The focus of this presentation is situated at the nexus of discourses of food, sustainability, eliteness and authenticity. In conducting this study, we contemplated the manner in which status is discursively produced in the broader context of democratic ideals pertaining to environmental equity and community responsibility. More specifically, we orient to food discourse and its connection with Mapes’ (2018) work on  ‘elite authenticity’. Further, we considered recent work concerning normativity and class inequality (e.g., Thurlow, 2016; Hall et al., 2019). The data for our study consisted of 150 Instagram posts from the personal accounts of three acclaimed chefs (Magnus Nilsson, Ben Shewry and Dan Barber). We examine the ways in which these celebrities emphasize local=sustainable food practices while simultaneously asserting their claims to privileged eating. Adopting the methodological approach of multimodal critical discourse analysis, we reveal three general discursive tactics: (i) plant-based emphasis, (ii) local=community terroir, and (iii) realities of meat consumption. Ultimately, we establish how the chefs’ claims to egalitarian=environmental ideals paradoxically diminish their eliteness. However, at the same time, this serves to paradoxically elevate their social prestige, pointing to the often complicated and covert ways in which class inequality permeates the social landscape of contemporary eating.