For those who agree with Ichikawa, there is still time to try her food. It will remain open for members and non-members until the restaurant is sold. Just don't forget the doggie bag.
