The Multi-Culinary City: Transforming Traditions

Multi-cultural/multi-ethnic/multi-culinary : these dimensions of gastronomic spaces complement even as they counter each other. The proliferation of restaurants of all sorts and the consequent profusion of culinary choices endow the city with a cornucopia of gastronomic spaces. Yet, all gastronomic spaces are not equal. Horizontal differentiation conflicts with vertical distinctions: The premium placed on creativity relegates  the reproduction of tradition lesser status than production of the new, the untoward, the heretofor unknown. In the exceptionally competitive dining world of New York City, culinary identity builds, not on products or people or places, but from the infusion and transformation of a broad range of traditions.