Pursuing Distinction: How Chinese Restaurants Leverage Cultural Capital to Ascend the Irish Culinary Hierarchy

Ethnic cuisine is typically positioned at the lower end of Western culinary hierarchy, in contrast to haute cuisine. Research to date has shown that in more recent decades, many ethnic restaurants in London and New York, including those specializing in Chinese cuisine, have successfully managed to transition into the previously unattainable high-end category. What is problematic, however, is the contrast between ethnic and haute cuisine, with ethnic as a restaurant category often being presented as lacking refinement and exuding an overriding sense of cheapness. Neither unrefined nor cheap, many ethnic restaurants, though not quite reaching the high-end, have gained significant culinary recognition. There has been a dearth of research focusing on these establishments. This research paper addresses this gap and the issue of the ethnic category. It describes these restaurants as “upwardly mobile” and explores their dynamics through an investigation of Chinese restaurants in Dublin. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory, it conceptualises their upward mobility as gaining a higher position in the Irish culinary field through the accumulation of specific forms of cultural capital. Rather than merely ascribing the ability of acquiring cultural capital to class habitus, the paper highlights its formation in agents’ practice and extends this concept to the ethno-racial field. Based on interview data, an analysis of the position-improving strategies used by restaurateurs shows how agents produce and maintain cultural capital at intermediate levels of the culinary hierarchy.