David Chang, the founder of Momofuku is best known for his New York noodle shop and milkbar bakery and has recently opened new eatery Nishi in Chelsea.
And he has revealed that rather than expect tips, he has set the prices in his new Manhattan restaurant to reflect the real work of what goes into making each of the dishes on the menu.
Celebrity chef David Chang, who has banned tipping at his new restaurant in Manhattan, saying the prices reflect the real work gone into the dishes
In a interview on his company’s Lucky Peach website, Mr Chang explained that he wanted to pay sous chefs, cooks and dishwashers a ‘living wage’.
He explained: ‘The real cost of selling food is not accurately reflecting the labor that’s going into it. In 2000, I got paid maybe $10 an hour.
‘Inflation has definitely risen, but cooks’ wages haven’t. That’s one of our biggest issues.
‘We want to be able to grow as a company so we can provide for more people. This is a way we might be able to do that. And if it doesn’t work, we can always go back to the old way.’
The menu for the restaurant has yet to go public, but it is expected prices will be on par with his Second Avenue eatery Ssäm Bar.
The restaurant’s official Instagram page tweeted a picture from the inside of the eatery. The menu for the restaurant has yet to go public, but it is expected prices will be on par with his Second Avenue eatery Ssäm Bar
However, Mr Chang is not the first celebrtity chef in New York to ban tipping in his restaurants.
In October, famed restaurateur Danny Meyer said he will eliminate tipping at his 13 full-service eateries over the next year starting with Modern, inside the Museum of Modern Art.
Instead of leaving cash at the end of the meal, diners can expect to pay up to 25 per cent more for each dish, with no option to withhold their generosity if the experience is not up to scratch.
The change will affect all of Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group eateries, including New York staples such as Blue Smoke, Marta and Gramercy Tavern, though not the Shake Shack spinoff.
Restaurateur Danny Meyer has announced that tipping will be banned from all 13 of his New York eateries while prices will jump up to 25 per cent, with no option to withhold the cash if the experience falls short
The increase will likely mean dishes such as Maialino’s famed devil’s chicken jumping in price from $29 to $39.10, while the tasting menu at Modern could shoot up from the current $138 to $172.50.
Meyer says the extra money will then be funneled into raising basic salaries for all his workers, from pot boys all the way up to chefs, and placed into a revenue share program, allowing employees to profit from the restaurant group’s success.
In addition, when Amanda Cohen re-opened her vegetarian bistro, Dirt Candy in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, she replaced tips with an automatic 20 per cent service fee.
About the Author: 
Paying proper wages to employees in
the hospitality sector is very important. The employees that are earning low
salaries for sure will not work properly and this will be reflected on the
services they provide and will lead customers to avoid that place. Hospitality
employees are human beings and deserve being paid as other sectors. Depending on
tips is not a good idea as it is not stable and might be very minimal in some
periods of low seasons, whereas the employees have fixed expenses that should
be covered.
this article is very interesting and the idea of banning tips and reflecting the “living wage” in the prices of meals is clever indeed! provided that the customers are aware of this initiative to avoid any conflicts and losing credibility. Similar rule has taken place in Bahrain, in a sense that a ” service charge” of between 10 to 20% is added to the bill at restaurants. However, there is a lack of transparency regarding the objectives of the service charge and whether the employees really receive it or not. such information has not been officially dispensed to the public, therefore some customers complain about it.
Some of the restaurants in starred hotels have tip boxes where all the tips left by the diners are put in. At the end of the week or month, the total amount in the box is shared equally among all employees of that restaurant from top to bottom, which I don’t think is fair. This is because people at the higher levels get a decent pay along with other perks whereas the stewards/waiters are paid a mere salary sometimes on hourly basis. This leaves them with hardly any savings after spending for their basic needs.