Our Restaurant’s New Insect Menu Has Nothing To Do With The Recent Fumigation

As many of you may know, Bunny Ears recently opened its first restaurant, Macaulay’s, in Los Angeles, California. We were proud to serve Angelenos some of the finest vegetarian and vegan options on the West Coast. Soon after we got Macaulay’s up and running, we had a moment of clarity. From the beginning, our goal was to prove that environmental sustainability could be delicious. But we realized we were going about it all wrong. So, we pivoted toward what we have always believed is the true future of green cuisine: insects. So let it be known, once and for all, that our restaurant’s shift to an insect-based menu has nothing to do with our recent fumigation.

We take pride in our pizza dough made from cricket flour. You won’t find a better plate of deep-fried caterpillar poppers anywhere. Our spicy silkworm soup is unrivaled. But it is incredibly hurtful that people think we used the sudden and unexplained mass bug infestation our restaurant underwent as an opportunity to harvest thousands of insects to be used as a free source of protein to create these incredible dishes. To think that we would radically shift our entire menu on a dime to accommodate the sudden abundance of creepy crawlies that that resulted in Macaulay’s being tented and fumigated for over a month is insulting. Just because hundreds of thousands of protein-rich insects fell into our lap and then we began serving those exact types of insects shortly thereafter doesn’t mean we were engaging in a rare combination of cost-cutting and vengeance. The two events are purely coincidental.

We were leaning toward an insect-based menu long before we went with a more traditional vegetarian/vegan cuisine. We didn’t think the American public was ready to take the leap with us. We second-guess ourselves and bailed in our original goal of showing Americans that a worm has just as much of a right to be served slathered in a rich, creamy pomodoro sauce as spaghetti or rotini.

We are confident that the future of global cuisine lies in sustainable insect farming practices, and we want to be on the forefront of that revolution. Crickets, grasshoppers, ants and the like pack a remarkable protein punch for their size and require a fraction of the resources to farm. So when Macaulay’s was descended upon by swarms of insects of all kinds, many not even native to southern California or even the Americas, we took this as the universe providing us with divine inspiration. However, note that the infestation itself was taken care of properly of by trained exterminators and not by our head chef René who I personally did not see scooping as many of the bugs as he could into large containers before putting them in our walk-in freezer to knock them out while they were still alive to preserve their juicy innards, as the rumors suggest. Again, I did not see that happen nor did anyone encourage it by shouting “Go, René! Go!” as some have reported.

So, no, we did not turn lemons into lemonade or, as one nitwit Yelp reviewer put it, turn “tarantulas into a taco,” even though we do have a tarantula taco on the menu and it is delicious. Instead, a moment of misfortune inspired us to be bold. Our gamble paid off. Customers have been raving. We couldn’t be happier to have led this culinary revolution.

[UPDATE BY EDITOR]

Unfortunately, as successful as it was, I must announce that we will no longer serve our insect menu. We are artists, after all, and as such we have been chasing the inspirations conjured on us by a, let’s call it “muse” that has infested Macaulay’s. When we reopen in late fall you’ll be able to sample a whole slew of exciting new menu options like rat bourguignon and rat carpaccio that will challenge American palates. So join us as we blaze a path toward a sustainable rat-meat future.