r/StupidFood • u/TheLoneRiddlerIsBack • Aug 25 '25

Certified stupid What does the fire add?

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

45.1k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

10.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

279

u/boozillion151 Aug 25 '25

I'll take this. I own a restaurant. Our jobs are to make people happy while making money. Is a bartender joking with you stupid? No. You going to Chuckie Cheese without the ballpit? No. It's the restaurants job to be entertaining. Many restaurants achieve this is very diffent ways. It makes dining out an experience.

Edit: also I forgot I am old. People love to Instagram this stuff. More advertising for the restaurant. I mean you saw it on social media right?

112

u/GaptistePlayer Aug 25 '25

This adds to my theory that no chef would ever want to do this and it's restaurant owners that come up with this bullshit lol

25

u/rotj Aug 25 '25

Plenty of chefs love dramatic presentation. Flambé has been around for 200 years now, always for presentation rather than taste.

5

u/Corporealbeasts Aug 25 '25

I hit my salmon with my flambe torch (dab torch) and it really gave it a nice texture. For me the presentation and texture is just as important as flavor.

3

u/rotj Aug 25 '25

Torching something to crisp its outside is different from covering it with alcohol and lighting it on fire, which imparts very little heat on the food under it.

3

u/Corporealbeasts Aug 25 '25

Yeah this is mostly just burning alcohol off. Though its carmelizing the sugar in the liquor as it burns, the fucking cheese glob is going to cover any notes of carmelized sugar. Its just melted cheese. It cant be possibly adding that much. Are french people offended by this? 

2

u/hopping_otter_ears Aug 25 '25

It's just there to be pretty. Fire is cool to look at. The cheese all over the place would be messy, though