The hoaxers obtained a one-day liquor license and food-handling permits. The kitchen was staffed by college students who had never worked in a restaurant before.
Fine-dining customers were fooled into thinking they were eating at an exclusive New York City restaurant which ended up being a total fake.
The waiting list for a table at Mehran’s Steakhouse is over a year.
The hoaxers went to amazing lengths to pull off the prank, including obtaining a one-day liquor license and food-handling permits. The kitchen was staffed by college students who had never worked in a restaurant before. The elaborate prank was staged at an event space in Manhattan.
The “master chef” was 21-year-old Mehran Jalali, who cooks for his friends.
New York Times food writer Becky Hughes was excited about getting the invite to the restaurant over the weekend, but realized what was going on.
The restaurant, staged at an event space in Manhattan’s East Village, pretentiously described the $144 main entree as the Bovine Circle of Life, better known as steak and potatoes. The simple salad also came with a fancy name, Agrarian Synergies.
“The worst-case scenario for me would’ve been if like, people realize that it was a fake steakhouse not because like, like the pranks and stuff, you know, that the lies were absurd, but because just like the food wasn’t that good, which ended up not happening,” the so-called master chef tells Inside Edition.
A waiter even walked around with a gallon of milk claiming it was from a cow from Uganda named Phillip.
Some diners wanted copies of the fancy menu to treasure the one-of-a-kind dining experience.
“We had some of our friends come and hold posters for Drake so that way people walking by, people walking would think that Drake was actually inside when he really wasn’t,” one of the hoaxers, Riley Walz, says.
To complete the image of a special event, there was a picture taken of a marriage proposal inside the 'restaurant,' which was also fake.
