182 replies to this topic

[Andy Lynes]

That is quite possibly true, but I've always been a bit of an old git really.

[Jinmyo]

We're all getting old.

The point is: Well put, Steve P.

[Roger McShane]

Despite the fact that the responses to my original post have wandered around all over the place (a good thing I think, because the discussions have been interesting) I believe that many of the reviewers who have posted are really missing the point.
Writing reviews for a newspaper or web site or magazine is partly about setting expectations for the readers (why else are we doing it apart from self congratulation). We are trying to explain what type of food, service, wine, ambience etc will they find in the restaurant.
If the experience of the reviewer is so far removed from that of the reader then they have done the reader a disservice.
Maybe Patricia Wells does understand Rubichon better than anyone else, but I don't care. I want to read a review by someone really clever who has not been given special consideration in the restaurant. Otherwise I am going to be disappointed with my experience (as I have been in a number of restaurants that Patricia has recommended).

I want to know how to get them to perform for me AT THEIR MAXIMUM LEVEL. Why would anyone want the average experience if they can acquire the knowledge of how to get the best experience?

I agree with this quote, but for god's sake how does the average diner manage to get such an experience? I always want the restaurant to perform at their maximum level, but if I am consigned to Siberia in the back blocks of Le Bernardin while the critics occupy table 1 then how do I share their experience?
The same goes for Nobu where they have a clear delineation of tables. Famous people and critics up the front, the rest of us down the back.
This is the hallmark of the compromised critic. The willingness to accept special treatment.
In all our years of reviewing we have never sought special treatment. The reviews we do are what the average diner experiences - even though WE WANT THE RESTAURANT TO PERFORM AT THEIR MAXIMUM LEVEL.
So, I admire any reviewer who tries to remain incognito. I admire those who don't go to the publicity events. I admire those who don't accept the invitations to the press dinners.
All this rubbish about having to know the chef to understand what they are doing is self-justification to ensure that the gravy train can keep rolling! But the public won't be better informed!

[Simon Majumdar]

I think Steve's points are well made and with one exception bang on the mark

I would however question his take on Parker as an example

Of course the ideal way to judge a critic is to try what he/she trys and see if your views conflict or agree.  This is fine if your budget is unlimited or even reasonable ( which many of us have the priviledged position to be in ) but for many the value of a review is guidance, by those who have the time and supposedly objective knowledge on whatever subject they are offering criticism, on what is worth spending limited money on and time doing.

If that advice is skewed becuase the critic happens to have compromised his values for friendship ( and who is to say which is worth more? ) then they are doing their readers a diservice.  

I agree with Steve that the proof is in the eating of the pudding, so it has cost me a bit of money to find out that I should flip the page when Meades discusses an MPW place, when Jay Rayner discusses Ramsay, when Coren discusses anything and that foulkes should be shot at dawn, but I am fortunate enough to have sufficient budget to do this.  Many are not. We all eat out more in a month than most people do in a year and so can make these judgements quickly, others may not and trust the critics to offer them a selection of places from which they can be sure to pick a meal which is not disappointing.  From the critic's views of the Almeida, you would think it was a reasonable bet.  From my own experience it was as excrable as any other Conran "sham"

Here is a fact that is pertinent

I have just spoken to a very well known music critic I know and he tells me that a certain very well known music magazine ( think one letter title here ) Magazine have a policy of never giving certain "key" acts less than 4* for any album  because their record company would not spend the advertising revenue on which they depend.

Compromised?  you tell me

S

[jayrayner]

Simon, I'm genuinely intrigued. Why do you feel more inclined to ignore what I say about Ramsay than anybody else? (I'm working on the assumption that you start from a position of being genreally inclined to ignore everything I say about everybody.) I have reviewed Ramsay once, at Claridges, and far less than admiringly. indeed, I seem to recall that our views on the place concurred.  Let me know my crime so that I may attone.

J

[Simon Majumdar]

Actually Jay.  I am less inclined to ignore you than most critics and you have moved up the league after the retirement of Meades or Mrs Pierre White as I heard someone refer to him.

On the Ramsay thing.  Psyche!!!  I thought that would get you.  Althought on re-reading, I did think that your slightly too self depreciating tone on being recognised could be seen as the lady protesting too much.  Something of which I am sure I could be accused also

S

[John Whiting]

I have just spoken to a very well known music critic I know and he tells me that a certain very well known music magazine ( think one letter title here ) Magazine have a policy of never giving certain "key" acts less than 4* for any album  because their record company would not spend the advertising revenue on which they depend.

The world of classical music is hardly free of influence or even corruption; nevertheless, such a policy would be unthinkable in any of the relevant English or American periodicals I'm familiar with.

[Simon Majumdar]

This is a "rock" magazine and a pretty respected one at that.

I have no idea how true it is, but I do respect the person who told me this, so who knows?

It does go to show how corrupt all criticism ( not just food related ) is by its nature

I know for a 100% certain fact how easy it is to become biased.  I have written many book reviews ( some for regionals, some for nationals ) I have not done so for a long time because my own opinions of the personalities involved coloured my opinions of their work, so, I gave a great review to a poor novel by William Boyd because he was incredibly nice to me once when I was a snot nosed junior.  For the opposite reason I gave a shredding to an adequate novel by Martin Amis ( no Martin Amis novel is ever more than adequate and he should be shot for using the Holocaust for a literary exercise in Times Arrow ) because he was a rude splenetic individual.

Interestingly enough, I was once asked to review a rather good procedural novel by Jay's estimable mother.  I refused as I was working for her publisher at the time ( no reason why he should know this, but this was the one time Jay and I met ) it would have been very easy to write a glowing review of it, but how much credibitily would it have had and it would have damaged a novel that stood perfectly well on its own merits?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Roger and Simon seem to believe that the public is worse off with "compromised critics." But neither of them has offered any proof other than in the abstract, how corruption and conflict are to blame for poor reviews. In Roger's examples of Patricia Wells, how is her being a famous face responsible for your palate not agreeing with hers? I eat at her recommendations all of the time and the results I have had vary. I followed her advice and ate at Helene Darroze and it was terrific. But I also went to Auberge Pyranees Cervennes and it was so ordinary that I could have probably done better preparing the same food at home. Is her lack of anonymity the cause? Is it the fact that she knew the woman who now runs the Auberge when she managed a place in Lyon? I keep failing to see the connection. Especially when Gault Milau gives the place 13 points and a toque, and Le Petit Leby named the place bistro of the year the year I ate there  :confused:

If we took the worst possible example, a chef was paying a critic money for a good review. Would you be absolutely sure that the reviewer is lying? Couldn't it be the case that they are corrupt AND the food is delicious? So Simon's point about it being expensive to "test" your palate against a reviewer's being expensive, holds true for both honest AND dishonest reviewers. I mean how would you know if you didn't eat the pudding? The only way to test honesty and integrity is to taste the food .

You know when I read a political periodical, and an article is written by someone with a specific political view (could there be a bigger conflict than political leanings?,) their leanings do not mean they are automatically right or wrong. In fact, wearing their heart on their sleeve often makes their argument more forceful. And then by reading their, and competing opinions I have a better way of formulating my own opinion.  I view Wells and Robuchon the same way. That her baseline is that he is the world's greatest chef is MORE information, not the less information that certain people prefer. And the more information at my disposal, the better off I am. That's because ultimately, the only one who can decide if it's good is me.

[Simon Majumdar]

Steve

I couldn't agree more

The only way to test the pudding is to eat it.  My argument is that not everyone has the luxury of a bank balance that allows them to eat at enough places to judge a critic.  So they depend on the critic to offer an unbiased opinion.  I have no problem if someone says "Chef X is a great mate of mine and and I am going to give him a great review"  then I can make the choice if I want to follow his advice

Here is an e.g taken from our own site.  Andy ( Lynes that is ) promotes Bruce Poole on this site.  I give him stick for this, but in reality know that he has enough discernment that he would not promote a duffer.  Plus, he makes no bones about the fact that he knows and likes Poole.  That allows me to make an informed choice.  If he shamelessly shilled him but did not declare an interest, then he would be offering devalued information.  Someone who read this site might think they were getting objective information and might go on that basis.  Whether they were to have a good or bad meal there would not be relavant to this argument.

In the end critics perform a function and it is up to people to follow them or not.  I have probably spent more time on this thread than I ever would reading restaurant reviews and I can only think of half a dozen times when I have actively visited a restaurant becuase of a critic.  far more I take the word of mouth and even more increasingly the rec's of people on this site.

[Steve Plotnicki]

"So they depend on the critic to offer an unbiased opinion."

Simon-I just don't see this as relevent. The ONLY way to test a critic's opinion is to eat the pudding. You can't tell if they are biased or not in a vacuum. But suppose you ate at Bruce's and found out that Andy got it all wrong. WHY he got it all wrong isn't relevent. The only thing that is relevent is did he or didn't he.  We can argue all day long about is it because he's buddies with the chef, or he did it for more nefarious reasons, or he did it because of cleft palate. That is a discussion about Andy, not the restaurant. I'm only interested in the latter. Especially after meeting Andy. Sheesh.

[Andy Lynes]

Here is an e.g taken from our own site.  Andy ( Lynes that is ) promotes Bruce Poole on this site.  I give him stick for this, but in reality know that he has enough discernment that he would not promote a duffer.  Plus, he makes no bones about the fact that he knows and likes Poole.  

Simon - I'm not sure it's true that I "promote" Mr Poole on this site. There are reviews of two of his restaurants on my own website, plus an article about the cookery competition that we both took part in, and I respond to queries about Chez Bruce or La Trompette on eGullet, but I don't actively promote anyone or anything.

I think it's worth noting here that I am an Internal Auditor for BT and not a food critic or professional restaurant reviewer. I just write about what I eat and hope that someone out there is interested enough to read it. That is all there is to it.

I always try and talk to the chef at restaurants that I really like, but don't bother if the meal has been average or bad. I enjoy getting the latest restaurant scene gossip from chefs, some of which on occasion I pass on here, and of course talking about food with them. For example, just last week I was in Ludlow at Hibiscus and had a chat with Claude Bosi (he spoke to all his customers that night) then nipped down the road and bought Shaun Hill a pint and chatted to him in his kitchen. I have also recently had discussions with Shane Osborne at Pied a Terre and Anthony Boyd at The Glasshouse in Kew (a Poole restaurant).  

I will continue to write about my restaurant experiences, and I will continue to cultivate my acquaintances with food professionals, because I enjoy both very much.

[Wilfrid]

What a lot of consensus!  Simon's comments about the way the music magazine apportions good reviews come as no surprise to me.  Much of my journalism was in the "music/entertainment" field, and there have always been pressures arising from the obvious fact that record companies, movie studios, etc are the prime sources of advertising income for supposedly independent and critical journals.  In addition to that, one key bargaining chip is "access".  If you tear up a star from a particular studio, you are not going to be front of the line to interview their next candidate.

At one extreme of virtuousness, one had the example of the New Yorker, which under the editorship of William Shawn had an impenetrable Chinese wall between the editorial and advertising departments, so that there could be no influence on content.  That is most rare.

I cut my teeth at a magazine which was acknowledged to be quite feisty and iconoclastic.  I was never told to whether to write a good or bad review.  However, it was absolutely clear that the editor in each section would apportion assignments knowing with some certainty whether a particular act/performer/event was going to get sympathetic or hostile treatment from the writer.  The decisions were usually based, I am quite sure, on a need to keep the magazine interesting:  a highly promoted act, if they had received three or four good notices in a row, would probably be thought due for a mauling.  But, at the same time, the editors were conscious of sponsors' attitudes and the resulting pressures, and I am quite sure that real life involved a pragmatic balancing of critical and commercial priorities, not the noble defence of the former against the latter.

Waffle, waffle...Applying it to food critics?  I think it is fully accepted that book, movie, music (etc) writers are going to have contacts, and even friends, in their chosen field.  They also - where it's relevant - get the bests seats, the best view, and all kinds of other special treatments.  Why should a food or wine writer be any different?

[macrosan]

I agree with SteveP's primary conclusion but not at some of the sub-text.

Where SteveP leads us in his last post is to the conclusion that a restaurant review is a fruitless exercise, which has no value other than (possibly) literary entertainment. He says the only way to reach a conclusion about a review is to try the restaurant. But you don't need a review to try a restaurant, you can just ... well ... try the restaurant.

Steve also implies that one of the objectives of eating at a restaurant is to test a critic's reviews. No thanks, let their newspapers do that, it's not my job !!!

The bottom line is that people who read reviews (I wonder what proportion of the restaurant-going population that is) find a reviewer with whose views they discover, by experience, agree with their own tastes. They then 'follow' that reviewer until their tastes part company, or the reviewer goes bent, I guess. And pace Simon's quite valid comment about the financial capability to follow such a path, I would suggest that those who cannot afford this process simply cannot afford this process. Sadly perhaps, they should not try to follow reviews, they need to accept that they will have to take a risk. That's just the same as buying something which by custom isn't reviewed, such as a package holiday. Buyers of those have to rely on the provider's advertising and on their own enquiries.

And SteveP rightly points out that with the best will in the world, a reviewer can get it wrong or a restaurant can get it wrong on the night. Cooking is not a science, and the reviewer and the diner can get totally different experiences, for other reasons than preferential treatment or taste or subjective mood.

[Mebutter]

Well, I hope I've been sticking to my guns in my postings on this topic....

Steve Plotnicki makes some interesting points. Anonymity and a buffer on personal relationships helps a reviewer be more objective in assessing a restaurant. Objectivity is important for the reader who trusts the reviewer is writing about what he or her experienced and is not airing his or her affection for a restaurant's owner or chef. I don't think anonymity or a buffer on personal relationships hinders a review. A reviewer, naturally, does what research he or she can about the restaurant, chef, cuisine style before writing the piece. You don't need friendship to gain special insight.
That said, a reviewer should disclose friendships/prior relations etc. in the piece.
As for word of mouth, Steve's right. But a good review can unfairly pump up a bad restaurant for weeks or months. Word of mouth moves fast, but not as fast as 298,000 copies.
Like Steve, I want a restaurant to give me their best and perform at their maximum level. But I want them to do that for everyone, not just for me. I think its important for a critic to experience the restaurant as any other diner would - that's the only way you can truly convey the experience of that place. With dinners here in Connecticut routinely hitting $150 to $200 for two - if you're lucky - going out to dinner is becoming more investment than fun. The readers have to trust you are giving them the straight dope.
As for Winifred's assertion that since music and other critics get the best of everything that should apply, too, to food and wine writers - that's OK (I say that very reluctantly) if you are a food or wine writer. It's absolutely not ok if you are a restaurant reviewer. (I'm speaking here from a U.S. newspaper perspective and realize magazines have different standards.)
And if you're lonely or feel cut off, that's part of the reviewing business. Cope or do something else.
Macrosan notes a restaurant can get it wrong one night or the reviewer can. Very true. That's why it's wise to pay multiple visits to a restaurant, on weekends and weeknights, to see how the place manages. If need be, you make "extra" visits until you are satisfied you are pretty much familiar with the restaurant's tempo and style.
The topic of this thread is "compromised critics" but it really is a question of ethics. You've got to live with what you're comfortable with.

[Wilfrid]

As for Winifred's assertion ...

Eh?

[Andy Lynes]

Wilfrid - do you have something you want to share with the rest of us?  You know we'll be supportive don't you?

[Mebutter]

I'm sorry, was I misinterpreting this???

"Waffle, waffle...Applying it to food critics?  I think it is fully accepted that book, movie, music (etc) writers are going to have contacts, and even friends, in their chosen field.  They also - where it's relevant - get the bests seats, the best view, and all kinds of other special treatments.  Why should a food or wine writer be any different?"

If so, no offense meant.

[Mebutter]

Oh, I see what I did.
Winifred instead of WILFRID. That's the second time I've screwed up your name and I do apologize. I must be having a stroke...

[Wilfrid]

Not at all.  I see what you mean, in fact.  I was thinking about food and wine writers as a board category of journalists, and reflecting that we should count on them egtting more than their share of freebies!  But I now realise you have in mind the more specific category of critic who is attempting to provide the reader with a description of the experience anyone might have at a restaurant.  I agree, that's a little different.

[Steve Klc]

Bill--I think now you're finally getting to the crux of the issue for me, and I've valued and followed this thread with tremendous interest.  I feel there has to be a distinction drawn between the restaurant critic and the food writer.  There are lots of available food writers, freelance or otherwise, on board in every city and publication and what many of them do can hardly be called journalism, whatever integrity and professional ethics "journalism" implies anymore.  I have no problem with this--and encourage perpsective, close relationships, junkets, free meals, whatever for the typical, average food writer.

It's going on, publicists aren't going to stop taking food writers to their clients restaurants, nor should they.  It's the oil of the food world.  Just know what you're writing about and give credit where credit is due.

Yes, the proof is in the pudding, but...

whatever those ethics and professional tenets be for food writers--the restaurant critic, in my eyes, has to be treated differently and has to adhere to a different code.  

This has nothing to do with a writer's voice, perspective, knowledge, opinions.  The restaurant critic--for the sole reason that his or her review column can have such potentially dramatic impact--financially--on a restaurant competing in a marketplace, which is a business affecting numerous lives directly--has to be as above all potential conflict of interest as possible.  That means anonymity, no perks, no junkets, no advertorial interference, no editorial interference on where to dine and as few personal relationships with those reported on and covered as possible, and--because this latter issue is inevitable and natural over time--there has to be tenure in the position of a restaurant critic.

I'm in favor of tenure--but that it is unethical and irresponsible to remain in the same "beat" reviewing restaurants for too long--so I'd like term limits, too--the perfect example of the need for tenure was Phyllis Richman. (Not to turn this into a rant against your friend and colleague Bill.)  The minute a restaurant reviewer becomes known,  roots locally enough for the local talent to have turned several into celebrity chefs, morphed into such a powerful personality or celebrity in their own right--it's time to move to another city, move out to a glossy magazine if your writing is strong enough, go public and become a food writer.  One decade is enough.  Bring in a newbie (or an oldie from another city.)

[mamster]

In what sense are you using the term "tenure", Steve?  It sounds like you're calling for something more like term limits.  In academia, tenure means achieving a position from which it's difficult to be fired.  The goal is academic freedom, the freedom to do unpopular research without the fear of losing your job.  You're making the opposite argument, though, right?

I'm both a restaurant critic and a food writer.  So far I've avoided conflict of interest by never interviewing a chef for one of my food pieces whose restaurant I might review.  (Although "might" is a weasel word.)  The sad thing about food writing, maybe the sad thing about all journalism, is that sometimes you have to almost literally bite the hand that feeds you.

I wonder if food writing gets into more hairy ethical issues than, say, theater reviews because of the power of food as a symbol.  That is, when I go to a restaurant, someone has taken the time to prepare and serve me a meal, and they are going to take care of doing the dishes and thank me for coming to their establishment.  If a friend did this for you, you would never consider writing something about how you went to Jill's house, and you liked her plates and napkins, but the chicken should have been served hotter and the dessert was a disaster.  Okay, you might consider it.

But in restaurant reviewing, you do have to do that, and it goes against all of our instincts about reciprocity.  I think some reviewers are up to the task and some are not.  I'm largely insulated from it at this point--I've done a couple of negative reviews but most often get to throw those out.  The lead reviewer at our paper, like anywhere, has to eat at every new restaurant of note, and if it sucks, she has a responsibility to say so.  I don't know if I'd have the stomach to carry that off for long.

For the food pieces where, say, you have a private session with a chef and she makes you something special with a particular ingredient to try, it's even more of a bind.  The food may stink, but that's no longer the point of the article, and there's even more of a personal connection than in the earlier scenario.

I think we should demand that food journalists be impartial, but we should also understand that we're asking a lot, and in my own case, I think I'll only be able to get away with straddling the line between restaurant critic and food writer for so long, and eventually I will have to, like Fat Guy, move away from reviews and more toward restaurant "coverage" or just home cooking.

[Steve Klc]

Yes, for a newspaper critic, I'd say tenure with pre-agreed term limits is perhaps the best way to go--do the restaurant critic beat for a while and be guaranteed to slide into a food writer beat after you're done.  Specifically that you should not ever be both a restaurant critic and a food writer simultaneously.  You can be both, of course, in all sorts of new media opportunities, but then you are not the mainstream media's main voice on restaurant criticism in your town.  In my distinction, if Fat Guy were to become the restaurant critic for the New York Times he would have to agree to be constrained--to stop all the junkets, outside writing, website journals and blogs, disavow all prior publicist contacts, etc.  The restaurant critic should not ever sit with a publicist on the dime of the client.

I have no problem with food journalists and restaurant critics being opinionated--and don't believe it is actually possible to be truly impartial anyway.  But the restaurant reviewer has to be made to walk the finest line and navigate even the mere appearance of ethical conflicts--for the period of time that he or she is allowed to review restaurants--and then be trotted out to the populated pasture of just general food writers, journalists and celebrity authors.

[Mebutter]

Thank you, Steve and Mamster, for your comments about reviewers and reviewing.
Like you, Mamster, I wonder how long I'll remain a reviewer because of the inherent isolation of the job. I long for the days when I can be trotted out to Steve's "pasture" and be "nice" and interview any chef face-to-face without giving it a thought...(Right now, I'm restricted to chefs who are friends from the old days and won't be reviewed or phoners with carefully selected "targets" - no one I'm planning to review anytime soon.)
Mamster wrote: "The sad thing about food writing, maybe the sad thing about all journalism, is that sometimes you have to almost literally bite the hand that feeds you."
That applies, I think, whether you are a reviewer or a food journalist because there are, still, basic journalistic tenets you should follow.
Steve wrote: "There are lots of available food writers, freelance or otherwise, on board in every city and publication and what many of them do can hardly be called journalism, whatever integrity and professional ethics "journalism" implies anymore.  I have no problem with this--and encourage perpsective, close relationships, junkets, free meals, whatever for the typical, average food writer.
It's going on, publicists aren't going to stop taking food writers to their clients restaurants, nor should they.  It's the oil of the food world.  Just know what you're writing about and give credit where credit is due."
I'm as cynical as the next guy, maybe more so, and there are species of journalists out there who are journalists only in name. But I don't think we can surrender to the blandishments out there, even if they help p.r. people keep their job, because then you're beholden to the wrong people.
Food writer, reviewer, journalist - whatever you are - you have to write for your readers and not your sources. Otherwise they own you - and there's nothing worse than that, I think. Except maybe not writing at all...
God, I'm re-reading this and sound so bloody noble. Actually, I'm not. It's just that I've been a working reporter 20 years and I've always bristled at the public perception that we're all on the take, corrupt, lazy, immoral, what have you.
I always tell people I'm paid too little to go bad.

[Wilfrid]

What a useful thread, because that distinction between restaurant critic and general food writer was not clear in my mind when we started out.  It is the case, of course, that some very well-known critics have been going for a lot longer than a decade, and are instantly recognizable.  Yet their work continues to be of value; maybe they are creatures of unusual integrity.  Let me throw a name in so someone can contradict me:  Fay Maschler, working in London.

The anonymity point is interesting too.  It's hard to think of other fields of criticism where anonymity is of even potential importance.  With books, movies and most art works, the job is finished before the critic shows up.  Theatrical performances are hardly going to improve because there's a critic in the front row (what about opening nights?).  When I was writing reviews of bands who were just starting out, I often avoided contact with them until after they had played, just so that they wouldn't feel self-conscious about having a critic in the audience.  But the private and personal nature of a meal in a restaurant is something else again.  Intriguing distinction.

[Mebutter]

I also wanted to comment on this observation from Steve KLC:
"For a newspaper critic, I'd say tenure with pre-agreed term limits is perhaps the best way to go.  Specifically that you should not ever be both a restaurant critic and a food writer simultaneously.  You can be both, of course, in all sorts of new media opportunities, but then you are not the mainstream media's main voice on restaurant criticism in your town."
I agree with him in principle, but I'm afraid many newspapers are too cheap to hire two different people.When the Association of Food Journalists surveyed restaurant reviewers a few years ago, we found many critics also worked as their paper's food editor or as a food writer. I'm afraid I'm one of them. Fortunately, my food editor can take most of the restaurant stories where face-to-face is needed. Like most of us with two hats, I try to minimize my visibility and exposure to restaurant chefs/owners. I work on stories where I can call on out-of-state chefs or chefs I knew from the days before I was a critic. With everyone else, I restrict myself to phoners and pick people who work at places previously reviewed that I'm not planning to visit. It's not the neatest arrangement - telling an editor you can't do a story is never pleasant - but that's what I have to do.
Other food critics/writers are in the same boat. All of us are trying to find a solution that is ethical and works for our situation.
As for the tenure issue, that's interesting. (I'll skirt the Phyllis subtext.) When should a reviewer call it quits? Hmmm. I sense another topic thread starting to spin....

[Steve Plotnicki]

Excuse me for saying this because I mean no one harm but, I find this whole issue about a critics anonymity and lack of personal relationships to be an aggrandizement by the trade of their importance. It is a shifting of the threshold issue from it being about good palates, to it being about who has the most integrity. And the people who support those rules act as if the integrity that someone acquires from following these prescribed set of rules insures anyone of anything.

I keep asking this but, how exactly DOES a personal relationship skew someone's opinion? I understand that it might be the case, but why is it absolutely the case? And even further, why does everyone discount that a reviewer can go on a junket and still have the utmost integrity?
Or why does an artificial bias (like taking favors) have a larger negative impact than a natural bias? If a reviewer dislikes a certain type of dish, shouldn't he be discredited? Should reviewers that like game be discounted as unreliable because they are biased towards game?

This all comes down to the truth being the truth, and a lie being a lie. And the only way I can evaluate one from the other is by firsthand experience. Unless someone wants to tell me why a bribe is only associated with a lie? Can't it be that someone got paid off IN ORDER THAT THE TRUTH BE TOLD? Now I can understand if we were discussing morality, that a critic who goes on junkets etc. could be branded a wrongdoer. But if he writes the gospel about a place, and we all benefit from it, what and where exactly is the problem?

[Steve Klc]

Steve--it's called the appearance of impropriety, which as you state and I agree doesn't have anything to do with whether someone has a well-developed palate.  And it doesn't confer anything other than that.  Everything else is still fair game--palate, perception, opinion, writing style, knowledge.  No absolutes, no insurance, just taking any and all steps to remove the appearance of impropriety and disclose conflicts of interest in one subset of food writing--the full time restaurant reviewer.

Bill raises a valuable corrollary--what to do about small markets which can't support the full time restaurant critic? Should there be a sliding ethics scale for different circulation categories-- in this case for those of us who value an organization's attempt to reduce or eliminate the appearance of impropriety on one hand yet have to face financial realities in a tight job market with the other?

[Wilfrid]

I agree with all you say, Mr P., and indeed was saying much the same earlier in the thread.  The point which swayed me, specifically about restaurant critics, was that I could readily see that it would be hard for a well-known critic to report on the kind of experience a restaurant might offer an ordinary punter.  I can think of no analogies for this in other fields of criticism.  I did, therefore, concede that I understood the reason for anonymity, just for that limited project.  At the same time, while I can see the reason, I am not sure it rises to a necessity, as some well-known critics do a decent job.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Steve Klc-But why should the appearance of impropriety be given any weight at all? I certainly don't give it much weight. And  in my own methedology of evaluating whether a critic warrants my attention, I wouldn't reach impropriety unless I was able to first make a determination that something was wrong with the review.

The only reason papers need to give the appearance of propriety is that the readers deem impropriety a fatal flaw. That's the part I don't get because nobody has shown me any evidence that impropriety INDEED IS a fatal flaw.

I keep asking the people who disagree with me the same question and it doesn't get answered. If a restaurant reviewer had a relationship with a chef, and/or was a known personality around town so that restaurant personel recognized them, how would that in and of itself taint their review and opinion. Nobody has offered up any corrolation between the two. Only the inference that the dynamic necessarily taints it. But how would you know it's a tainted perspective unless you a)read the review and b)eat the food?

Wilfrid-I've been meaning to comment on you being a music writer but got busy with other things.

NO wonder your point of view about so many things is so screwed up