美国国家公共电台 NPR Opening The Hottest Fake Restaurant In Town（在线收听）

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The Shed at Dulwich was the hottest new restaurant in London for about six months. It had entrees named after moods, like lust and contemplation, pick-your-own chickens, wine served in kitschy coffee mugs. And boy, was it exclusive. When prospective diners called to make reservations at The Shed, they were told the restaurant was booked for weeks.

But The Shed was a ruse, a fake restaurant with fake reviews designed to trip up TripAdvisor.

Oobah Butler is the culinary con artist behind it. He's a freelance writer for Vice UK. He joins us from our studios in London. Thanks so much for being with us.

OOBAH BUTLER: Thank you for having me.

SIMON: How do you create this restaurant that was just a figment of your imagination?

BUTLER: The things that you need - I mean, quite literally, to get a restaurant verified on TripAdvisor, one needs a phone, an address and a website. I just bought a cheap phone from the supermarket. I made a website. I bought www.theshedatdulwich.com. I just put the name of my road and described that The Shed at Dulwich would be an appointment-only restaurant so nobody showed up out of nowhere. And I submitted it like that. And after three weeks - wham, bam, thank you, ma'am - it was on TripAdvisor.

SIMON: There were pictures on your website, which looked kind of convincing.

BUTLER: I'm no gourmet chef because - I mean, they look delicious, those photos - but they're actually all poison (laughter).

SIMON: Like, what were the entrees?

BUTLER: So I made dishes that were, like, things like scallops and ham hock and things like that. But I made them out of things like urnial cakes and food dye and marbles and things. And one of them is quite literally - you think it's a ham hock - like put, like, an egg on a piece of ham...

SIMON: Yeah.

BUTLER: And it's actually my foot underneath that (laughter).

SIMON: Well, why was it important to you to, if you please, trip up TripAdvisor?

BUTLER: It was more just about - I loved the idea of people lusting after a non-existent space. And I mean, I must say, my first writing job - I mean, I used to work in factories and as a waiter and stuff like that. But my first writing job was on a freelance website, writing fake reviews on TripAdvisor for restaurants who want to go up the rankings.

SIMON: Wait - but you did have to follow through - or felt obliged to follow through for at least one night - didn't you?

BUTLER: You're right, yeah. So basically, what kind of happened was, as we were rising up the ranks, it kind of started to get a bit out of hand. We had people applying for jobs at my non-existent restaurant. We had PR companies trying to represent my non-existent restaurant. I had suppliers really - begging us to stock their food at my non-existent restaurant.

At that point, I decided, I'm done with letting people down - answering call after call after call telling people - lying to them telling that we are fully booked. I'm done with that. I'm going to open this place for one night only.

SIMON: Yeah. And you served macaroni and cheese, I gather.

BUTLER: Yeah. We served ready meals, which were, like, I guess, it'd like a 60-cent microwavable meal. And we dressed it up like it was fancy food. But I had people in the restaurant who were actors pretending that they're having an amazing time as well.

SIMON: (Laughter).

BUTLER: I wanted to recreate that same psychological space as TripAdvisor - you know, the whole thing of like - if enough people around you saying, this is delicious, will you go, yeah, it's delicious, I guess - maybe? I was really nervous about the way that they'd react. And when they left, they loved it.

SIMON: Oobah Butler is a freelance writer for Vice UK and was proprietor for (laughter) a sort of restaurant called The Shed at Dulwich - right?

BUTLER: Yeah, that's it.

SIMON: Thank you for being with us, sir.

BUTLER: Thank you so much.

(SOUNDBITE OF SEMISONIC SONG, "CLOSING TIME")