This Guy Punked The Entire World And It’s Amazing

This is an unbelievable story about a random dude in London who decided to see if he could get a fake restaurant to the tippy tippy top of Trip Adviser’s rankings.  If you’ve ever seen the movie Catch Me If You Can, this might remind you a bit of it.

From the video description:

The Shed at Dulwich was the number one rated restaurant in London, with foodies, celebrities and bloggers trying to get a table. The main obstacle for them, however, was that it didn’t exist. Over the course of 8 months VICE’s Oobah Butler used an assault of fake reviews to get his ‘restaurant’ to the hallowed top spot on TripAdvisor.

With his phone perpetually ringing, PR agencies begging to represent it and TV crews pitching shows, Oobah decided he had no choice but to open its doors for one night only. Here is Oobah’s journey into a false reality that captured the world’s attention.

It’s absolutely amazing what this guy did, y’all. Behold:

I cannot get over the people’s reactions.  Has everyone really become this ridiculous? It seems we’re smack dab in the middle of a real life version of the Emperor wearing no clothes.

I ADORE fine dining, and love nice restaurants. But if I go to a place that gets rave reviews, and I don’t like it, I never feel compelled to say that I like it simply because everyone else does. For example, there’s a local restaurant here in Indianapolis that people rave about – it’s super hip and trendy and Daisy and I recently lunched there to see what all the hullabaloo was about. We got menus, and I had absolutely no idea what to order, because I couldn’t find any recognizable food on the menu. Here’s a sampling of items listed:

crispy cauliflower wedge with tahini sauce (endive, olive, pepita, currant, herbs)

spanish manchego & grapefruit dutch baby pancake (shaved brussel sprouts, shallot, hazelnut, sherry vinaigrette)

cranberry walnut & geneva & raclette grilled cheese (black truffle honey, local sunny duck egg)

It was all stuff that sounded like that. I recognized the words “grilled cheese” so that’s what I ordered. It was fine. It was essentially sweet flatbread with grilled cheese on it, with a fried egg on top and then the whole thing covered with some weird sweet glaze.

The point is, it was super frou frou, like everything else on the menu, when really, I would have been a lot more satisfied at, say, a Bob Evans. At a Bob Evans, I can order a cup of coffee and know exactly what I’ll get. At this frou frou place, here was the coffee I had to choose from:

malawi, chitipa district – nutmeg & honey

kochere, Ethiopia – jasmine & bergamot

alambi, Ecuador – brownie batter & clover

el placer, Colombia – black tea & tropical fruit

I just wanted coffee, you guys. I don’t have a clue what bergamot is (although in hindsight, I should have chosen the one that references brownie batter because YUM.)

Anyway, the people who ate at The Shed at Dulwich –  where they were served TV dinners -went on to rave about the place, even though it had existed in real life for approximately 7 hours, because people are SHEEP.

I love this story and I hate it, all at the same time.