Vegans have found a new ally after a prominent chef banned non-meat eaters from his restaurant after a complaint.
Perth’s Hyde Park Hotel posted a friendly reminder to social media on Thursday that all diners were welcome to enjoy their services in the city’s north.
The hotel posted a picture saying ‘VEGANS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME’ underneath the caption ‘we thank you for your understanding Xx’, a clear reference to UK celebrity chef John Mountain’s message to plant-based diners earlier in the week.
Mr Mountain’s Fyre restaurant announced last Sunday that it will no longer cater to vegans after a diner who complained about the meal she was served triggered a series of one-star reviews on his Google Reviews page.
Mr Mountain, a celebrity in the UK after appearing on the Great British Menu program, responded to the customer’s complaint about the restaurant’s vegan offering by banning then from his establishment and proclaiming ‘F*** vegans.’
Perth’s Hyde Park Hotel posted a picture saying ‘VEGANS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME’ underneath the caption ‘we thank you for your understanding Xx’, a clear reference to UK celebrity chef John Mountain’s message to plant-based diners earlier in the week
John Mountain (pictured) has only doubled down on his vegan ban since Sunday, when the controversy erupted
Hundreds hailed the Hotel’s move as a much-appreciated gesture after Mr Mountain decided he no longer wanted to serve those who identified as vegan.
‘Thank you. The world needs more kindness not hate. Will visit you soon Hyde Park,’ one person wrote.
‘Thank you for the love at such a difficult time,’ another added.
‘Thanx Hydey, it’s been a rough few days,’ a third said.
A spokesperson for the venue’s owners, ALH Group, told Perth Now that the post ‘spoke for itself’, and did not wish to add anything more.
Mr Mountain has become a source of derision for vegans, who first tried to review bomb Fyre in order to tank his online ratings before spamming him with fake online bookings to prevent others from reserving a table.
A leading vegan activist in Perth has taken it further, attacking Mr Mountain’s character.
Tash Peterson told 7News that the chef was a discriminatory, insecure, guilty man, who couldn’t handle a valid complaint.
‘One incident where this chef is clearly upset by a valid complaint, and then to discriminate an entire group of people, I don’t see it as any different to banning Muslims or women, it’s a blatant form of discrimination,’ Ms Peterson said.
‘I think he’s triggered by veganism and I think it’s a defence mechanism against his own guilt.’
Despite the online activists genuinely trying to destroy his business, Mr Mountain is sticking to his guns.
During a radio interview, he dismissed Ms Peterson: ‘She obviously is not a trained psychologist’ – and said if protestors tried setting foot in Fyre, he would have no problem getting physical.
‘Phone the police and the ambulance, have them on standby, because if they try pulling a stunt with me, good luck,’ Mr Mountain told Triple M co-hosts Xav and Michelle on Wednesday.
‘I’m the licensee of those premises, I’ve spent almost half a million of my own hard earned cash. I’ve got no investors, no nothing. I will physically pick them up and throw them out.’
Since the first one-star review hit, his rating has fluctuated wildly online.
By Monday Fyre was sitting on a measly 2.8 out of five, before bouncing back up to 4.4 on Tuesday – which is better than it was before Mr Mountain banned vegans.
The controversy started after a vegan diner left a one-star review discussing his ‘shortcomings as a chef’ that he took personally, leading him to ban all of them via Facebook
Notorious vegan activist Tash Peterson (pictured) said that the celebrity chef was insecure
Later on Wednesday he’d made an appearance on The Project where he made the point even clearer: ‘If you come after me, you’re going to get the wrath.’
‘I have nothing against nobody apart from those who want to damage my business,’ he said.
‘You try and damage my business, you come after me, you are going to have the wrath of Johnny Chuffin Mountain against you.’
The ordeal first started when Mr Mountain received an email several weeks ago from the diner who ended up giving him the poor review.
The meal she got was a $32 vegetable dish which her review described as ‘ok but not that filling’.
‘I think it’s incredibly important nowadays that restaurants can accommodate everyone and to not be able to have actual plant-based meals shows your shortcomings as a chef,’ the aggrieved diner’s contentious review stated.
It was the diner’s remarks about his skillset that motivated Mr Mountain to make the move to ban self-identifying vegans from ever returning again.
The ‘minority’, as he describes them, have the ability to decimate livelihoods, according to another restaurant owner in Perth.
Mr Mountain said: ‘Sadly all vegans are now banned from Fyre (for mental health reasons). We thank you for your understanding’
Two Dogs Laughing Cafe in Beaconsfield, south of the CBD, regards vegans as a growing customer base that businesses need to keep an eye on, according to owner Elizabeth Peasley.
‘[They] can be a passionate group with the potential to destroy a business when they get their friends to jump in and post negative reviews online,’ she told PerthNow.
‘And that hurts when you work 100-hour weeks as a chef and put your heart and soul into what you do.’
John Mountain has somehow seemingly avoided this potential catastrophe and come out on top of the vegans, boasting about how business is now booming.
He said that Fyre’s website crashed three times on Tuesday as it struggled to keep up with the influx of reservations from keen diners.
Though he has now had to request a $30 deposit on all bookings to prevent fake reservations, this hasn’t stopped people from coming.
Before the scandal Mr Mountain said that he would usually cater to half a dozen people on a weeknight, but those numbers have now bumped to around 35 bookings per night as of Wednesday.
The price of the deposit is taken off of the bill at the end of the night.
Mr Mountain has lived in Australia for seven years after arriving from Britain where he was a celebrity chef who shared an agent with kitchen superstar Jamie Oliver.
He starred in cooking shows the Great British Menu and Chef Race UK v US.
He has also worked with culinary trailblazers Heston Blumenthal at the original famed Fat Duck restaurant in Berkshire, England, as well as the brash Michelin three-starred Marco Pierre White at the Mayfair in London.
Fyre restaurant has been forced to take a booking fee after being hit by an army of online vegan trolls
Mr Mountain says that as of Wednesday his business is booming and instead of getting half a dozen bookings per night he’s now catering for 30-plus diners on a daily basis
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk