Fat Guy

Russ, although I haven't seen that tendency among restaurant reviewers at any serious level of competence (my observation is that they tend to be more anti-industry than pro-, for the most part), I think fundamentally critics shouldn't identify with "the readers who are employing them" any more than they should be identifying with or pandering to the industry or anyone else. (For the purposes of argument, we can bracket the fact that many readers are in the restaurant industry -- the number two employer in the United States after the government.) Critics' sole identification should be with the cause of excellence in cuisine. Sometimes that means telling the industry or its representatives that they're wrong. Other times that means telling consumers they're wrong. The best reviewers strike a healthy balance and serve no one set of commercial or consumer interests.

It's not my area of expertise, law-wise, but I don't think it's illegal to get a credit card under an assumed name provided your intention is to protect your identity and you're going to pay the bill. Celebrities do this all the time to protect their identities and for security reasons. So it doesn't seem like fraud to me in the legal sense primarily because nobody is stealing anything or inducing anybody to part with anything under false pretenses. In the dictionary and common usage senses of misrepresenting who you are, aka being an impostor, though, it does seem fraudulent, or at least an intentional and active concealment of the truth.

Does he have to wear a crown of truffles?

That raises an interesting question: Are the best candidates for restaurant critic positions likely to be unknown? Or have we created a system where many of the best people are precluded from getting restaurant critic positions at the best papers because they have high profiles? For example, Jeffrey Steingarten, Calvin Trillin, and Alan Richman could not likely, under the current system, be hired as restaurant reviewers at the New York Times. Not that they'd want the job (even the people the Times tries to hire don't want it), but as a theoretical proposition they couldn't get it if they wanted it because they would present too much of a challenge to the entrenched system. Yet as media evolve and video becomes more and more prevalent, there will soon come a time when most journalists have been on television in one or another capacity, and when access to video is as simple as pulling up a still photo of Frank Bruni was when he became the Times critic.

Henry McNulty of the Hartford Courant wrote an excellent piece on this ethical issue, entitled "White lies: Bending the truth to expose injustice." He asked the question, "Is it ever acceptable for journalists to use deception to gather facts?" His answer, "A news story, however important, can't be based on deception." McNulty was not discussing an issue of trespass. He was talking about pure deception, in an area where any member of the public could have gone (in this case, a real estate sales office). Nor was trespass the only issue in the Food Lion case, nor is there any distinction made in the code of ethics section cited above. McNulty even addresses the issue of restaurant reviewing directly: "What about restaurant reviewers who pretend to be ordinary customers when in fact they intend to report on their dining experience? Aren't they misrepresenting themselves, too? Perhaps. But there are many facets to the question of deceiving sources, and I feel each case must be examined closely. I make a distinction, for example, between actively giving a false name and passively letting someone assume a reporter is just an average consumer." This is the best argument I've seen for reconciling anonymous restaurant reviewing with general journalistic ethical and legal guidelines: have your friend make the reservation or go as a walk-in, and simply don't announce yourself. But don't give false information. As McNulty says, "I can't think of a case in which such deception would be justified - even when the goals are noble." (Full article here.) Now, there is at least an argument that the public interest can justify journalistic deception. Though McNulty argues it never does, he represents a minority position. Most believe, for example, that it would be okay to go undercover and lie in order to expose terrorism, institutional patterns of racism, etc. But restaurant reviewing? It seems a bit self-important for restaurant reviewers to say their job is so critical to the public interest that they are justified in running roughshod over the truth to get the story -- that they can lie, use false credit cards, wear disguises, and otherwise behave deceptively in order to make sure they don't get service the slightest bit different than that of some hypothetical average customer. And nobody, at least not I, has said that recognized restaurant reviewers don't get different or better treatment. Restaurant reviewers do typically get VIP treatment when they're recognized. Yet empirically, anonymity cannot be shown to provide better, more useful, more reliable, more accurate restaurant reviews, as some of the best restaurant reviewers have been the ones who are always or mostly recognized. This includes David Rosengarten, Thomas Matthews, and, in the majority of instances, most major market critics once they've been on the job for a few months. These people somehow learned to keep special treatment in good perspective. So we are not even talking about deception in furtherance of the greater truth -- we are talking about deception in furtherance of an assumption that has never been supported empirically. Then there are all the other issues: Inconsistency of recognition leads to inconsistent results. Since most major market critics are recognized most of the time, restaurants that don't recognize them may be penalized if special treatment does make a difference. Public perception of the industry as well as the restaurant reviewing sector's perception of itself is altered by the dynamic of deception, encouraging an atmosphere of mistrust. Many journalistic options, moreover, are sacrificed by anonymity and worsened by deceitful anonymity; even if the reviewer gets closer to the hypothetical average consumer experience, the options to talk face-to-face to the chef, visit the kitchen, et al., are lost. But of course there are no average customers. As in quantum theory, the observer affects the observed. Restaurant reviewers would perform the greater public service by teaching customers how not to be average.

None of those three dishes appeared on our menu last week, although we did taste a sample of the foie gras ravioli (which was in a different shape). I think I posted above that I thought I'd had the egg dish in the past, but that turns out to be wrong -- the egg and truffle dish I had awhile back (pre-Delouvrier) was totally different. The two white truffle dishes we had at that dinner last week were the Scottish pheasant with Albufera sauce (and white truffles), and the lobster with cardoon gratin (and white truffles). The pheasant was especially good.

Some experts, such as Dr. Jeffrey Friedman of Rockefeller University (who was the subject of a New York Times profile earlier this year), disagree with this interpretation of the statistics. What Friedman essentially argues is that the number of obese people relative to the population has not really increased. Rather, he argues, a similar set of obese people has gotten more obese. In other words, all this increased availability of high-calorie food and the creep of sedentary lifestyles has not made any thin people fat. (“At the lower end of the weight distribution, nothing has changed, not even by a few pounds. . . . Only with the massively obese, the very top of the distribution, is there a substantial increase in weight. . .”) That is a much stronger argument for genetics than for environment. As the Times article (“The Fat Epidemic: He Says It's an Illusion,” June 8, 2004, by Gina Kolata) explains, “the curve of body weight has been pulled slightly to the right, with more people shifting up a few pounds to cross the line that experts use to divide normal from obese. In 1991, 23 percent of Americans fell into the obese category; now 31 percent do, a more than 30 percent increase. But the average weight of the population has increased by just 7 to 10 pounds since 1991.” In a devastating analysis of the conventional wisdom, Dr. Friedman gave the Times reporter the following analogy: Dr. Friedman may be wrong. But I'm going to keep an open mind and not be so quick to embrace the conventional wisdom. Because if Dr. Friedman is right that “When it comes to eating, free will is an illusion,” then telling obese people to just choose to eat less is perverse. I'm always wary of those who might wish to use genetics as an excuse for lack of personal responsibility, but reality doesn't conform to opinion. It is what it is.

I believe ADNY gets its poulardes and eggs from Sylvia and Stephen Pryzant's Four Story Hill Farm in Honesdale, PA. If you happen to have a copy of Harvesting Excellence, it's on page 148. There's also an obscure and Byzantine way to navigate to the same information online, which I'll write up at some point. There may be other suppliers as well.

I'm a big believer in personal responsibility, but I also believe in being right. Some things are clearly matters of personal choice, other things are clearly determined by external factors, some are a combination of the two, and some are of unknown origin. We do a grave disservice to everyone if we assume something is a matter of choice for everyone when there is no proof one way or the other. We used to think that people who were depressed should just exercise personal responsibility and stop being depressed -- that they should choose to be happy. Now we know that most depression can't be addressed that way. Some people respond to psychoanalysis or to the "just choose to be happy" approach, but not many. We now have better scientific knowledge that tells us fairly conclusively that people who are depressed have a disease and need medicine to cure it -- that it isn't their choice, that it's most likely a chemical imbalance or physical condition that is in turn most likely genetic. So let's not tell fat people "just choose to be thin" until we have a similar level of knowledge. Because right now we don't. We know there are a few people who choose to be thin and it works. We also know that 90+ percent of fat people say they really want to be thin but can't seem to make it work. Whether that is a simple matter of choice or a more complex combination of genetics, chemistry, and limited choice is still an open question. We have some good scientists -- not a majority, but then again science isn't democratic -- saying that weight is no more a matter of choice for most people than height. I'd rather see that question left open, not as an excuse but as a realistic acknowledgment of the possibilities.

To expand upon Russ's observation, there's a disconnect between the picture the restaurant reviewing community paints for the public (a cloak-and-dagger world of wigs, assumed names, and multiple credit cards) and the reality of restaurant reviewing (that most major market critics are recognized most of the time). I was talking to a chef this afternoon whose restaurant is awaiting a New York Times review (I'd be happy to name names after the review comes out). He knew about each of Frank Bruni's visits to his restaurant. He knew what Bruni had ordered, all the conversations Bruni had with the waitstaff, comments overheard at the table, etc. When Bruni was reviewing Per Se, my contacts were telling me about every one of his visits to Per Se, as well as his visit to French Laundry. If we had full participation by the restaurant industry, it would be a simple matter to have a "Bruni watch" thread on the eG Forums -- we could identify his whereabouts in a high percentage of instances, certainly when he dines at the three- or four-star level and often at the any-star level. When Ruth Reichl was the critic, she was recognized even at no-star places. To be clear, the Times critics often dine under their own names. Usually not on a first visit, but for later visits it's not unusual at all. They also get plenty of special treatment and sometimes, if you read carefully, you can see that they write about it as though it's no big deal -- because it isn't. For example, in William Grimes's second review of Ducasse, the four-star review, he writes: I want to know this! I don't care that the dish was on a special menu that isn't offered in the dining room. I think it's great if for his last visit to the restaurant Grimes called the chef and said "Book me in the private dining room and blow me away; show me the best you can do." So to get back to the point, if so many of the most important critics are already recognized most of the time, what's the problem here? Why are we still worrying about anonymity? The train has already left the station. Restaurant reviewers already need to be able to work under conditions of preferential treatment. So do all sorts of journalists for whom these sorts of synergistic relationships are standard operating procedure, such as reporters covering political campaigns or sports teams. The focus shouldn't be on how to operate covertly. The focus should be on teaching reviewers to behave as ethical journalists whether or not they're given special treatment.

There is no such bright line. You can even have a fine dining street food restaurant, also known as Spice Market. But you don't need a bright line to know that some things are in one category and some things are in another. Nor is the distinction terribly complicated or mysterious -- it's already pretty well defined in most cuisines that have haute cuisine equivalents. If you go to Thailand, nobody there is going to have any trouble distinguishing between the street food and the fine dining restaurants, just as nobody here has any trouble distinguishing between Gramercy Tavern and a burger joint. There may be some restaurants that challenge the distinction and defy the old categories, but Sripraphai isn't one of them.

Rich, do you think the star system should be eliminated?

So let's see the evidence demonstrating that anonymous reviewers write better, more reliable reviews than non-anonymous ones. In my opinion some of the best, most reliable, most accurate, most "getting it" restaurant reviews in recent years were those written by David Rosengarten in Gourmet. He was always recognized. Tom Matthews in Wine Spectator has done terrific reviews. Always recognized. Michael Bauer -- how often is he anonymous? For that matter, how often are the New York Times and other major market reviewers anonymous? They like to write and talk about all the times they're anonymous, but they conveniently ignore that most of the time they are recognized and they write good reviews anyway. It is a fantasy for restaurant reviewers to believe that they take a reliable statistical sampling of a restaurant's output. The whole paradigm of "consistency" as the gold standard is totally messed up. No reviewer can judge consistency. All the reviewer can do is pull the lever and take what comes up on the big slot machine. All restaurants are inconsistent, even the best ones in the world, so you are always going to be sending at least some customers into a situation where they're going to be wasting their money. You don't all of a sudden become a good consumer advocate by pretending to be a consumer. You become a good consumer advocate by teaching consumers. Most restaurateurs I know are good people. They're not trying to defraud consumers. They do the best they can. Yet the restaurant reviewing media has defined the entire industry as a gang of frauds. That's a harmful and unsustainable dynamic. Media can operate synergistically with an industry yet maintain their independence. It happens all the time. Sure, it takes some courage. Yes, you actually need to -- horror of horrors -- spend a day with someone and then write bad things about that person. Guess what? That's journalism.

You say it like it's a bad thing. Critics aren't visiting restaurants 100 times in order to take a reliable statistical sampling of how often the dish is flawed. They're visiting 1, 2, 3 or maybe 5 times if it's a well-funded critic like at the Times. I'd like to see them get the dish in its best incarnation. If you have a steakhouse that serves 100 steaks and overcooks 2 per 100, and the critic visits once, and gets one of the overcooked steaks, how is that a helpful review? Let Zagat's surveyors determine how many steaks out of 100 are overcooked, and let the critic get a properly cooked steak in order to write about the quality of the meat. That's just idiocy on the part of the reviewer. It's not hard to identify when a chef is behaving that way, and to adjust a review and expectations accordingly. Critics are likely to get recognized in a substantial percentage of instances anyway, so it's not as though they can get by without this skill.

Robyn, I agree that those are some of the corporate strategic objectives of the Times Company, but they are neither the only objectives nor the editorial thinking behind every story. The Times, like most newspapers, does not allow business concerns to drive all of its editorial decisionmaking. Not every story in the Times needs to serve an agenda -- indeed, a certain amount of contrarian editorial thinking adds value to the paper by giving it the appearance of independent mindedness. When the Times chooses a critic, it gives that person a tremendous degree of independence. That person in turn reports to an editor who has a lot of flexibility. I don't believe critics at the Times routinely get lectured about the Times Company's business strategy objectives. There is surely some awareness, but I give the critics credit for a lot of independent thinking. There is also a progressive culture among New York Times editors and writers that is often in tension with corporate objectives. And is the Times even profitable as a standalone paper? I think at one time at least it was more of a loss leader for the company, which made most of its profit on smaller papers that it owns. That may be outdated information, though. In any event, in addition to pursuing the mature highbrow audience -- the Times is no populist publication, no matter how populist its editorial page may be -- the Times is also trying to expand its readership in a number of other directions, particularly into the young-and-hip audience, which, not coincidentally, almost inevitably matures into the mature highbrow audience. But again, that's what $25 and Under is for. And the Times Magazine food coverage. And various other food stories not only in the Dining and Magazine sections (and whatever section the out-of-towners get that contains the restaurant reviews) but also in Metro, Travel, Weekend and elsewhere. There is no lack of space in the Times for coverage of Sripraphai or of any other restaurant from multiple angles: chef profiles, first-person essays, $25 and Under reviews, Diner's Journal writeups, Magazine pieces, "In Their Own Words" Metro pieces (or whatever they call that one), etc. Nobody is trying to deprive Sripraphai of much deserved exposure. Well, except maybe Robyn. The point is, none of this adds up to Sripraphai being an appropriate subject of one of Frank Bruni's restaurant reviews, and none of it adds up to Sripraphai deserving two stars. As has been noted about a million times, the best hot dog in the world doesn't get four stars. It doesn't get any. It doesn't even get reviewed. That's because the star-based reviewing system is supposed to reflect a certain aesthetic. It is no straw man to say that a lot of people are determined to take offense at that aesthetic, and to characterize it as Francocentric or hidebound. But I believe the star system is an accurate reflection of the dining reality of New York City and cosmopolitan culture in general. I don't necessarily think the star system is a good idea -- I have been arguing against it for years -- but as long as it exists I'd like to see it be as meaningful and consistent as possible, like Michelin is at its best. Any sophisticated cuisine should be eligible for stars, as many as four of them, if presented according to a fine-dining aesthetic. There needn't be anything French or Western about the food at all, and I certainly wouldn't hesitate to advocate four stars for a more elegant incarnation of Sushi Yasuda or any of a number of other Asian restaurants. That no such restaurants have been built isn't my fault or the fault of any critic who hasn't given four stars to a non-French-influenced restaurant. The dining reality is the dining reality. A good critic can push that reality forward through education, advocacy, and enthusiasm. But by giving two stars to Sripraphai?

JJ, give me your father's phone number so I can explain this to him.

Robyn, I will escort you to Peter Luger and ensure your safety next time you come to New York. And to Sripraphai if you like. But I wouldn't give reviews or stars to either. The Peter Luger point is more controversial, because steakhouses have traditionally been reviewed with stars, but I think it's unnecessary. I'd rather see Ed Levine do a big comparative steakhouse review in the Times every year, where he ranks the best and dismisses the rest.

There is a fully elaborated genre of fine-dining Thai cuisine. Vong, Spice Market, et al., are examples here in New York. And there are a couple of recently opened Thai places, like Klong, that might be able to mount an argument for one star. Nor is this some random imposition I'm making on Thai cuisine. If you go to Southeast Asia and speak to the people there, you'll find that they stratify restaurants exactly the same way: you've got your street food, your family restaurants, and your more formal stuff ranging all the way up to the fine dining places that tend to be on the top floor of some hotel on the waterfront. A lot of people are determined to read offensive value judgments into such systems of taxonomy, but that misses the point. I love Sripraphai; I just think it's a different species of restaurant from the restaurants that do and should be reviewed and assigned stars. Likewise, you'll find me in hawker centers a lot more often than you'll find me in fancy hotel restaurants, but I don't think the hawker center stands should be getting reviewed on the same terms as the fancy hotel restaurants. I think Sripraphai deserves attention, and have worked to give it attention when I have been able to, because it is the best of its kind. But bending the star system to do it is the wrong way to do it. For a review, $25 and Under is clearly the right place. For well-deserved publicity, write a feature story on Sripraphai and put it on the front page of the section. But don't give us this crap about Sripraphai being a two-star restaurant. I think it's pretty hard to argue that the New York Times is a "popular" newspaper. While it is certainly not an academic publication, it is primarily targeted at the most educated and affluent 0.33 percent of the United States population (assuming a circulation of 1 million and a population of 300 million -- of course the dining section is only read or even received by a subset of that 1 million that a former Times reviewer told me was estimated internally at less than 100 thousand; then again the Times picks up some audience numbers online). I think this straw man was encouraged by the lull in the activity when William Grimes was on leave and Eric Asimov was writing the reviews. I can't speak for Asimov, but my impression is that it wasn't clear to him at the outset that he'd be substituting for so long, so he played it like an interim critic is supposed to and he did safe 1-2 star reviews for awhile. There was one week I remember when both the $25 and Under and main reviews were of brasserie-type places that didn't need to be reviewed in either column. I think that was the point at which Asimov must have realized that he was in it for the long haul, and he quickly started reviewing more important places. That being said, I do think there are too many reviews of places that don't need to be reviewed. And certainly Sripraphai is more interesting than a lot of places that are reviewed. But it is an analytical mistake to say that because Sripraphai is more interesting than some places that are reviewed, Sripraphai should be reviewed instead of those places. The issues are separate. The uninteresting reviews problem should be addressed by better allocation of the reviews among the appropriate pool of restaurants for that feature, especially among the many interesting places that haven't been reviewed in years.

Well, I used the Lloyd Bentsen "You're no Jack Kennedy" line on Frank Bruni today, so I guess it's okay for you to use the Ronald Reagan "There you go again" line on me! And I agree that the SPJ people weren't thinking about restaurant reviewers, nor were the AFJ people likely thinking about the SPJ when they wrote their code. But that doesn't mean the issue isn't the same. When a restaurant reviewer presents a false identity, including a false credit card, and engages staff in dialog, and gets into quoting the staff or describing conduct they engaged in under false pretenses, I think these Food Lion-type issues start to rear their ugly head. No, it's not the same as lying on a job application, but it is a form of institutionalized deceptiveness. I think the media should discourage institutionalized deceptiveness. To use one more tried and true line, even if restaurants are trying to fool critics, "two wrongs don't make a right."

Former New York Times critic Bryan Miller, who had worked in a French restaurant kitchen when several known critics came in, has observed, “When the owners told us what was happening I realized there was little we could do. By this time all our sauce stocks had been prepared, the fish, meat, and vegetables purchased, and the desserts made.” He contniues, “On any given day, a kitchen can perform only up to its level of competence (or incompetence, as the case may be); nothing magical can be done for a critic's sake.” Mimi Sheraton, on the other hand, has written of numerous outrageous examples of things restaurants have done to try to improve her meals. When the stakes are high, as they are with a New York Times review, there are some restaurateurs and chefs who will do some pretty crazy things. Then the question becomes does this actually fool the critic? I think there the answer is probably no. You look around the room, you talk to your trusted friends who have dined at the same restaurant, etc., and it becomes somewhat obvious in the rare instance someone is trying to put one over on you. Then there's this whole game of double-secret recognition, where the critic is in disguise and the staff recognizes the critic but pretends not to . . . it's all rather silly given how little difference it likely makes. There is an industry- and media-wide cultural problem that creates what I think is a bad dynamic of suspicion: customers think restaurants are out to get them, the press encourages this belief by auctioning off Ruth Reichl's wigs, and many restaurateurs cynically get into the game as well. But the media should exercise some leadership here, and try to break the cycle by starting to question the need for this extraordinary recourse to sector-wide undercover reporting. Perhaps it is possible to get equally reliable information without such recourse, and to improve information quality in other regards, and to improve the overall relationship among consumers, critics, and the restaurant industry.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that all of that is true, does it justify undercover reporting? I happen to think the anonymity argument is so full of holes that it doesn't justify anything, but my point here is a different one: even if it's true, does some marginal increase in this notion of "accuracy" in restaurant reviewing represent a compelling public interest such that cloak-and-dagger methods (fake identities, disguises) are warranted?

There are plenty of people who love Sripraphai and the whole world of restaurants it represents -- the best of the best in various categories, represented by places like Katz's deli, the Peter Luger steakhouse, et al. -- who would just as soon argue that these places deserve zero stars and should not be reviewed. I would be one of those people. It's all well and good to talk about "democratizing" the restaurant reviews, but what does that really mean? Frank Bruni already works for the New York Times, so he already writes for an elite group of readers. The New York Times dining section is already undemocratic as an institution, because it segregates reviews into full reviews and $25 and Under reviews. And ultimately, if you take the democratization process to its logical conclusion, you step over the line between something that sounds nice but has little intellectual weight to something more akin to deconstruction and absurdism. Four years ago, I wrote of the state of restaurant reviewing: "Although the process has taken a while, restaurant reviewing has at last caught up with critical fashions in art, music, and literature. The spirit of deconstruction is now everywhere in the air. Just as, in the nation's English departments, comic books have been declared to be on a par with Shakespeare or Jane Austen, so, too, in the nation's food press, the entire enterprise of fine dining is in the process of being leveled and 'demystified,' the high pulled down, the low raised up." ("Culinary Correctness," Commentary, October 2000) Frank Bruni seems determined to push this agenda forward, though doing so as a writer for the New York Times is patently ridiculous. All we'll be left with at the end is another tired example of what Tom Wolfe called "radical chic," or what I called a "display of egalitarian fervor by some of society's best-paid sybarites." Okay, so Tom Wolfe is a better writer.

The other option is to take out a piece of paper at the table and write notes on it. People do this all the time in restaurants for a million reasons ranging from business meetings to collection of restaurant experiences. I know plenty of eGulleters who take much more extensive notes in restaurants than any critic. It's self-consciousness that attracts the waitstaff's attention, not the simple act of writing notes. And what is the restaurant going to do once the food is on the table and you're taking notes? Grab it away from you and cook it again? With different ingredients from the secret refrigerator where they keep all the stuff they only give to critics? Or is the concern that the food and service will all of a sudden go from terrible to fantastic one course after a notebook comes out? If so, that would seem to be something worth finding out. I have a lot of respect for many AFJ members and organizers, but when I read this sort of thing I remember one of the reasons I got into food writing in the first place: the cartel-like nature of the old-line food press. Rather than focus on picayune technical issues like how to get fake credit cards (which by the way is easy; you just tell the company it's for your kid), the AFJ should be examining the underlying need for all this cloak-and-dagger behavior by restaurant reviewers. Is restaurant reviewing really so unique in the world of journalism that undercover reporting should be the norm, when it is a very carefully exercised departure from the norm in other areas? In the code of ethics of the Society for Professional Journalists, a group that represents journalistic norms pretty well I think, the following is recommended: "Journalists should . . . Avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information except when traditional open methods will not yield information vital to the public. Use of such methods should be explained as part of the story." The dramatic Food Lion lawsuit against ABC News brought undercover journalism to the forefront in 1997, when ABC's reporters submitted fraudulent job applications in order to get behind the scenes at Food Lion. In most newsrooms today, undercover methods are considered to be a last resort. When I was writing for Salon.com, we considered putting me into a medical study about obesity in order to expose the idiocy of so many of these studies. We ultimately concluded that it would be wrong for me to participate in the study under false pretenses -- that such conduct could only be justified by a substantial public need to know, whereas my story was mostly going to be for entertainment. Restaurant reviewers, however, seem never to think twice about these issues. False credit cards, names, disguises . . . these have all somehow become the norm. Are restaurants really engaged in such an important, persistent, and coordinated cover-up that this is the only way to get reliable information?

I love Sripraphai as much as anyone on eGullet, I'm sure. I've been there as many or more times as JJ. I remember when Mitchell Davis (who wrote the article that was attributed to Ed Behr above) took me there for the first time many years ago -- and even then it was an established Chowhound favorite. But it's not a two-star or one-star restaurant, nor was it appropriate to review it at all. It's not a question of price. A restaurant should not be categorized a certain way only because it's a great deal. If ADNY suddenly starts charging $24 for meals and keeps everything else the same, it should still be a four-star restaurant with a Frank Bruni review. The "$25 and Under" designation should be about style, not price -- it is I think understood by most to be representative of the polyglot dining culture of non-fancy restaurants in New York. In other words, it is about restaurants like Sripraphai. If there was any doubt, Frank Bruni's review of Sripraphai makes clear that he is waging an all-out assault on the star system as we have come to know it. To the extent that restaurant reviewers have "platforms," this is his -- just as much as Grimes's was to protect the star system and get star inflation under control. So now what? As an interpretive task, if one wants to continue reading New York Times restaurant reviews and deriving meaning from them, one needs to start understanding them as JJ has explained above. Whether or not you agree with Frank Bruni's approach, you can probably agree that the star system, for now, means whatever he decides it means. So we are slowly learning what it means -- "Sripraphai is a two-star restaurant" is a useful benchmark -- and we need to paint a different picture. On a more general level, it is possible to be for or against what Frank Bruni is doing and to take action accordingly: praise or criticize. I agree with the characterization of Frank Bruni as a kindred spirit (perhaps a wannabe kindred spirit) of Mimi Sheraton and Ruth Reichl, as opposed to Craig Claiborne, Bryan Miller, and William Grimes -- I see those as rough divisions between the "Sripraphai gets stars" and the "Sripraphai doesn't even get reviewed" schools of thought. I can respect either of those positions, though I strongly agree with the latter -- again, not because I love Sripraphai any less than anyone, but because I think the system only works (barely) as a system for evaluating fine-dining restaurants. But to those who would compare Bruni to Sheraton, I would say: Frank Bruni, you're no Mimi Sheraton. Mimi Sheraton had the experience, expertise, gravitas, and sense of mission that one needs in order to wage a campaign to change the Michelin-like system created by the old white men. So did Ruth Reichl. Frank Bruni has demonstrated no such talent. When it comes to food, he is a talented writer of prose, and as far as I can tell not a whole lot more.

By the latter I was referring to "the grand scheme of things" as opposed to the individual profitability of an establishment viewed from an isolated balance-sheet-type perspective. Just as many retailers lose money on a flagship store, in order to bring prestige to the company, some fine-dining restaurants act as flagships or other variants of the loss leader concept in the context of a hotel, restaurant empire, or real estate undertaking. The simplest example is a real estate development in a remote area, where services must be provided in order to make the development habitable by the target audience. Thus, the developer subsidizes the building of a supermarket, some restaurants, a health club, and in the larger developments maybe even schools and medical facilities, so that people will buy houses in the development. Building nicer supermarkets, health clubs, and restaurants is one way that a nicer development distinguishes itself and is able to charge more money (other ways might be proximity to a beach, quality of construction, etc.). Most hotels, likewise, lose money on a range of services because those services as a whole package benefit the hotel and its brand image in various ways, ultimately contributing to a broader profit picture. You look at Central Park South and it's hotel after hotel. These hotels need to do things to distinguish themselves from one another, from hotels elsewhere in the city, and within the international luxury hotel pack. Having ADNY in the Essex House is one such thing that the Essex House does to distinguish itself. To a certain well-heeled, sought-after-by-hotels set of international travelers, having a Ducasse restaurant in your hotel means a lot. The exact same hotel, with a lesser restaurant, could be perceived as a lesser hotel. On the individual point: I don't have any special access to Per Se's numbers -- I only know what I've read in New York magazine -- and to some extent we've gone over this ground before, but if Per Se can make what French Laundry makes on the dining room, and if it can have the increased business from banquets (French Laundry does not have banquet rooms) and from liquor sales (French Laundry can't get a permit for hard liquor so it has no bar) and from Bouchon bakery and other ancillary businesses (such as perhaps a chocolate shop) the it can make millions of dollars in profit a year. Maybe it will take a long time to pay back the startup costs, but it can be done. I also don't know the numbers at ADNY, and I know the place has been hit hard by union issues and by various business challenges, but Delouvrier has told me that the place is "making money." A vague statement, but when he was at Lespinasse he never hesitated to tell me how much they were losing, so if he says they're making money it must be a good sign.