Compromised food critics

[John Whiting]

When you get to know a chef or a writer or an artist, you get to know both their strengths and their weaknesses. It is much more interesting, and useful, to write about their strengths and to make clear what they are. This is an unlikely extreme, but if I knew a chef who made the world's best cassoulet and the world's worst bouillabaisse, my efforts would be bent primarily to calling attention to his cassoulet. Taking delight in mere condemnation is a mean-spirited pleasure.

[Steve Plotnicki]

I find this topic to be a mishmosh of ideas, mostly intended to be virtuous but oddly affecting many reviews in the negative.

I think the clearest conflict comes from what a reader usually thinks of as the perception of fairness, i.e., the reviewer is without conflict. Many readers set a threshold for their critics to maintain, that includes among other things, anonymity and not having any personal relationships with  personel from the restaurant they are reviewing. But the more I read from people who require those things from reviewers, the more it doesn't add up how anonymity and a buffer on personal relationships guarantee anything but lonely reviewers. Unless someone can explain to me how those two things help write a good review? Or how the inclusion of those two things make for a bad review ? Isn't it something to be weighed on a case by case basis? :confused:

On balance, I think this issue is more about free speech than it is an issue about conflict. From my perspective, I want a free marketplace of ideas. That is the only way that I get to properly judge a reviewers words. As long as there is adequate disclosure, I can put the appropriate weight where it need be. But if anything is covered up, even if it is for the benefit of anonymity etc., I have been cheated out of the real truth.

That is why I find the original example used, Patricia Wells reviewing Joel Robuchon to be a prime example of how people place percieved integrity over the actual benefit of someone with approriate expertise doing a bang-up job. I mean is there anyone who can explain Robuchon to the public better than PW? And if she exagerates his greatness in any manner, is there anyone here who believes she is doing it for commercial reasons? Her integrity is well, and long established before it could ever become an issue.

The other thing that motivates readers to demand anonymity etc. is that they want to insure that the reviewer ate the same meal they were going to be served. Diners are always suspect that they are being "ripped off" and served the sludge while good old Patricia was served the good stuff. I find this hypothesis to be sort of out on a limb and here's why. Restaurants are a word of mouth business. While critics drive business, nothing can dry up a reservation book than the first few waves of post-review diners proclaiming a place was awful. So if a place trumped up their food, and what they were really serving sucked, it would only take a few weeks before the word got out. And if it happened often, the reviewer would quickly lose their credibility. So if this game was perpetrated, it wouldn't be for long.

There is another aspect to this issue that is lurking beneath the surface, which is the fact that people want a review to be representative of the average meal served at a place. Personally I can never understand this sentiment. I want a review to showcase a place AT IT'S BEST. And that is because when I go to a place, 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?  :confused: Yet. that's what people seem to be fighting for.

The topic often comes up about the wine critic Robert Parker's friendly relationship with the winemaker Michel Rolland. Quite often Parker gives the wines Rolland makes high scores. And from time to time, you hear the accusations of bias about the reviews. But it seems to me that the only remedy to that charge that makes any sense is to TASTE THE WINES YOURSELF. If the wines taste bad and you conclude that Parker is shilling for Rolland, you can forever discount his opinion. But if you agree with him to any reasonable degree, I don't understand what there is to complain about? Complaints should to be limited to actual, not perceived diminution.

[John Whiting]

Bravo! I find myself agreeing with every single word Steve has written. Am I getting old?

[Andy Lynes]

No, you're not John.  I agree with Steve as well.

[John Whiting]

Maybe *you're* getting old.  

[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.