A lot of people wanted to book a table at Chef Kwon Seong-jun’s restaurant, Via Toledo Pasta Bar. Over 110,000 people tried to make a reservation, and the app called Catch Table crashed for a while on Thursday. Chef Kwon won the cooking show on Netflix called “Culinary Class Wars.”
The reservations opened at 10 a.m. on Thursday, and the app was down for 20 minutes because so many people were trying to book. By Friday, all seats for October were full, and the waiting lists were also full.
Chef Kwon talked about this on Instagram. He said he was surprised by how many people wanted to come and was sorry about the app problem. He also warned people not to resell reservations for too much money. Some people were trying to sell bookings for very high prices. Chef Kwon said anyone caught doing this would be banned and that they would check people’s IDs at the restaurant.
Chef Kwon asked people to report anyone selling reservations for too much money, and he said he would give a reward for helping.
Other chefs from the show also got more reservations, and it is hard to get a spot at their restaurants too. Reservations for these places went up a lot compared to the week before.
“Culinary Class Wars” is a popular show in Korea and other countries. The show has 100 people cooking in a big competition, with famous chefs going against local cooks and restaurant owners.