AA Gill and Co

[John Whiting]

. . . venting spleen . . .

Don't knock it; vented spleen is a great dish. Like unmitigated tripe, it goes well with a dose of salts.

[disgusted]

That cuts both ways digusted, what about the critic that gets, by luck , a really good meal, way above the average of a restaurant.Does the chef then ask for a right to reply, demanding to put the record straight?

My arse he does

Tell that to the chefs who are wronged. I'm sure your comments will go a long way to commiserating them.

[Basildog]

I have been wronged, but i don't throw my toys out of the pram Thats life, and as one member said, "adjust meds and carry on"

[disgusted]

I have been wronged, but i don't throw my toys out of the pram Thats life, and as one member said, "adjust meds and carry on"

In the kitchens I've been in the response is always somewhat different and usually amounts to wanting to torture the critic to death. Oh well horses for corses.

[John Whiting]

Anyone who is old enough (or has been isolated enough) to live in a community without restaurant reviewers will know that, for better or for worse, reviews have greatly accellerated both the success and the failure of new restaurant ventures. Without instant feedback, those who put their money into restaurants expected it to take a long time to either get their money back or demonstrate that they never would. In other words, the curve of success or failure was bound to be gradual.

What reviewers in big citys have done is to make the restaurant business as volatile as the stock exchange. It is possible to win or lose enormous sums in a very short time. This tends to make both the venue and the cuisine theatrical in the extreme.

Which brings me back to the bistro. I prefer the marriage of true minds to the one-night stand.

[Jonathan Day]

What I continue to find surprising is the notion that any critic, no matter how skilled and diligent, can reliably extract the glassy essence of any restaurant and proclaim that it is "good" or "bad" or anything in between.

I think there's a lot of scope and value in a critic describing this meal he had at this restaurant on this night. It helps if the critic has been a careful observer, knows something about food and cookery, and dines out enough that he has some basis of comparison between restaurants. It helps if the writing is clear. In deciding whether to dine at that restaurant, I can then have some basis for choice.

What doesn't help is a lot of talk about whether the critic liked the food or didn't, even less helpful a single star rating or numerical score. My tastes may be different to the critic's. The restaurant may be improving or declining. Random events may intervene.

As I write this, IBM stock last traded at $91.32 per share. That information, alone, tells you virtually nothing. Nor does the fact that a critic gives La Beanerie 1, 2, 3 4 or 5 stars.

I find it irritating when Gill spends most of his column on some trivial thing unrelated to food, then tosses off a review in a few sentences. I really don't care whether he "rated" this or that restaurant; what I want to know is what he ate there. He is capable of doing better: for example, he devoted most of a column, a year or so ago, to a careful, detailed description of La Petite Maison, a restaurant in Nice at which I've had some splendid meals. That was a useful review.

[Gary Marshall]

disgusted

I'm at a loss to quite understand the point you are making.

On the one hand reviewers are to be 'tortured' because they write bad things about, i assume, restuarants you have worked at/know and like

yet when a reviewer writes a great review about a young chef & restaurant trying its hardest out of london (anthonys for those who've not seen the thread) you claim his review is meaningless as he's as good a reviewer as eddie the eagle is at ski jumping (for those not old enough to remember, a particularly buffoonish english skier who came last all the time..).

?????

gary

[John Whiting]

The sad thing is that reviewers who live by their wits but offer no substance can make or break restaurants through their effect on punters who can't tell when they're being misinformed.

I daresay you've met the occasional financial advisor whose advice was as useless as a bad restaurant reviewer, and even more damaging.

[Jonathan Day]

I daresay you've met the occasional financial advisor whose advice was as useless as a bad restaurant reviewer, and even more damaging.

Never. I believe everything that every financial advisor tells me. When they say "buy" I buy. When they say "sell", I sell. This strategy is very efficient at reducing my income taxes.

[disgusted]

disgusted

I'm at a loss to quite understand the point you are making.

On the one hand reviewers are to be 'tortured' because they write bad things about, i assume, restuarants you have worked at/know and like

yet when a reviewer writes a great review about a young chef & restaurant trying its hardest out of london (anthonys for those who've not seen the thread) you claim his review is meaningless as he's as good a reviewer as eddie the eagle is at ski jumping (for those not old enough to remember, a particularly buffoonish english skier who came last all the time..).

?????

gary

Considering you are at a loss to see the point I'm making could I refer you back to the posts I've made in this thread. As for Anthony's good luck to the chef. As for the reviewer I stand by my comments and having lived in Yorkshire and worked at it's then only michlin starred restaurant I followed the food press quite closely, so I am familar with his reviews.

[MobyP]

Disgusted - is there a process of evaluation of restaurants that you perceive to be fair or balanced? What should the uneducated, and the educated, depend upon for critical help - i.e. for choosing where to spend there money? Or should it just be word of mouth - and isn't that the same thing?

[Gary Marshall]

Of course i've read the threads and it seems your view is reviewers can do no right.

On your basis: write a bad review- what does he know about restaurants?

write a good one- reviewer knows nowt

do you think the restaurant trade would be better without reviewers?

don't you think it's poor food/service that breaks restaurants not poor reviews?

gary

[disgusted]

Disgusted - is there a process of evaluation of restaurants that you perceive to be fair or balanced? What should the uneducated, and the educated, depend upon for critical help - i.e. for choosing where to spend there money? Or should it just be word of mouth - and isn't that the same thing?

Yes they are called guides and yes some are better than others but on the whole they are more balanced and usually don't have a axe to grind like certian reviewers. Also I remember a very high profile chef saying and I quote " Do you know the best place for a restaurant critic?.........on your pay role." That's a fact whether you choose to believe it or not. I'm not saying any critics are on any chefs payrole (he did) but lets not fool ourselves here, some chefs have a lot of sway and so do some pr companies. Work it out for yourself.

[Gary Marshall]

So disgusted are you going to tell us who's upset you?

Or are we just going to have go round and round in circles through this tiring charade of why the whole restaurant reviewing business is a vast conspiracy whilst you flail around trying to justify your point?

gary

[Basildog]

So disgusted, guides do a better job than critics? If a guide gets it wrong then its wrong for a whole year, not just for the moment when an article appears.Do you think critics or guides have the power to close a restaurant? I freely admit that they can help a great deal when they are postitive, but i can't think of an example of a good place harmed so much when a review has been wrong.Good places survive with or without the critics.Sorry Jay and M

[endless autumn]

disgusted - do you really think that reviewers are paid to carry out reviews?

and what exactly is wrong with a pr company gaining coverage for a restaurant? isn't that what they're employed for?

of course certain chefs 'have a lot of sway': they have reputations, histories, relationships with journalists... why shouldn't they use these as much as possible to squeeze out complimentary copy?

if you and/or the restaurants you work(ed) in were/are this paranoid and frosty when dealing with the press it is no wonder that you have been stung in the past.

and as for guides, yes, they are relatively independent and do not serve to boost the egos of the (anonymous) reviewers, but they are still susceptible to pr: this is where they get plenty of their information from and it is sometimes with prs that they will be 'reviewing' the restaurants in question.

[circeplum]

Sorry Jay and M

don't apologise, a just look at asia de cuba. eviscerated by every pundit in town on opening (justifiably imo), still packing 'em in.

oh, and for the record, my mailbox routinely drips with vented spleen, usually cc'd to editors and managing directors. and of a much more personal nature than i'd ever dish out. gosh, you chefs are an inventive lot!

x

[disgusted]

disgusted - do you really think that reviewers are paid to carry out reviews?

and what exactly is wrong with a pr company gaining coverage for a restaurant? isn't that what they're employed for?

of course certain chefs 'have a lot of sway': they have reputations, histories, relationships with journalists...  why shouldn't they use these as much as possible to squeeze out complimentary copy?

if you and/or the restaurants you work(ed) in were/are this paranoid and frosty when dealing with the press it is no wonder that you have been stung in the past.

and as for guides, yes, they are relatively independent and do not serve to boost the egos of the (anonymous) reviewers, but they are still susceptible to pr: this is where they get plenty of their information from and it is sometimes with prs that they will be 'reviewing' the restaurants in question.

Very little of what you have written relates to what I wrote. As for the rest like I said PR companies have a lot of sway.

[Basildog]

oh, and for the record, my mailbox routinely drips with vented spleen, usually cc'd to editors and managing directors. and of a much more personal nature than i'd ever dish out. gosh, you chefs are an inventive lot!

x

But thats because you a bloody troublemaker.

[disgusted]

So disgusted are you going to tell us who's upset you? 

Or are we just going to have go round and round in circles through this tiring charade of why the whole restaurant reviewing business is a vast conspiracy whilst you flail around trying to justify your point?

gary

You've upset me with your mind fogging gibberish. Read THE POSTS.

[Gary Marshall]

gary

You've upset me with your mind fogging gibberish. Read THE POSTS.

[disgusted]

Gary if you choose to believe that food critics have a perfect understanding of gastronomy and are unbias and impartial good luck, as for the rest of your posts don't put words in my mouth that I haven't said. What has 'staff getting bollocked' for serving bad meals got to do with anything I've said. I said that I've seen chefs take the rap for bad reviews that were unjustifed. Is that clear enough.Oh and ANDY and MOBY you can stop sending me messages because much to your undoubted relief I resign me membership x

[John Whiting]

There's now a demand for perfection -- and worse, uniformity -- that runs counter to what it's reasonable to demand of every single meal. Does it relate to the unreasonable assumptions of music lovers who expect a concert to be as error-free as a recording, which has been edited to death?

I once heard Rubenstein give a bad recital. I didn't ask for my money back.

[Bux]

What a charming thread. I don't know what thoughts to put first. Life is never so black and white as disgusted would have us believe on faith. Shall I emphasize that there's been nothing presented for us to examine in all that disgusted has posted. One needs to agree or disagree with the posted position on the basis of one's own experience. Secondly, if one has ever read an illuminating review that's sparked any interest in dining at a specific restaurant, disgusted's point is invalid. Yes, there's a lot of bad reviewing out there and a lot of bad food as well. There are also an awful lot of dumb diners with neither the discretion to know what to read and who to believe as well as without the discernment to know when what they're eating is worth eating anyway.

I don't think I've ever been dissuaded from eating in a restaurant by a negative review or a negative listing in a guide book. There are times, especially when I am traveling in a foreign place, when use the relative scores, comments and mentions I come across to chose the particular place(s) in which I dine. True, all of these things may be invalid and lead me astray, but even when they are all negative, I will have dinner someplace none the less. The worst that happens is that a bad (bad, not just negative) review stands in the way of a new restaurant getting known to strangers.

While eGullet allows its members to use aliases or noms de plume, it requires all of its managers and hosts to identify themselves clearly. I have some sympathy for those who have legitimate reason to remain anonymous, but the downside of such policy is that from time to time we get angry tirades such as this one. Had Gary Marshall been at all successful in having his questions answered, it might have been a different thread.

As to what disgusted claims to have said, it appears to me that it's along the lines of there is a god or there isn't a god. People who believe one way or the other, often find it obvious.

I once heard Rubenstein give a bad recital. I didn't ask for my money back.

I trust you also didn't tip.

for the record, my mailbox routinely drips with vented spleen, usually cc'd to editors and managing directors.  and of a much more personal nature than i'd ever dish out

Presumably from those without Internet access.

I have been wronged, but i don't throw my toys out of the pram

I'd not fault you if you did. Just don't expect me to react with an appraisal and appreciation for the act.

This is an open forum, so why not use [it] to to defend yourself against 'glib ignorance' etc, rather then simply venting spleen? 

Alas, I have nothing funny to say about this. From the little I've read from the very amusing Mr. Gill, I doubt he's made much of a positive contribution to culinary criticism and it's a pity this thread didn't take an enlightening tack.

[circeplum]

oh, and for the record, my mailbox routinely drips with vented spleen, usually cc'd to editors and managing directors.  and of a much more personal nature than i'd ever dish out.  gosh, you chefs are an inventive lot!

x

But thats because you a bloody troublemaker.

moi? [wronged innocence emoticon]

x