A Grimes Retrospective

[LNorman]

I checked Nexis for NYT 4-star reviews:

Grimes

Alain Ducasse 12/19/01

Restaurant Daniel 11/11/01

Daniel 3/14/01 **there might be a mixup here

Bouley Bakery 9/15/99 *Reichl gave it *** 12/10/97

Reichl

Lespinasse 12/2/98 (under Delouvrier)

LeCirque 2000 10/1/97

Jean George 6/6/97

Le Bernadin 4/14/95

Daniel 11/11/94

Lespinasse 1994

I can't say this is complete because it's difficult to search Nexis with asterisks because the search engine thinks asterisks are substitutes for letters.

I read the discussion. I think that 4-star restaurants should be reviews every 2 years or after a chef or ownership change. Since so few are given out (and it makes sense that it should be a small number), the reviewers are obligated to tell diners if a restaurant should get a 4-star designation.

[JosephB]

Hey LNorman, welcome to eGullet. So what did you think of Mr. Grimes, and how do you feel about his departure?

[LNorman]

My feelings about Mr. Grimes.

I always thought he seemed decisive and I enjoyed his descriptions of the food and the especially the a restaurant's environs; I usually enjoyed trying to picture the atmosphere and decided if what Grimes liked/didn't like would affect my desire to go to the restaurant. But I wished he would have written more about the menu instead of just parts of it.

I can't speak to how accurate his reviews were because I never dined at the restaurants he reviewed. Most were too expensive for me to dine at. However, some of his three-star descriptions made me WANT to visit the restaurants.

It is one of my treats each week to read the Dining section of the NYT. And I think I will miss Grimes' reviews. However, new blood isn't a bad thing and I think it is time for whoever is the new reviewer to clarify the 4-star policy and revisit some of the old 4-stars and re-review. I'm sure there are maybe one or two more restaurants in the city deserving of the 4-star status.

Just my two cents worth. Unfortunately, getting married last year put a crimp in my dining adventures. So I live vicariously through newspaper dining sections and magazines dedicated to food.

[JosephB]

I can't speak to how accurate his reviews were because I never dined at the restaurants he reviewed. Most were too expensive for me to dine at. However, some of his three-star descriptions made me WANT to visit the restaurants.

Fortunately, there's a lot of great food in this City in less expensive restaurants.

[Fat Guy]

Also fortunately, there are a lot of ways to eat at the city's haute-cuisine restaurants without spending a ton of money. The two Restaurant Week events, which are now two-weeks each (meaning that it's now Restaurant Week for four weeks every year), give you 20 opportunities to eat a $20.04 lunch at a place like Craft, Gramercy Tavern, and rm. There are also $30.04 dinners available during those weeks at places like Citarella the Restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, Tabla, Tocqueville, and Union Pacific.

Likewise, most every day of the year, there are tons of excellent prix-fixe lunch deals all over town. $35 at Bouley; $20 at Aureole; $20.50 at Sushi Yasuda; $35 at Jean Georges; $25 at Gotham Bar & Grill . . .

A determined eater on a budget can get out to some of the best places in town without spending too much money. It just takes a little effort and forethought.

[Pan]

But how good will your food be if you go for those prix fixe deals? I ask that keeping in mind both my disappointment at Bouley last Good Friday and comments by various people that people ordering relatively inexpensive prix fixe meals at places that typically charge over $100 a head for tasting menus are often given short shrift.

[Fat Guy]

The failure rate is definitely higher on the lower priced menus, but careful selection of establishments limits risk. For example, my experience during the last Restaurant Week was that Eleven Madison Park and rm both did a terrific job, and in general you can rely on Danny Meyer's restaurants not to fall into the trap of giving short shrift to discount diners. Luckily, eGullet is full of up-to-the-minute reports from people who have been to the key Restaurant Week participants, so it's relatively easy to assess the most likely candidates for success.

The larger issue, of course, is that a restaurant review in the Times rarely takes any of this stuff into account. Could you imagine if restaurants received demerits for underperforming during Restaurant Week? You'd see some improvements, quickly. But that's not really the role of the reviewer. Although the Times tries to have it both ways, positioning its reviewer as a consumer advocate as well as a champion of excellence, the reality is that the two roles are in tension and the Times reviewer mostly reviews restaurants at their best.

[Kahrs]

As one who devours the restaurants reviews (esp. now that I am an expatriate, sob), I can say I will miss Grimes' reviews. Coming on the heels of Ruth Reichl,

(who I did not like), he was a considerable improvement. His emphasis on

the style, both in food and ambiance, was a welcome relief. I was tired of

reading about the other diners near Reichl's table. Maybe it was for comic

relief but I was tired of it.

That being said, my favorite reviewer still is Bryan Miller, who brought both

cooking expertise and a formidable tasting sense to his reviews. I still miss

his reviews.

Of course, I also like reading R.W. Apple, who tastes seem to be as grand as

his appetite for travel.

As for keeping the 4*s in line, I can only think of Ruth Reichl's disquise when

going into Le Cirque. I cherished every moment of it. Who, amongst us civilians

hasn't experienced this kind of treatment? It was great to read about it.

(n.b. I have just finished "The Fourth Star" and this preferential treatment

just makes me mad no, make that furious.

[Fat Guy]

Le Cirque is an extreme, rare example of a restaurant where the hierarchy of preferential treatment is so over-the-top as to be virtually the whole identity of the restaurant. Consumers are too ready to transfer that ethic onto all other restaurants. In most cases, though, the better restaurants try to give everybody a great experience, and preferential treatment exists but is not offensive in its extreme pervasiveness and disparateness.

There's nothing wrong with preferential treatment. A restaurant is a business. It would be insane not to give preferential treatment to valuable, generous, repeat customers who are a pleasure to deal with. The only thing that upsets me about a restaurant's hierarchy of treatment is when the entry-level customers are not treated well. There's no excuse to condescend to a customer who orders the lunch prix-fixe and a glass of water. If the restaurant doesn't want to sell prix-fixe lunches, it shouldn't.

[Pan]

The larger issue, of course, is that a restaurant review in the Times rarely takes any of this stuff into account. Could you imagine if restaurants received demerits for underperforming during Restaurant Week? You'd see some improvements, quickly. But that's not really the role of the reviewer. Although the Times tries to have it both ways, positioning its reviewer as a consumer advocate as well as a champion of excellence, the reality is that the two roles are in tension and the Times reviewer mostly reviews restaurants at their best.

Steven, you've just established a niche that's not being covered adequately by traditional media. The New York Press or The Village Voice would be really smart if they did a series of Restaurant Week reviews. But to my knowledge, they don't. We have 'em, but they're in individual threads, not organized into a unit. For the future, what do you think of pinning a thread of Restaurant Week reviews only in the New York board or even doing some Daily Gullet features that consist of a series of Restaurant Week reviews in cities that have Restaurant Weeks?

Edited January 14, 2004 by Pan (log)

[Fat Guy]

I'm thinking what might make sense would be for one of our TDG contributors to comb through past Restaurant Week writeups on eG and put together a piece showing members' picks and pans. We could accumulate the data more aggressively this time around, and then publish it 30 days before this summer's Restaurant Week. But even without anybody doing all that work, I can tell you that the big "secret" piece of advice is to go to as many of Danny Meyer's restaurants as possible because they above all others really embrace the notion of Restaurant Week as a gesture rather than a profit center.

[Pan]

Noted.

I don't have any big plans for Restaurant Week, but I do like to know these things for reference.

[Fat Guy]

This escaped my notice on Friday, but I just caught up with Amanda Hesser's "Diner's Journal" piece on Union Pacific:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/23/dining/23JOUR.html

This is exactly what I think the Diner's Journal should be used for.

[Fat Guy]

The latest information I'm getting from a variety of restaurant people and observers is that we will be seeing Amanda Hesser as the next interim reviewer. That, at least, is what many of the major restaurants are telling their staffs now.

[bourdain]

Good choice.

[Pan]

But why another interim reviewer? Would that be interim or probational?

[SobaAddict70]

It may be that the Times is rotating reviewers whilst Mr. Grimes' replacement prepares to take over the position. Typically in the past, there were two reviewers who alternated weekly articles. For example, Marian alternated with Frank J. Prial the last time around.

Of course, this is my interpretation and I could be totally off base. We'll just have to see.

Soba

[Fat Guy]

It's not clear they've actually chosen a new reviewer yet, unless I've missed something (which is always possible). Presumably there will be a formal announcement of the new reviewer once the deal is closed, but the new reviewer won't actually start writing for a month or two after that announcement is made. Traditionally, the new reviewer takes a few dozen meals to get up to speed on the general restaurant landscape, and also to eat the meals for the first couple of reviews. Assuming also that Amanda Hesser is going to do interim reviews, it could be a trial or it could be strictly an interim position. Certainly, the Times would have to drop the anonymity pretense once and for all if it went with her as a permanent critic, whereas for an interim critic there's more flexibility in terms of the standards. I also wonder if it's something she'd want. I think there are many talented food writers who would enjoy writing restaurant reviews for the Times for a couple of months. But why would someone like Amanda Hesser want to do it week-in-week-out for 3-5 years? Given her high profile and successful books, it would be a step down for her, I think.

[SobaAddict70]

It's been slightly past half a year since Frank Bruni began his tenure as chief restaurant critic for the New York Times. In the past six months, what kinds of shifts have you detected in the New York restaurant industry that seem a marked difference of orientation than when Grimes was at the helm? Have you found any of Grimes' predictions for 2004 to have come true?

Soba