‘The illusion or the truth?’– Back stage constructions of authenticity in an up-market restaurant Marie Maegaard * , Martha Sif Karrebæk Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark article info Article history: Available online 21 August 2019 Keywords: Authenticity Linguistic commodification Language in restaurants Dialect in late modernity abstract Building on recent sociolinguistic and anthropological theories on authenticity, in this paper we take a sociolinguistic perspective on the construction of authenticity in a Copenhagen- based Bornholmian restaurant. Focus is on the tensions between different understandings of authenticity in the creation of a new predinner drink. Data include interactions between owner and staff where ingredients, serving, and glass design are negotiated, all connected to the general aim of creating a recognizable Bornholmian product. Through detailed discourse analyses it is shown how the potentiality of authenticity is created backstage in a contemporary commercial enterprise, and how understandings of authen- ticity as inherent quality or performed are not necessarily mutually excluding, but rather co-existing in contemporary commercial cultural encounters. Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In May 2015 a guest writes a review of the Copenhagen-based restaurant Koefoed on the web-based platform TripAdvisor: Jeg fik vidunderlig betjening med fantastiske vine, samt en bornholmer cocktail i verdensklasse! I received wonderful service with fantastic wines, and a world class Bornholmian cocktail. Another guest, similarly praising the restaurant, writes that it has a ‘super cosy and authentic atmosphere, which immediately directs your attention to Bornholm’. Bornholm is a Danish island, which Restaurant Koefoed orients to in its effort to carve out a place for itself in the saturated high-end Copenhagen restaurant market. The guests’ comments make it evident that this restaurant offers an experience which includes both Bornh (cf. the ‘Bornholmian cocktail’) and high-end dining (cf. the reference to ‘fantastic wines’ and the ‘world class’ cocktail). The Bornholmian experience implies that the restaurant staff establishes indexical links to Bornholm. This is done through material resources, accompanied by discursive practices, which create, underline, and stress their symbolic meaning potential (Duchêne and Heller, 2012). In this paper we analyze the creation of the Bornholmian Cocktail mentioned in the review above. We concentrate specifically on the pro- duction of this drink as authentically Bornholmian. This is interesting as traditional, and in that sense authentic, Bornholmian drinks would rather be beer and aquavit or snaps, yet, authenticity is crucial to the restaurant’s brand. We discuss tensions brought up in a conversation among the restaurant staff members in relation to discourses of authenticity. We have discussed authenticity constructions in front stage interactions between servers and guests elsewhere (Karrebæk and Maegaard, 2017). Yet, the front stage authentication is prepared back stage (Goffman, 1959) outside the view of the audience, i.e. the guests. In this paper, we suggest a sociolinguistic and semiotic analysis of such preparatory work, including * Corresponding author. E-mail address: mamae@hum.ku.dk (M. Maegaard). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Language & Communication journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/langcom https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2019.06.001 0271-5309/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Language & Communication 69 (2019) 54–66