Tenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the circulation of symbolic capital among chefs, restaurant owners, and their personal accounts on Instagram. For this purpose, two famous restaurants of São Paulo city, Brazil, are compared. One of them is the Président, owned by Erick Jacquin, a highly recognized chef, famous for being one of the Masterchef Brazil judges. The second is a very popular restaurant in Brazil, Paris 6, well-known for its dishes named after celebrities and for its plentiful desserts. These restaurants have interesting similarities and distinctions. Both refer to France as an inspiration. However, their menus differ a lot. One major difference is the size: Président offers fourteen main courses, while Paris 6 offers about eighty. Despite these differences, which alone would distinguish their customers, the two locations have similar strategies on social media, such as reposting customer selfies and photos of dishes on Instagram stories. The most striking feature of their strategies is the “traffic” of symbolic capital: in the case of Président, it moves from the chef’s personal account to that of the restaurant; in the case of Paris 6, it passes from the restaurant profile to the owner’s personal account. Through an analysis of the content of social media and websites of restaurants and owners, and through a “mystery shopping” method, this paper aims to track this flow of capital in its different forms. In addition, it seeks to answer what kind of distinction strategies they are using and which audiences they are reaching.