Soon after actor Keke Palmer’s photo of the Met Gala dinner plate went viral, chef Marcus Samuelsson, who curated the menu, defended the food, adding that it was delicious. The head chef of Red Rooster in Harlem said in an interview with TMZ, “Food, like anything, is a matter of taste, and it tasted plenty good.” Earlier, Palmer Tweeted a picture of her food plate at Met Gala and captioned it, “This is why they don’t show y’all the food”. Samuelsson told the outlet that the picture that was doing the rounds on social media was of barley topped with roasted mushrooms, tomato salad with corn and zucchini slices. He added that food is more about taste than appearance. Taking to Instagram, he wrote, “I couldn’t have been more proud of the #MetGalaChefs who created a delicious and memorable meal for all the guests.” For the first time in its history, guests at the gala were served a plant-based menu prepared by 10 up-and-coming chefs based in New York City – Fariyal Abdullahi, Nasim Alikhani, Emma Bengtsson, Lazarus Lynch, Junghyun Park, Erik Ramirez, Thomas Raquel, Sophia Roe, Simone Tong, and Fabian von Hauske. The chefs were chosen by Samuelsson himself.