Fine Dining and the “Injection Generation” What’s left when pleasure becomes just a calorie?

Eating well has become a problem. And the plate, an enemy.
We live in the era of Ozempic, Mounjaro, and the “little pens” that promise to control appetite, speed up weight loss, and, as a bonus, freeze desire. (Who doesn’t know someone?!?)
People who once saw food as celebration now look at the bread basket as if it were poison.

Pleasure has been hijacked by guilt.
And with it, gastronomy’s place in culture.

But no one is talking about this.
Not from this perspective.

I’m not a health professional and I don’t have deep knowledge about the subject.
But I can see that the issue here isn’t only clinical — it’s symbolic.

We’re facing a perception crisis: if appetite is suppressed by an injection, what happens to desire?

That impulse of “I want to taste this,” “I want to indulge,” “I want to break routine”… changes dramatically.
And this is where fine dining (and gastronomy in general) needs to stop cooking only with ingredients and start seasoning with meaning.

The domesticated appetite and the new purgatory of taste

“Eating less” has become a symbol of self-control.
As if feeling hungry were a flaw. As if savoring something good were weakness.
The “little pens” solved a real clinical problem, but created a cultural side effect: they devalued pleasure as part of the human experience.

An Esquire article points out that, according to a Morgan Stanley study, 63% of GLP-1 users reduced spending at restaurants, and 61% on delivery.

And that’s where you come in.
Chef, business owner, restaurateur, creator of sensorial experiences.
From time to time asking yourself why, even with so many awards, the dining room feels empty. Or why your beautiful videos don’t convert into reservations.

It’s simple: the customer has changed. And you’re still trying to convince them using an old logic.

Before, the image of a perfect dish (the classic foodporn) was enough to spark desire.
Today, it might trigger anxiety.
Before, storytelling was about flavors.
Now, it needs to be about what exists beyond them.

Food stopped being food.
It became code.
If the injection turns off impulse, communication needs to turn meaning back on.
Fine dining isn’t about satisfying hunger. It’s about signifying.

I always remind myself: fine dining is about making every bite a declaration.

A reminder: you deserve this. You are alive. You can still feel.
The problem is that almost no one is telling this story.

Most are still selling the product: the octopus, the demi-glace, the mille-feuille.
But the new audience (yes, the same one injecting “satiety”) will only move if you sell an idea. A value. A memory. An experience.

The same things that led them to choose the medication in the first place.

And the one who tells that story isn’t the menu.
It’s the narrative. It’s the documentary-style audiovisual.

“But I don’t sell emotion. I sell food.”

And that’s exactly why you might be in the situation you’re in — being mistaken for the restaurant next door.

Because those who sell only food are selling something the new client wants to consume less and less of.

Or at least, doesn’t want to pay a premium for anymore.

But if your restaurant begins to be seen as a sanctuary of the senses…
a territory where time slows down, where gestures matter, where the experience touches something beyond physical hunger…
Then yes — you stop competing on price.
You start competing on meaning.

And no injection can take that away from a client.

Pleasure needs defenders

Someone must defend pleasure.
The ritual. The table set. The warm bread with butter at the perfect temperature.
The respectful silence between one bite and another.

And the ones who will do this are not doctors or influencers.
It’s the chef. The restaurant. You.

But no one defends pleasure with a pretty post.
Or with a 15-second Reel.
Or with a menu written in French.

You defend pleasure with story. With context. With truth.
With audiovisual that reveals what’s behind the choice of ingredients, the design of the glassware, the ambient sound of the dining room.
And, of course, with flavor and good food.

That part is no longer up for debate.

It’s the strategic documentary that restores depth to the experience.
Because while Ozempic/Mounjaro suppress appetite, the right audiovisual brings desire back.

“Do you guys break the pens?”

No.
We help gastronomic brands position themselves in a new context.

We create documentaries that aren’t about food — they’re about everything food represents.
What it reveals. What it provokes in someone else.

And, more importantly: we create milestones.
Pieces that demonstrate and affirm the brand’s evolution.
That show where it’s been and where it is now.

Because yes — this can be measured.
In the type of customer you start attracting.
In the comments.
In the time spent on your website.
In repeat visits.

When pleasure becomes a brand asset, it starts to generate returns.
And that’s when luxury stops being superfluous and becomes a tool for connection.

Pleasure is not the opposite of discipline. It’s what gives discipline its meaning.

Those who relate to food only through calories lose the most human part of the experience.
But those who dare to reframe pleasure gain a brand territory no one else will occupy.

Two paths ahead for fine dining

Fine dining now has two possible paths:
To be remembered as a guilty luxury, a meal of “I treated myself, now I feel bad.”
Or to be seen as an art that reconnects us to what’s essential.

If you can show that with truth, depth, imagery, and narrative…
then your restaurant will no longer be “one among many.”

It will be the only one.

Do you want to be remembered as just another place with good food?
Or as the place where the client relearned to feel pleasure…
even after the injection?

Maybe the problem isn’t your dish.
Maybe it’s the way it’s being told.

A hot coffee and a present mind.
Renan.