Restaurant trend from the USA comes to Germany – and triggers criticism: “Overpriced prices”

Queer cookbooks, cooking shows and restaurants – the trend from America is spilling over to us. A sales strategy or opportunity for more tolerance?

A trend is slowly gaining momentum in Germany – in the USA there are already the first restaurants that are completely dedicated to the new queer cuisine and queer food. What is that supposed to be? There has been heated debate about this for several months and the process of finding a definition has not yet been completed.

If you believe the rumors in the queer community, the first officially queer restaurants are already being worked on in Germany. These already exist in the USA, primarily in the queer strongholds of Los Angeles and New York. This summer there was the first Queer Food Conference at the University of Boston.

Julia Kalder has studied the topic in detail and published a cookbook on it. The idea came about during her transition. The trans* woman was inspired by a sentence: “The more colorful a salad is, the healthier it is,” she says BuzzFeed News Germany from IPPPEN.MEDIA. In their understanding, diversity is diverse in many life situations, so this statement also plays a crucial role for them in the context of queer food.

Criticism of the queer food trend: “It has a lot to do with marketing”

Queer food has something to do with understanding the diverse queer community, says Kalder. She also emphasizes: “Is a dish automatically queer just because I cooked it or because my kitchen is LGBTIQ*-friendly?” I don’t think so. For me it’s more about the inner attitude with which a dish is prepared.”

In the queer cooking community in the USA, the focus is also on communal eating among queer people – this aspect alone would of course make any meeting of queer friends in a restaurant a queer meal. Samuel B. is the owner of a gay restaurant in Munich – he sees the situation a little differently: “I think it has a lot to do with marketing.” To put it bluntly, it may just be the latest attempt to provide food to queer people at overpriced prices to offer. “Perhaps the definition is so difficult simply because even the term ‘queer’ cannot be clearly explained,” he tells BuzzFeed News Germany.

The gay performance artist Thomas Bartling made headlines in 2022 with his queer cooking show performance at the Theatermuseum Düsseldorf – in which he revived the cult cooking show “Alfredissimo” in a queer atmosphere. The goal was to perform queerness as normal. “Queer Food makes sense because I can clearly assign certain music, fashion or films to the queer community.” “In order for me to belong to the Queer Food label, some sort of tasteful, innovative, aesthetic identification would be crucial,” emphasizes Bartling BuzzFeed News Germany.

Food trend could create more acceptance of the queer community

Kalder is sure that queer food has an important message, especially for the queer community – and in addition to the unifying aspect, queer restaurants can also create a new safe space. “In the context of society as a whole, I see queer food more as a vehicle for creating visibility.” So far, many initiatives have often been about tolerance. But isn’t acceptance what we strive for? For me, tolerance is a first step in this direction.”

The US pioneer of the queer food trend, gender university professor Alex Ketchum, also emphasizes something similar – in addition to appreciation, it is also about recognizing the queer history of the last decades. As an example, she cites a campaign from the 1980s in which brownies with cannabis were baked for AIDS patients with loss of appetite. It is also important to include those people who are on the fringes of society in the queer community – this gives queer food a very political flavor.

One question remains: Can queer people also cook better? Bartling says: “Cultural and domestic skills such as cooking have traditionally often been attributed to gay men.” However, on my queer cooking show I noticed the opposite: very few guests could cook well. Regardless of whether it was a gay politician, a queer performance artist or a drag queen, most of the dishes were rather unpretentious.”