242 replies to this topic

[oakapple]

What you don't get from books is "taste experience," and I think Bruni has that for Italian cuisine. But that experience doesn't necessarily translate into the ability to write about it. What FG's post demonstrates is that Bruni is an awful food writer, with his Italian reviews being the better of a bad lot overall.

[slkinsey]

The Reichl stuff all sounds trite and superficial to me, as though she feels that she has to "explain" Italian food for her readers. Saying things like, "the best Italian cooking starts with great raw materials and allows them to speak for themselves" is simply repeating something that we had already been hearing ad infinitum for years by 1998. I'd suggest that Bruni presupposes that his reader already know the basics of Italian cuisine by now, considering that it has been the most popular "ethnic" cusine in America for quite some time.

Reichl clearly starts out with the goal of teaching her readership a thing or two about Italian cooking. The first words from her pen are: "There must be thousands of Italian restaurants in New York City. Why are so few of them good? I think it is because most Americans do not understand the basic principles of Italian cooking." She also feels the need to remind her readers that she's spend time in Italy, by writing things like ". . . orata (sea bream) al forno reminds me very much of eating in a trattoria in Tuscany" -- which is interesting, since I wouln't say that this is a dish that particularly evokes Toscana. And some of the stuff she says is demonstrably untrue, such as "if you really were in Italy, you would not find yourself quite so crowded or shouting quite so loudly." If she believes this, I can only assume she's never been in a busy trattoria in one of the larger Italian cities. And she uses hackneyed descriptions of Italian restaurant cooking such as "straightforward goodness that characterizes the rustic restaurants of Italy." Really? What does that mean? How is this different from the straightforward goodness that characterizes the rustic restaurants of France? Or Spain?

Bruni, on the other hand, clearly does not feel the need to use this review to teach his readers about the Italian aesthetic and repeat such tired characterizations as "Italian cooking is about choosing a few pristine ingredients and treating them simply" that have been repeated a million times in post-Molto Mario America. And he offers tidbits that demonstrate a deep familarity of Italian foods without slapping the readers' faces with it in Reichl's self-aggrandizing manner. For example: "'Just like in Italy!' That's a fair tribute to the buffalo milk mozzarella, among the best in the city. It had a dead-on degree of the oxymoronic sweet sourness that this cheese is all about." He also puts it in the proper context of "Italian restaurants that are neither proudly hokey red-sauce joints nor stylized, self-conscious destinations" and explains how it has lost whatever Italian cred it once had over the thirty year process of devolving "from a trailblazing showcase for unadorned Tuscan cooking to something of a downtown Elaine's." Certainly there is nothing much on the menu there that requires much explanation, or that might benefit from Bruni explaining "how they do things over there in Italy."

[weinoo]

What FG's post demonstrates is that Bruni is an awful food writer, with his Italian reviews being the better of a bad lot overall.

But I disagree that this review of Scarpetta is awful food writing.

As Sam pointed out, there is a reservoir of knowledge, gained from his years of living in Italy and eating what people eat every day, that he is drawing upon for this review. For instance,

And what he’s adding to the sauce — the aforementioned basil, along with a red-pepper-infused olive oil and Parmesan cheese — contribute measures of zip (just a little), saltiness (a little more) and smoothness (a lot) that are inarguably right. I had this dish twice, and twice it stacked up against any spaghetti al pomodoro I’ve had in Italy.

and

for briny blasts of the sea, you can savor the mussels, clams, shrimp, squid and sea urchin roe entwined with calamarata, a thick noodle with a shape and weight that recall a squiggle of calamari, explaining the name.

tell me just what to expect when I order those pastas. Good writing. And the first paragraph of today's review is great, sort of poking fun at those of us who worry and fret over the NYC food scene.

If anything Reichl's writing is more informed by books and articles than Bruni's writing, which has come a long way since that review of Da Silvano in '06, for the better, imo. That's a good thing.

[Nathan]

am I the only one who thinks Bruni's review is the better one? (especially when considering the intended audience is not the microscopic one of foodboard people)

[Fat Guy]

gained from his years of living in Italy and eating what people eat every day

Just to be clear, he was Rome bureau chief from July 2002 until March 2004, in other words about 20 months. And we have no idea what he ate while there, no less if he ate "what people eat every day." We do know he lived in New York City for decades and never learned much about the restaurants here.

Did he eat spaghetti with tomatoes and basil often when he lived in Italy? The sentence he wrote allows for once or twice as possibilities. And did he eat the dish in restaurants or did he cook it like some people in Italy do every day? I get the point about his description of the spaghetti being sort-of evocative and certainly competent (nobody has said he's a bad writer) but "however Mr. Conant is choosing and cooking the Roma tomatoes with which he sauces his house-made spaghetti, he’s getting a roundness of flavor and nuance of sweetness that amount to pure Mediterranean bliss" is just lazy. He could have found out exactly how Conant chooses and cooks the tomatoes, by asking. Certainly, there was some discussion with the chef -- unless we choose to believe that Bruni's palate figured out red-pepper-infused olive oil on its own.

[Fat Guy]

am I the only one who thinks Bruni's review is the better one?  (especially when considering the intended audience is not the microscopic one of foodboard people)

Why do you think it's better?

[Fat Guy]

If anything Reichl's writing is more informed by books and articles than Bruni's writing

You say that like it's a bad thing. Reichl has both traveled extensively in Italy and familiarized herself with the written sources. Bruni has done the former (we assume he got out of Rome on occasion) but probably not the latter. My point was not that he's well-read on Italian cuisine but that his 20 or so months there haven't given him particular insight. I didn't think Ruth Reichl was the greatest reviewer ever, but now her tenure seems like the good old days.

[Nathan]

am I the only one who thinks Bruni's review is the better one?  (especially when considering the intended audience is not the microscopic one of foodboard people)

Why do you think it's better?

better written and it gives you a better sense of what it's like to eat at Da Silvano....which is the point of a restaurant review.

[Fat Guy]

Just checking. I completely disagree with those claims, which are actually one claim.

[Fat Guy]

simply repeating something that we had already been hearing ad infinitum for years by 1998

. . . . .

tired characterizations as "Italian cooking is about choosing a few pristine ingredients and treating them simply" that have been repeated a million times in post-Molto Mario America

Just to put some dates on all this:

- The Ruth Reichl review ran in 1998

- Babbo opened in 1998

- The first episodes of Molto Mario aired on the Food Network in 1997

So I hardly think Reichl was writing in post-Molto Mario America, where everybody allegedly knows the basics about Italian cuisine. She was teaching, in a way appropriate to her time and place. Bruni, for his part, is teaching pretty much nothing.

In addition, I think Reichl's teachings from 1998 are still not well understood outside of the gourmet community. Outside of a few dozen top restaurants, the Italian-restaurant cuisine that's popular in America today is just as bad as in 1998 -- probably worse when you consider the rise of Olive Garden etc. That's what Americans think Italian food is. So I think Reichl's statements are as true today as they were a decade ago.

[Nathan]

Just checking. I completely disagree with those claims, which are actually one claim.

different claims. the first is stylistic.

[MikeHartnett]

I think that, while Reichl is a better writer and comes off as more passionate about food, she also can be quite snotty about it. Often, I get the sense that she feels compelled to tell me that even the most basic of ideas (i.e. Italian cuisine = fantastic ingredients) need to be re-explained to me because she can do a better job of it than anyone else who could have possibly taught me.

ETA: I posted this while Fat Guy was posting his last... And he has a fair point that many Americans misunderstand Italian food. However, I still think that the way she explains things makes it seem as though she were ordained by God to enlighten the dimwitted earthlings about food.

Edited by MikeHartnett, 30 July 2008 - 10:05 AM.

[slkinsey]

am I the only one who thinks Bruni's review is the better one?  (especially when considering the intended audience is not the microscopic one of foodboard people)

Why do you think it's better?

1. It's less focused on the self-aggrandizement of the writer.

2. It's not preachy (which Reichl's is).

3. It's not full of trite, meaningless conventions about Italian food (which Reichl's is).

4. It has more to say about the actual quality of the cooking, what was good what was not good.

5. It lets the cat out of the bag with respect to how the restaurant has devolved into "Elaine's South" (which was no less true in 1998 than it is today). I would argue that this was the main thrust of the review.

6. Reichl's review, while ostensibly more narrowly food-focused, is full of weasel words (crostini toppings are "assertive"; broccoli rape is "satisfying"; pastas "beautifully cooked") and in many cases consists of simple recitations of dishes on offer ("anchovies are marinated and served, all by themselves"; "the grilled and roasted meats, or the vitello tonnato, or the orata (sea bream) al forno . . . have the straightforward goodness") without saying much more.

7. Reichl's review seems to be at least as much about telling her readers about how much she knows about Italy and how many times she has been there than it is about the restaurant ("most Americans do not understand the basic principles of Italian cooking"; "he best Italian cooking starts with great raw materials and allows them to speak for themselves"; "slow-cooked veal ragu that tasted just the way it would in Italy"; "reminds me very much of eating in a trattoria in Tuscany"; "if you really were in Italy, you would not find yourself quite so crowded or shouting quite so loudly"; "a restaurant in Italy would undoubtedly cost less money"; "a meal in a restaurant in Italy would probably end just as badly"; "it was exactly like the panna cotta I was served on my last visit to Florence"). None of these things particularly add to the reader's understanding of the restaurant, but they certainly do hammer home that Ruth's been to Italy. Meanwhile, it's not like Da Silvano is particularly noteworthy for its authenticity today, nor was it in 1998.

8. Bruni's review has more information as to whether the food is particularly good (Ruth's "assertive" crostini "tasted like pet food"; osso bucco was "overcooked and over-flabby, with nightmarishly liquefied marrow"; "entrees include roasted pork shoulder (flavorful enough to rise above a surfeit of salt), vitello tonnato (hugely flavorful despite leathery meat), a breaded veal chop (too oily)"; "I can't forget the bitterness of fava beans, served with pecorino, or the rubbery disgrace of the overcooked broccoli").

[slkinsey]

simply repeating something that we had already been hearing ad infinitum for years by 1998

. . . . .

tired characterizations as "Italian cooking is about choosing a few pristine ingredients and treating them simply" that have been repeated a million times in post-Molto Mario America

Just to put some dates on all this:

- The Ruth Reichl review ran in 1998

- Babbo opened in 1998

- The first episodes of Molto Mario aired on the Food Network in 1997

So I hardly think Reichl was writing in post-Molto Mario America, where everybody allegedly knows the basics about Italian cuisine. She was teaching, in a way appropriate to her time and place. Bruni, for his part, is teaching pretty much nothing.

In addition, I think Reichl's teachings from 1998 are still not well understood outside of the gourmet community. Outside of a few dozen top restaurants, the Italian-restaurant cuisine that's popular in America today is just as bad as in 1998 -- probably worse when you consider the rise of Olive Garden etc. That's what Americans think Italian food is. So I think Reichl's statements are as true today as they were a decade ago.

That doesn't make those characterizations any less trite. It's not like Mario Batali was the first one to say those things. People had been saying that sort of thing on Italian cooking shows for years and years.

Meanwhile, at the time of Reichl's review, Felidia had been open since 1981; Po had been open since 1993; etc.

More to the point, I don't think that any of the things she said were particularly edifying in the context of that review, nor do I think that the context of a restaurant review is necessarily the right place for that kind of "teaching."

[weinoo]

People had been saying that sort of thing on Italian cooking shows for years and years.

And in books, for even longer.

[Fat Guy]

That doesn't make those characterizations any less trite.

I don't think her comments are trite under any circumstances. They're still worth repeating, even today, but especially needed to be said as often as possible a decade ago. I think her summary of the Italian culinary aesthetic is accurate and helpful in explaining the problem she's addressing. Again, as has been pointed out already, the audience for New York Times restaurant reviews is a general readership. Educated in general, but not necessarily an all-gourmet audience. The basics are appropriate for such an audience.

[slkinsey]

Even if I were to concede that her characterizations of Italian cooking are not trite (which I don't), I would still point out that they were certainly not her own, they didn't necessarily demonstrate a deep understanding of Italian cooking other than the ability to read and repeat phrases and ideas that had been in circulation for years from other writers (Marcella Hazan? Paging Marcella Hazan?), nor do they present this information in any particularly edifying way, and they don't meaningfully contribute to an understanding of Da Silvano in 1998. And there are the other mainfest weaknesses in her review.


I'm not going to stand up and say that I think Bruni's Da Silvano review is a great piece of restaurant criticism and food writing. But I also don't think that this Reichl review evidences a deeper understanding of Italian food.

Edited by slkinsey, 30 July 2008 - 10:36 AM.

[Fat Guy]

Bruni's review has more information as to whether the food is particularly good (Ruth's "assertive" crostini "tasted like pet food" . . . .

"Assertive" is a worthy flavor adjective, whereas the description "tasted like pet food" is trite even by the standards of CitySearch reader comments.

People had been saying that sort of thing on Italian cooking shows for years and years.

And in books, for even longer.

So if I catch either of you repeating the notion, any time post-1998, that Italian cuisine is ingredient-driven, minimalist, etc., it's okay for me to label those statements as trite? If so, I think I have an appointment with the eG Forums search engine. Seriously, though, Reichl is not making a claim to originality any more than a critic explaining a basic point in any other field is making a claim to originality. She's explaining a tradition and she's explaining it in an accurate distillation. In other words she's doing her job well.

[oakapple]

For those Bruni supporters out there, when was the last time you learned anything from him — not counting easily goggle-able facts such as the name of a chef, the date a restaurant opened, etc.

[Nathan]

that Oceana is still good?

that Rosanjin existed.


but I'd say the same for all the professional food reviewers...none of them show great depth in a review.

[slkinsey]

People had been saying that sort of thing on Italian cooking shows for years and years.

And in books, for even longer.

So if I catch either of you repeating the notion, any time post-1998, that Italian cuisine is ingredient-driven, minimalist, etc., it's okay for me to label those statements as trite? If so, I think I have an appointment with the eG Forums search engine. Seriously, though, Reichl is not making a claim to originality any more than a critic explaining a basic point in any other field is making a claim to originality. She's explaining a tradition and she's explaining it in an accurate distillation. In other words she's doing her job well.

I think there is a difference between pointing out elements of the Italian culinary aesthetic where it is appropriate and/or edifying to do so, and the way Reichl has done so in the review.

For example, when Reichl wrote about the simple beet salad or the simple dish of rapini with sausage and garlic... these are situations in which it might make sense to weave in a little digression on the fact that these minimalistic preparations are part of the Italian culinary aesthetic (and presumably part of what makes Da Silvano noteworthy or good). This would have been edifying as to Italian cookery, informative as to the restaurant, organically woven into the narrative and not preachy. Instead, she starts off using this as an example of all the things Americans don't know about Italian cooking, contrasts it with the absurd strawman of an American chef cooking up "spaghetti with bananas and octopus with strawberry jam" as Italian food, and then fails to follow on upon this meme or relate it to Da Silvano later in her review. What she does do is make plenty sure the reader knows she's been to Italy. Not edifying, informative or organic.

So, sure... if you catch me starting off a post about my experiences in a restaurant by saying that "the best Italian cooking starts with great raw materials and allows them to speak for themselves" when that sentence does not frame the main thrust of everything I am about to say about the restaurant, by all means point it out.

Bruni's review has more information as to whether the food is particularly good (Ruth's "assertive" crostini "tasted like pet food" . . . .

"Assertive" is a worthy flavor adjective, whereas the description "tasted like pet food" is trite even by the standards of CitySearch reader comments.

As for "assertive" versus "tastes like cat food". . . The former tells us very little about how the crostini taste, considering that one would expect chicken livers, capers, anchovies and onions to have a strong flavor. It is good assertive or bad assertive? All I get is that it was sharp. Or is that strong? How did the anchovy come through? Maybe she means that it was salty? Capers are pretty assertive, too. Or maybe the onion was raw, and its spicyness was what made the crostini "assertive"? We don't know. "Tastes like cat food," on the other hand, immediately conveys information that the crostini were not good, and associates that with the sense memory of anyone who has ever opened a can of cat food or dog food without a clothes pin on his nose.

ETA: fixed quotes

Edited by slkinsey, 30 July 2008 - 11:12 AM.

[MikeHartnett]

Bruni's review has more information as to whether the food is particularly good (Ruth's "assertive" crostini "tasted like pet food" . . . .

"Assertive" is a worthy flavor adjective, whereas the description "tasted like pet food" is trite even by the standards of CitySearch reader comments.

People had been saying that sort of thing on Italian cooking shows for years and years.

And in books, for even longer.

So if I catch either of you repeating the notion, any time post-1998, that Italian cuisine is ingredient-driven, minimalist, etc., it's okay for me to label those statements as trite? If so, I think I have an appointment with the eG Forums search engine. Seriously, though, Reichl is not making a claim to originality any more than a critic explaining a basic point in any other field is making a claim to originality. She's explaining a tradition and she's explaining it in an accurate distillation. In other words she's doing her job well.

Assertive is an adjective worthy of describing how flavorful something is, or the ratio of one flavor to another. It does nothing to describe the flavor itself, though.

And there isn't anything wrong with making trite comments which sum up Italian cuisine in a pinch, but such statements don't support the claim you made that Reichl's deeper knowledge comes out through them.

Edited by MikeHartnett, 30 July 2008 - 11:03 AM.

[oakapple]

that Oceana is still good?

that Rosanjin existed.

Rosanjin's existence counts as an easily google-able fact. What I meant was, what have you learned something about cuisine from him? Obviously, every week you're getting one man's opinion about whether a place is good or not.

but I'd say the same for all the professional food reviewers...none of them show great depth in a review.

We are not in an era of great food criticism.

Edited by oakapple, 30 July 2008 - 12:32 PM.

[weinoo]

For those Bruni supporters out there, when was the last time you learned anything from him — not counting easily goggle-able facts such as the name of a chef, the date a restaurant opened, etc.

Today, when I learned that I want to try Scarpetta. I don't need to learn anything from him, only whether the restaurant was good or bad, in his opinion. And today, he did that rather well.

[slkinsey]

For those Bruni supporters out there. . .

I don't consider myself a Bruni supporter by any means. I have simply disputed the assertion that he doesn't have any knowledge when it comes to Italian cuisine.


I'll also add that the one thing I have been grateful to Bruni for is the way he has broken the hegemony of the Francophile model when it comes to evaluating restaurants.

[oakapple]

I'll also add that the one thing I have been grateful to Bruni for is the way he has broken the hegemony of the Francophile model when it comes to evaluating restaurants.

I am not so sure he actually did that. Both Mimi Sheraton and Ruth Reichl gave high star ratings to non-Francophile restaurants. Sheraton, for instance, gave four stars to Hatsuhana and three to Sammy's Roumanian. Reichl ranged far and wide in her three-star ratings. The difference is that Sheraton and Reichl understood the French model too, and I am not convinced Bruni really does.

Edited by oakapple, 30 July 2008 - 03:09 PM.

[plattetude]

that Oceana is still good?

that Rosanjin existed.

Rosanjin's existence counts as an easily google-able fact.

Not sure I grasp this. How does one search for a restaurant if one doesn't know of its existence? I'm pretty sure that going to Google and plugging in "worthy restaurants in NYC I've never heard of" wouldn't bring back a valid sample set. Seems to me that learning that a restaurant that you've never heard of should be on your radar is worthwhile.

Or am I missing the point?

Christopher

[Fat Guy]

Christopher, I do think you may be missing Marc's point. I think he's talking about learning as in being educated, not as in finding out 1- simple service-oriented information (a given restaurant has opened), or 2- Bruni's personal opinions (the restaurant is good). An example of learning something -- in the education sense -- might be learning that it's better to sit at a sushi bar than at a table (or that might be mentioned as a general rule in a review of a restaurant that's an exception).

Back to the more general points, it's difficult for me to compare what I've personally learned from Ruth Reichl (a lot) and from Frank Bruni (nothing) in a meaningful way because she wrote from 1993 to 1999. That's the period during which I was just learning about fine dining, and her reviews were full of information that, to me, was new. Whereas, by the time Frank Bruni came on the scene, I had much more personal experience and knowledge. In addition, it was a different time on America's gourmet learning curve as well as in the development of both ethnic and creative cuisines.

Nonetheless, I think if you control for the variables what you find is that Ruth Reichl's reviews are superior in terms of their educational content. Nathan mentioned that he liked Frank Bruni's review of Da Silvano better than Ruth Reichl's because it "gives you a better sense of what it's like to eat at Da Silvano....which is the point of a restaurant review." I disagree with both halves of that statement, but the latter clause is the one I find particularly disagreeable. Criticism is not primarily about reporting on what something is like. It's about qualitative evaluation of the subject, whether the subject is a book, a restaurant or a performance. Perhaps in writing about cars the idea is to describe how the car drives, but that's low-level consumer reporting not anything approaching arts criticism.

In that regard, I think Bruni's reviews are more like consumer reporting or, actually, more like a blog or personal-journal body of work. Whereas Ruth Reichl's criticism is more like traditional literary and arts criticism. So I would expect the former to be more detailed on the first-person experiential aspect of things (though Ruth Reichl did that well too, when appropriate, and sometimes too often) but I strongly prefer the latter and think it's a superior approach.

To circle back to the much-maligned statements by Ruth Reichl that Italian food is about simplicity etc., I think she's right on. Sure, this piece of information is well known by many people who post here. But that doesn't make it trite. Indeed, I believe she has correctly identified the key issue in Italian cuisine. I find myself explaining that exact same thing to people all the time. So does, I'm guessing, Sam Kinsey. So what she has done is what a critic is supposed to do: she's started out by talking about an important general aspect of the field in which she writes, and then she has illustrated it in a review of a specific venue. You can see this in plenty of her reviews, and in few if any of Frank Bruni's.

[Katie Meadow]

Ruth Reichl was a standout critic. She knew food the way a real home cook knows food and she could write circles around Bruni. Her warmth engendered trust in her opinions. I can never tell if Bruni is actually having fun when he is eating or writing. Besides his evaluation of the dishes and the service, there's not much else of interest going on, so there isn't much a reader can learn. Bring on the digressions, the rants, the obscure facts, the sentimental touches and the dining experience that brings tears to the eyes for whatever reason. I don't think Bruni brings much of himself to the table.

Ruth Reichl could write a novella about a cardboard box and you'd be right there with her. Jeffrey Steingarten, Bill Buford, Amanda Hesser, Laurie Colwin...they aren't primarily reviewers but when they write about great, good or dreadful encounters with food the pleasure shows. Of course being a really good critic is a special talent and takes more than that, but without that, it's hard to care too much what anyone says, and it's even harder to read all the way to the end.

[weinoo]

Besides his evaluation of the dishes and the service, there's not much else of interest going on, so there isn't much a reader can learn. Bring on the digressions, the rants, the obscure facts, the sentimental touches and the dining experience that brings tears to the eyes for whatever reason. I don't think Bruni brings much of himself to the table.

Funny, but I thought that was the point of a restaurant review...I'll leave the comparisons with literary and art reviews to those with so much more experience than me at judging that type of criticism .

And when you look back in this topic, you'll see that the digressions, rants, etc. are what most everyone disliked about Bruni.