Chef Tatung calls for more autism awareness in restaurants
Restaurateur and cookbook author Chef Myke Tatung Sarthou called on restaurants to be more mindful and aware of the needs of diners on the autism spectrum as he addressed a recent incident involving a guest with autism in one of his establishments.
In a Facebook post uploaded late Thursday, Aug. 6, Tatung wrote about a family who recently went for dinner at one of his restaurants to celebrate the birthday of their son, who is on the autism spectrum.
Since the son has sensory sensitivities, the family brought familiar food from home as backup for the one dish on the restaurant's menu that he could eat. But because the dish wasn't available that day, the mother had to bring out the food from home.
"She was charged a corkage fee she hadn't been told about—at the very moment she was simply trying to make the evening work for her son," Tatung wrote.
The incident prompted the mother to write to Tatung "not to complain exactly—though she had every right to. She wrote to teach us something," he continued.
He wrote how he and his team "came up short" of "kapwa" and "malasakit."
"I understood the reality of sensory sensitivities, and the difference between preference and condition, long before that evening. What I failed to do was translate what I understood into what my team was prepared for," Tatung wrote.
"The gap wasn't theirs to own. It was mine," he added. "And that is where the work begins."
"What might once have been dismissed as arte, fussiness, or a difficult guest may actually be something we simply did not understand," he continued. "We cannot care for people well if we do not understand what they may be carrying when they walk through our doors."
He said what needs to grow "is our awareness—recognizing needs beyond the usual, knowing when a situation calls for judgment rather than policy, and empowering our people to find an alternative, waive a fee, or simply ask, 'What can we do to make this easier for you?'"
Tatung wrote the bar to be set should not have been dictated by policy but by "whether [our guest] felt at home."
According to the chef, the "truest test" for this benchmark of hospitality is brought by "families who need a little more patience, flexibility, or understanding."
"Hospitality begins where the manual ends," Tatung wrote, adding that the true nature of hospitality is "not simply to serve, but to nurture."
Turning his statement to include fellow restaurateurs, the chef said he doubted his was the only restaurant that had this "blind spot."
"As our understanding of autism and neurodiversity grows, our hospitality must grow with it," he wrote. "We can learn to ask. We can learn to listen. And we can choose to care."
Tatung currently runs several restaurants, including Azadore, Lore, Tindeli, Tatung's, and Pandan Asian Cafe. He's also behind Simpol.ph, which features lifestyle stories on culture, creativity, and community in the Philippines.
