Grimes - too much power over NYC restaurants?

[Jason Perlow]

Not sure if you noticed, but the Yankees lost.  And I have at least one other person playing, so it's only a matter of time before participation spreads like wildfire!

I noticed. I did a little happy dance, actually--while looking around furtively to make sure no Yankees fans were watching...they can legally shoot you for that in NYC, or so I understand.

K

Its in our User Agreement that we can ban you from the site from doing it too.

[slkinsey]

Not sure if you noticed, but the Yankees lost.  And I have at least one other person playing, so it's only a matter of time before participation spreads like wildfire!

I noticed. I did a little happy dance, actually--while looking around furtively to make sure no Yankees fans were watching...they can legally shoot you for that in NYC, or so I understand.

K

Not that there's anything wrong with that, per se.

[herbacidal]

your comments have no value. yer just protectin' yer girl.

not that there's anything wrong with that, per se.

just not here.

[bergerka]

My anti-Yankee happy dance has been oppressed. Suppressed. Oppressively suppressed. I'm going to the corner to sulk now. (feel free to go back on topic anytime...I honestly didn't mean to totally derail the thread)

K

[alanamoana]

michael bauer in san francisco has his fair share of detractors in the restaurant industry because it is generally felt that he has too much power of the success or failure of new restaurants.

I don't find the objection to power per se (two points) to be all that compelling. Power that is earned and used properly shouldn't upset anyone.

Problems arise when a powerful critic becomes corrupt, highly idiosyncratic, cranky, out of touch, etc. But I don't see that as a problem with power per se (four points). There are plenty of powerless critics who are corrupt and stupid. You need both power plus those other flaws before you really have problems. Of course, one could say that by preventing too much power from falling into one critic's hands we solve the problem. And that's true. But then you don't get all those benefits a great critic can offer. And there are ways of creating accountability and integrity without limiting power per se (six points). You can, for example, make sure there's a skilled, experienced, professional editorial team to which the critic reports. You can have strong ethical guidelines and a mechanism to enforce them. And, above all else, you can make sure you hire the right critic.

i guess that is what i was aiming for with regard to michael bauer. in reading his reviews of restaurants you get the sense that he's "corrupt, highly idiosyncratic, cranky, out of touch, etc." when he talks about the food (and you're knowledgeable in the field), you can see that his fact checking is haphazard, that he cares to write more about the people surrounding him in the restaurant than the restaurant and food itself.

i like the ideas of either having multiple critics (like movie reviewers) to spread the wealth or of having the critic in question answerable to a higher power.

it is rare that a critic go unnoticed in a restaurant. as much as they attempt to dine incognito, restaurant staff are trained to spot them (particularly in a newly opened business)...so they can give them an especially good experience, unwittingly bestowing upon them the power that they don't deserve.

p.s. it isn't that i'm avoiding using "per se" per se, i'm just not sure i can correctly construct a sentence around it?!?

[pjs]

Grimes's books must be selling very few copies.

Most likely they only printed a few copies.

The NYTimes mothership has apparently embraced non-impact printing of some--if not most--of their books. Non-impact, as in toner on paper instead of ink in paper. I own a couple of them, paperback and hardcover. If you're not familar with the different printing processes you would most likely never notice.

In a nutshell, they can now justify doing a significantly smaller run of a book, though it will still cost noticebly more retail than one done in large quantity on traditional printing presses.

You can print a few thousand at a time instead of ten's of thousands.

PJ

[Fat Guy]

PJS, Grimes's books -- other than the NYT restaurant guide -- are published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux (the North Point Press imprint). I'm no expert, but they seem to be printed to high standards.

[Steve Klc]

Alana--I think you and Shaw might actually be pretty close to each other when you say "michael bauer in san francisco has his fair share of detractors in the restaurant industry because it is generally felt that he has too much power of the success or failure of new restaurants" and Shaw says "there are ways of creating accountability and integrity without limiting power."

The reason the Bauer problem resonated ethically, and why even friends of Bauer had trouble articulating a convincing defense, revolved around the lead restaurant critic also being in charge of the weekly Food section and also in charge of the food content of the Sunday magazine--in such a large and important food scene as SF/Napa. I understand this multiple hat-wearing is a necessary evil in small-market towns with a small-market staff of one or two. But not SF. It wasn't merely an issue of one critic a la Grimes with a powerful voice or the powerful imprimatur of the NY Times, or a critic seemingly corrupt, highly idiosyncratic, cranky, out of touch either--it was more about being in the position to slant (or appear to slant) editorial coverage in the weekly Food section and in the Magazine--in addition to writing the review.

And that brings you back to what I think Shaw's ultimate point is about the power of any critic--was their "power earned and used" properly and did the paper hire the right critic in the first place?

[alanamoana]

that's definitely the question steve(s). i guess one could say that this power and the usage of it comes with time. the longer the critic is in control over the many aspects of the media (reviews, sunday magazine, food section in general), the more comfortable he is with having it slant in his direction. might not even be a question of corruptness per se (two points?), but of it happening over time with nobody questioning it until it is too late.