They’ve yet to open its doors, but those set to launch Stock Restaurant & Bar, in the new Trump International Hotel & Tower in Toronto, are hoping to tempt potential diners with a cinematic, behind-the-scenes preview of what to expect from its kitchen.
A 39-second video on the restaurant’s website promoting its Jan. 31 opening shows fast-moving clips of cooks cleaning duck breasts, sautéing mushrooms, tempering chocolate and plating dishes, all set to frenzied string music.
As Inna Levitan, CEO of Talon Luxury Collection, the company that controls the restaurant, explains, the video, put together by Toronto’s Carino Agency, is intended to create excitement around the new fine-dining destination.
“Still photographs speak a thousand words,” she says, “but action is much louder. The anticipation of the music, combined with the beautiful shots, fuels the adrenalin.”
These days, restaurants everywhere are using the old movie-house technique, creating trailers – or teaser videos – to promote their image and generate buzz.
The New York restaurant Fatty ‘Cue, known for its Southeast Asian-inflected menu, released a nearly four-minute-long video last fall to give diners a sneak peek at its newest West Village location. The Drake Hotel in Toronto released two art-house-style trailers last year on Vimeo.com to promote its Dining Roadshow series of changing restaurant themes. And in November, Vancouver’s Calabash Bistro released a video resembling a documentary trailer, complete with interviews with its staff and candid customer shots, to capture its Caribbean cuisine, live music and artsy, rollicking vibe.
While many roll out trailers to publicize openings and upcoming changes, Calabash Bistro created its video partly to commemorate the restaurant’s first 18 months in business and also to introduce itself to potential new customers. Roger Collins, one of Calabash’s co-owners, shared the video via e-mail and YouTube.
Creating a trailer isn’t cheap. According to Staci Strauss, whose production company Slow Films, Inc. created the Fatty ‘Cue video, one could spend anywhere from $5,000 (U.S.) for a well-shot, basic work to as much as $30,000 (U.S.), if there are multiple locations and effects involved.
But Mr. Collins says trailers do work. “It’s been amazing. I’ve had numerous people [say], ‘We’ve seen this great video for this place ... and I just had to come check it out.’ ”
The trend can be traced to Nick Kokonas, co-founder of Chicago’s highly influential restaurants Alinea and Next, and the Aviary cocktail bar. He came up with the idea to create a teaser video back in 2004.
“I always loved theatre and film, so it was a natural when we were opening Alinea to do a ‘trailer’ instead of just a static announcement,” Mr. Kokonas said in an e-mail.
Since then, the team behind Alinea and Next has produced numerous and ever more sophisticated trailers, including Next’s nostalgia-evoking Childhood video, which went viral when it was released in October to reveal the restaurant’s changing theme. That video intercut shots of chef Grant Achatz’s two young sons making simple foods, such as chicken noodle soup, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, with the restaurant cooks’ reinterpretation of them. (The video has since been removed due to copyright issues with the music.)
For Mr. Kokonas, who creates the storyboards and sound, and who does some editing of the videos himself, the key to an effective trailer is to produce it in-house to ensure it feels “authentic and organic.”
“As more restaurants and other small businesses do videos, the thing I notice is who has hired out the job to PR companies. For the most part, those ring hollow and are either over-produced and too slick, or are just really poorly produced,” he said. “There is a fine line on these things, and it is tough to articulate ... but I know it when I see it.”
