Is discomfort food the latest fad?

New Coquitlam restaurant strives to make you feel bad about your meal—and yourself

By Sharon Miki, Humour Editor

Culinary fads come and go, but the allure of mom-style home cooking has remained a steadfast staple of edible pleasure—until now. A new and audacious restaurant, Discomfort & Desolation, hopes to please your palate by making it miserable.

“This idea of ‘comfort food’—it’s too obvious,” said head chef Francoise Skinner. “At D&D, we want to take the food that makes you feel warm, full, and happy, and never, ever serve it.”

The concept behind Discomfort & Desolation is simple: they only dish up food that you will hate. “We want to make you feel like you will never enjoy eating again,” elaborated Skinner.

The menu is full of uncomfortable favourites like cold gruel, pickled kale with rotten banana puree, and Spam. Dishes are horribly overpriced—ranging from $49 for a cloud of dust to $79 for aged-green luncheon meat—to enhance the discomfort of the experience.

Some might ask why Skinner is much a misanthropist, but he asserts that he doesn’t really hate food or people; rather, he just really likes making money from suckers looking for weird culinary experiences:

“We figured that the city has restaurants that serve you food in the dark, or on a naked, sweaty, woman’s body, so why not take that culinary icky-ness and capitalize on it?”

Discomfort & Desolation is located in Coquitlam, and is open only during rush-hour and between three and five in the morning, for your inconvenience.