美国国家公共电台 NPR Opening The Hottest Fake Restaurant In Town

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The Shed at Dulwich was the hottest new restaurant in London for about six months. It had entrees¹ named after moods, like lust² and contemplation, pick-your-own chickens, wine served in kitschy coffee mugs. And boy, was it exclusive. When prospective⁴ diners called to make reservations at The Shed, they were told the restaurant was booked for weeks.

But The Shed was a ruse⁵, a fake restaurant with fake reviews designed to trip up TripAdvisor.

Oobah Butler is the culinary con³ artist behind it. He's a freelance writer for Vice⁶ UK. He joins us from our studios in London. Thanks so much for being with us.

OOBAH BUTLER: Thank you for having me.

SIMON: How do you create this restaurant that was just a figment of your imagination?

BUTLER: The things that you need - I mean, quite literally⁷, to get a restaurant verified on TripAdvisor, one needs a phone, an address and a website. I just bought a cheap phone from the supermarket. I made a website. I bought www.theshedatdulwich.com. I just put the name of my road and described that The Shed at Dulwich would be an appointment-only restaurant so nobody showed up out of nowhere. And I submitted it like that. And after three weeks - wham, bam, thank you, ma'am - it was on TripAdvisor.

SIMON: There were pictures on your website, which looked kind of convincing.

BUTLER: I'm no gourmet⁸ chef because - I mean, they look delicious, those photos - but they're actually all poison (laughter).

SIMON: Like, what were the entrees?

BUTLER: So I made dishes that were, like, things like scallops and ham hock and things like that. But I made them out of things like urnial cakes and food dye and marbles and things. And one of them is quite literally - you think it's a ham hock - like put, like, an egg on a piece of ham...

SIMON: Yeah.

BUTLER: And it's actually my foot underneath⁹ that (laughter).

SIMON: Well, why was it important to you to, if you please, trip up TripAdvisor?

BUTLER: It was more just about - I loved the idea of people lusting¹⁰ after a non-existent space. And I mean, I must say, my first writing job - I mean, I used to work in factories and as a waiter and stuff like that. But my first writing job was on a freelance website, writing fake reviews on TripAdvisor for restaurants who want to go up the rankings.

SIMON: Wait - but you did have to follow through - or felt obliged to follow through for at least one night - didn't you?

BUTLER: You're right, yeah. So basically, what kind of happened was, as we were rising up the ranks, it kind of started to get a bit out of hand. We had people applying for jobs at my non-existent restaurant. We had PR companies trying to represent my non-existent restaurant. I had suppliers really - begging us to stock their food at my non-existent restaurant.

At that point, I decided¹¹, I'm done with letting people down - answering call after call after call telling people - lying to them telling that we are fully¹² booked. I'm done with that. I'm going to open this place for one night only.

SIMON: Yeah. And you served macaroni and cheese, I gather.

BUTLER: Yeah. We served ready meals, which were, like, I guess, it'd like a 60-cent microwavable meal. And we dressed it up like it was fancy food. But I had people in the restaurant who were actors pretending that they're having an amazing time as well.

SIMON: (Laughter).

BUTLER: I wanted to recreate that same psychological space as TripAdvisor - you know, the whole thing of like - if enough people around you saying, this is delicious, will you go, yeah, it's delicious, I guess - maybe? I was really nervous about the way that they'd react. And when they left, they loved it.

SIMON: Oobah Butler is a freelance writer for Vice UK and was proprietor¹³ for (laughter) a sort of restaurant called The Shed at Dulwich - right?

BUTLER: Yeah, that's it.

SIMON: Thank you for being with us, sir.

BUTLER: Thank you so much.

(SOUNDBITE OF SEMISONIC SONG, "CLOSING TIME")