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LA PERSPECTIVE - Los Angeles just watched the world’s most famous restaurant sell out a 16‑week run here in about a minute—at 1,500 dollars a seat. At the same time, we are told there is not enough money, or political will, to house our neighbors, fix our infrastructure, or protect the climate. That tension is the question this piece wants to put on the table, without shaming anyone for liking good food.
Noma’s L.A. residency is a marvel of ambition. It brings 130 staff from Copenhagen, serves a highly experimental tasting menu in Silver Lake, and wraps in mentorships, an “industry table” for young chefs, and public talks. René Redzepi says the $1,500 dollar price mostly covers costs, not profit, and that is believable for an operation this complex. The problem is not that craft and creativity are on display; it is that our civic imagination seems much more comfortable moving heaven and earth for 42 diners a night than for 42 people in tents under a freeway.
A similar dynamic shows up at the very top of the wealth ladder. The three‑day wedding of Jeff Bezos in Venice reportedly involved a fleet of superyachts and private jets, with costs in the tens of millions. Space tourism offers suborbital hops for a handful of ultra‑rich passengers while billions of humans on the ground face rising fuel costs and fire risk. Mega‑yachts burn staggering amounts of fuel and have become global symbols of inequality and climate damage.
Veblen, decadence, and hubris
The economist Thorstein Veblen called this pattern “conspicuous consumption.” Spending not mainly to meet needs, but to signal status. When demand for a good rises because its price is high and visible, later economists have called it a “Veblen effect.” In plain language, people chase symbols of rank even when it means waste, debt, or neglect of more basic priorities.
Ancient Greek thinkers had their own words for this: hubris, overstepping limits; and truphē, a softening luxury that erodes character. The Stoics warned that the danger was not the object itself but our attachment to it—when we start needing the yacht, the access, the exclusive experience to feel worthy. Across time, the concern is the same: a culture that glorifies visible excess can forget what it owes to those with the least.
What this means for Los Angeles
If you walk through downtown or along the river, you see people living in conditions that would have shocked Angelenos only a generation ago. Yet the city can host a Noma season that sells out in 60 seconds and welcome global productions that move superyacht spending, A-list influencers, and pop‑up luxury events through these same streets. This is not about blaming any one chef, couple, or diner; it is about asking what our public life honors?
A self-aware or perhaps ethical way of looking at this starts with simple, demanding questions. In a city with our crises, what deserves the most attention, subsidy, and moral energy? How will the next budget, the next mayoral platform, actually reduce the number of people sleeping outside within two years—not in slogans, but in numbers? When we change zoning, or approve tax breaks, or choose which projects get fast‑tracked, are we rewarding the ability to stage spectacles, or the capacity to increase dignity and security for those with the least power?
Restraint, fairness, and the common good
No one is proposing a ban on weddings in Venice or tasting menus in Silver Lake. The question is subtler and more uncomfortable: when societies normalize ever more extreme displays at the top, can those same societies credibly ask everyone else to accept sacrifice for the common good? Can leaders tell working families to tighten their belts, or ask renters to tolerate slow progress on housing, while the public square celebrates billion‑dollar rockets and half‑billion‑dollar boats?
A healthier civic culture would not pit joy against justice. It would insist that excellence—whether in food, art, or technology—comes with a duty of restraint and reciprocity. It would judge our success less by the price of a ticket or the length of a waitlist, and more by how many people can walk through this city feeling safe, housed, and respected.
That is the invitation here. Not another round of outrage, but a clearer standard. Before we applaud the next high‑ticket spectacle, we might pause to ask: does this, in any real way, expand opportunity or reduce suffering in Los Angeles? If the answer is no, then perhaps the real work is not on the red carpet or the tasting menu, but in whether we are still capable—individually and together—of choosing the common good over the glow of decadence.
(Nick Patsaouras is an electrical engineer, civic leader and a longtime public advocate. He ran for Mayor of Los Angeles in 1993 with focus on rebuilding L.A. though transportation after the 1992 civil unrest. He has served on major public boards, including the Los Angeles Department of Power, Metro, and the Board of Zoning Appeals, helping guide infrastructure and planning policy in Los Angeles. He is the author of the book "The Making of Modern Los Angeles".)
