Fat Guy Lays it on the Table

[Bux]

. . . .

Having read (and enjoyed) FG's book now, I'm a little undecided on the issue, mainly on service grounds. When I dine out, it's on a level where service lapses are at least as apt as food ones to compromise the experience. I think that's an area where it is indeed possible for a restaurant to make itself look better than it normally does.

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Just to continue playing devil's advocate -- and my need to do so is based on my opinion that that I am not convinced there is a clear right answer here -- service is less hard to mask than food. A sharp critic's eyes are focused at far points in the room and often quick to note what's happening in the room far from his own table.

[Tess]

to continue playing devil's advocate -- and my need to do so is based on my opinion that that I am not convinced there is a clear right answer here -- service is less hard to mask than food. A sharp critic's eyes are focused at far points in the room and often quick to note what's happening in the room far from his own table.

I'm not a professional reviewer, for sure, so I can believe that. What I said was based on my experience as a consumer. It seems to me like-- major ****ups aside-- the caliber of cooking is more readily obvious than whether you are likely to get good or not so good service.

[rich]

Great job Steve - always leave them wanting more!

Just finished the book (Amazon delivered it two months early) and was totally impressed. My favorite chapter was the last on the future of dining. Steve, I agree that to "predict" the future you must understand the past.

I have always been fascinated by the evolution of NYC restaurants from the mid 60's through the present. I wish you would have written more about that particular aspect (I found myself wanting so much more). When I started going to better restaurants with my parents, I was about 13-14 years old - that translates into 1963-64, things were totally different than today. The waitstaff was predominately male and much older than what you see today. They were so much more professional and took time to get to know you. By the time I was 20, at least three maitre'd's were sending me Christmas Cards and I felt as though we had a personal relationship even though I never saw them outside of the restaurant.

Do you know how impressed a date was when you walked into a top NYC restaurant and within a minute or two of sitting down, your drink was placed on the table without you saying a word?

I can't say when this changed, but by the time 1990 rolled around, it seemed the restaurant and the chef became more important than the diner - times change, people must adjust.

In any event, great job Steve. I'm sure the book will succeed beyond your expectations. I'm certainly looking foward to the next installment.

[DaleJ]

Finished reading yesterday. Thank you Steven.

[FoodMan]

Finished reading mine this weekend, it took me less than a week and I am usually a slow reader. This one was hard to put down and I was sorry that it is not a bit longer. FG's arguments and advise are so clear and well structured and very interesting to read.

I've always known the tip system in the US is flawed but could never quiet argue why. Now I can. Same goes for the restaurant guides and especially those "reader's choice" establishments.

Now excuse me, I am on a mission to become a VIP at a local fine dining establishment.

Thanks for a wonderful piece of writing FG and hopefully a "sequel" is in the works.

Elie

[Todd36]

But as anyone who has been in show business can tell you, there is no way you can make the show "just a little bit better than the other nights" when you know the critic is in the audience.  It just doesn't work that way.  And, frankly, given that 90% of what makes a meal top notch happens before the diner even sets foot in the restaurant, I am skeptical that much can be done to create a food experience that is substantially better than what the other diners are getting -- especially over 4 or 5 meals.  I suppose service can be improved, but even then the evidence is that places with service issues aren't able to correct them even when they know the critic is in the house.

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In a show, we all see the same thing. In a restuarant, we don't all have to get the same food. It of course depends on what they are serving and who is paying attention, but I think most any restaurant can alter the food experience. This is most obvious in a sushi place, any decent sushi chef knows which of his or her fish is best and can serve it accordingly. Anyone who has ever eaten in a top sushi restaurant with a regular customer has had that experience. The same thing applies to many ingredents. Think Jean Georges or Bouley can't tell real fast which of the 30 duck breasts he has available is better? Think that duck breast is going to taste the same whether prepared by Bouley himself or by the most inexpienced line chef? Having recently eaten at Bouley with someone he knows welll, the food was not what anyone else in the room was eating, it was a very different experience.

[Fat Guy]

You were fully aware of what kind of experience you were getting. You weren't fooled into believing in a false baseline. It's so easy for any experienced diner to grasp that, it's a wonder so many people assume working critics won't be able to sort it out.

But what, truly, was the nature of the difference anyway? I've dined at Bouley and Bouley Bakery 30-40 times. I've experienced the full range of meals there, from the meal served to an unrecognized, clueless college student to the kinds of meals they were serving to VIPs at the height of Bouley Bakery's prowess. What I experienced, as a VIP, was more food, off-menu dishes, bigger portions of luxury garnishes, etc. This is standard in any fine restaurant: if you let the kitchen cook for you, you have a different experience. It's not a scandal; it's part and parcel of fine dining. But if I had the ocean herbal broth from the menu it was the same ocean herbal broth whether I was a stranger or a regular.

One of the core messages of Turning the Tables, however, is that anybody with a modicum of desire can become a regular easily. Simply being polite and expressing keen interest in the menu at the outset can often get you on the radar as someone the kitchen wants to cook for and the waitstaff wants to please. Since it is obvious that restaurant consumers have a variety of different experiences when they dine out, why should restaurant reviewers represent the least involved customers? Since I don't plan on being an average customer in any restaurant for longer than one meal, I don't really care what the average customer gets. I want to know what you get when you're a regular.

Nonetheless, when visiting a restaurant, it is no great challenge to ascertain the baseline. You order from the menu. You look around at similar plates. You use your brain. It's not rocket science.

[Bux]

. . . .

Think Jean Georges or Bouley can't tell real fast which of the 30 duck breasts he has available is better?  Think that duck breast is going to taste the same whether prepared by Bouley himself or by the most inexpienced line chef?  Having recently eaten at Bouley with someone he knows welll, the food was not what anyone else in the room was eating, it was a very different experience.

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I've eaten at a couple of restaurants before I was a friend of the house and after. It was a different experience, but the quality of the cooking didn't change. If it was a four star experience after I was known, it was a four star experience the first time as well.

A misconception here is that a top restaurant kitchen operates with a chaotic system wherein some diner's food is cooked by a novice while others have their food cooked by the top chef. The likelihood is that there's one guy cooking one particular dish and that everyone who orders that dish has had it cooked by the same guy. It's highly unlikely that many dishes are ever cooked by that chef who has his name above the entrance. There are no inexperienced line chefs at a top restaurant. There are also not a lot of inferior duck breasts being accepted by the steward at a top restaurant and those that slip in are likely to become pate. These restaurants pay top prices and the business is highly valued. Suppliers know they often don't get a second chance if the supplies don't pass muster.

There's more than a bit of exaggeration on both sides here, but the real issue is whether a VIP critic can spot if there's inconsistency in the cooking, or if the kitchen can hide it from him. I suspect that may depend more on the sophistication of the critic than of the efforts by the restaurant. My guess is that a mediocre chef can hide his incompetence from an unqualified reviewer than a top chef can hide much from a knowledgeable critic making several visits. I daresay the odds of finding the chef with the same name as the restaurant in attendence is by no meals guaranteed on any given day. I assure you that the chef doesn't cancel his charity dinner in Rio simply because he suspects one of the tables that night is reserved by a major critic.

[jayrayner]

My colleague Terry Durack, who reviews for the Independent on Sunday here in the UK, put it best I think when he said: 'I am yet to find a bad restaurant that becomes a good one because I walk through the door.'

[Andy Lynes]

There was a fascinating scene in the Australian documentary series "Heat In The Kitchen" when the highly influential Sydney Morning Herald critic Matthew Evans dines in Aria, one of the city's top restaurants. Chef Matt Moran is aware the critic is in the dining room and even goes out to say hello. When he returns to the kitchen he initially says that he will leave the cooking of the critic's food to his team saying something like, "That guy there is the best fish cook in the business and that guy is the best meat cook. I couldn't do any better myself so I'm going to let them get on with it."

Within seconds however, Moran is choosing which piece of meat (a duck breast I think) the critic should get. Then he says to the cook "actually, if you don't mind I'm going to cook this one myself", then he plates the dish himself. Perhaps the finished plate was no different from what the chef de partie would have produced, but Moran obviously believed that the VIP warrented his personal attention.

Bad restaurants don't suddenly become good restaurants because a critic walks through the door, but they do react and can deliver an experience that could be the difference between a 1, 2, 3 or 4 star review particularly in the UK when most reviews are based on a single visit.

[Andy Lynes]

I enjoyed the book enourmously, but I partly share the misgivings Jonathan Yardley expressed in his Washington Post review. While I think Steven is correct in his assertion that critics must develop relationships within the industry in order to comment upon it meaningfully, he doesn't acknowledge the risk of loss of independence inherent to the approach or how that risk might be mitigated, which weakens his arguement.

[Dirk Wheelan]

My colleague Terry Durack, who reviews for the Independent on Sunday here in the UK, put it best I think when he said: 'I am yet to find a bad restaurant that becomes a good one because I walk through the door.'

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I would be interested to know what Durack's point of reference is?

Indeed, despite its epigrammatic glibness, this statement is, as Andy points out, essentially meaningless.

[Dirk Wheelan]

critics must develop relationships within the industry in order to comment upon it meaningfully

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I'm afraid I utterly disagree with this. Critics have to decide who it is they're serving: the dining public or the dining industry. Perhaps it does require insider relationships in order comment 'meaningfully' for insiders; e.g. in the trade press. On the other hand, writing for a public outside the industry requires none of these relationships in that for a review to be useful, the experience of the critic should echo the experience of the diner, and not V.I.P.

Too many critics want to have it both ways, they want to schmooze with superstar chefs, and impress their friends and associates with their V.I.P. status in smart restaurants, yet they also want their readership to believe they're just and impartial. Only the most arrogant critic would expect not to be challenged on this type of behaviour.

[munchymom]

One of the core messages of Turning the Tables, however, is that anybody with a modicum of desire can become a regular easily. Simply being polite and expressing keen interest in the menu at the outset can often get you on the radar as someone the kitchen wants to cook for and the waitstaff wants to please. Since it is obvious that restaurant consumers have a variety of different experiences when they dine out, why should restaurant reviewers represent the least involved customers? Since I don't plan on being an average customer in any restaurant for longer than one meal, I don't really care what the average customer gets. I want to know what you get when you're a regular.

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I enjoyed the book very much, but this core message didn't resonate with me. For me and I suspect for many other people, dining in a top-level restaurant is a once-a-year, if not a once-in-a-lifetime proposition. I'm not going to become a regular at any of these places, so I think that the kind of treatment an unknown, first-time visitor gets is useful information to have in a review. I recently read Ruth Reichl's "Garlic and Sapphires", and what comes to mind in this context is her review of Le Cirque, where she goes as a dumpy, middle-aged woman and gets treated terribly, and then goes as herself and gets fawned all over. It's fine with me that regulars get extra stuff. But my money's as good as anyone else's, even if I'm coming from out of town and I've never been to the restaurant before. If I'm paying $400 for a meal, I want them to at least be nice to me. I can understand that some restaurants don't really care about the dumpy, middle-aged tourists. Should critics ignore us too?

[Fat Guy]

By not teaching the "dumpy, middle-aged tourists" how to dine, critics are ignoring them. It's as though they're sending people to buy cars without any information on how to negotiate an advantageous price. Of course, restaurants that treat their non-VIPs like dirt should be subject to the disapprobation of all. But that's a rare occurrence -- Le Cirque (now shuttered) was a throwback. The rigid hierarchical treatment was part of Le Cirque's nature. Most high-quality modern restaurants have a completely different orientation. Critics, by treating every restaurant like a potential Le Cirque dinosaur in waiting, ignore the present reality at most restaurants.

[Andy Lynes]

Critics have to decide who it is they're serving: the dining public or the dining industry.

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Only if their role is to be reduced to that of a secret shopper. Critics should be experts with first hand knowledge of their subject which means at least some fraternising with "the enemy."

[Dirk Wheelan]

Critics have to decide who it is they're serving: the dining public or the dining industry.

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Only if their role is to be reduced to that of a secret shopper. Critics should be experts with first hand knowledge of their subject which means at least some fraternising with "the enemy."

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I'm thinking quite specifically of restaurant reviewing, and there seems to be no reason why one can't learn everything there is to know about dining out by .... dining out!

On the other hand, the stuff about maintaining close ties with chefs or restaurateurs being okay seems like a way for food writers to keep their options open and take advantage of the power they wield. Regarding, 'secret shopper' critics, well Michelin do it and it's no coincidence that their evaluations carry the most weight in Europe. If you ask me, individual critics reject anonymity not for 'meaningfulness' issues, but because anonymity denies them the opportunity of self-promotion, and the attractions of a role in the food media circus.

[Andy Lynes]

Regarding, 'secret shopper' critics, well Michelin do it and it's no coincidence that their evaluations carry the most weight in Europe.

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Guide inspectors are not critics, they don't write reviews for public consumption, they are two entirely different roles. The inspectors will also usually have a background in the trade and will therefore already have the technical, insider knowledge a good critic needs to pick up by researching his subject. In addition, the guide maintains some dialogue with the restaurants it includes in its guides therefore inspectors and the likes of Derek Bulmer don't completely avoid all contact with chefs.

[Dirk Wheelan]

Guide inspectors are not critics, they don't write reviews for public consumption, they are two entirely different roles.

Really, I would have thought that, at least functionally, they were more or less the same.

The inspectors will also usually have a background in the trade and will therefore already have the technical, insider knowledge a good critic needs to pick up by researching his subject. In addition,  the guide maintains some dialogue with the restaurants it includes in its guides therefore inspectors and the likes of Derek Bulmer don't completely avoid all contact with chefs.

There is thread somewhere on the UK forum with byline photos from all the major restaurant critics. The same level of conspicuousness cannot be said for Michelin's inspectors.

No doubt an absolute division between food producers and food assessors would be difficult to maintain, but as your 'secret shopper' analogy demonstrates anonymous assessment has a unique value for consumers. In fact, I've yet to see any coherent argument for why 'celebrity' critics serve the consumer better, although it's very clear why it serves the critics not be anonymous. On the other hand, from the consumer perspective, anonymity, or at least distance from the establishment being assessed, is clearly more valuable if the function of a review is help decide where to eat. In addition, this impartiality also seems fairer to the restaurant trade itself in that everyone gets judged on their functional merits rather than on their level of critic cronyism.

[Andy Lynes]

For the most part, and there are of course exceptions, the trouble with critics who have no connections or inside knowledge whatsoever of the industry is that their reviews tend to be school of "my wife plumped for the steak and jolly glad she was too! It was a huge portion and served piping hot!!" i.e. absolutely fucking useless, except to people who wouldn't know good food if mugged them in broad daylight.

[Fat Guy]

Restaurant critics for major newspapers dine like kings no matter what. The difference between a critic like Ruth Reichl who strives for anonymity and a critic like David Rosengarten or Thomas Matthews who rejects anonymity is that the former will be recognized and given the restaurant's best treatment 90% of the time whereas the latter will be recognized and given the restaurant's best treatment 99% of the time. So there is no significant personal motivation, in terms of getting better treatment, for not being incognito. You get plenty either way.

The Ruth Reichl story, relayed above, is incomplete. Let us remember that after a time she returned to Le Cirque and tried the yokel disguise again. She received great treatment, and gave the restaurant four stars. She assumed, irrationally, that Le Cirque had suddenly become a restaurant that treats everyone like royalty, rather than using Occam's razor and concluding, logically (and truthfully according to all the back channel talk I've heard), that she had been identified. So all this attempted anonymity turned into a big game that served nobody's interests.

If anything, it is a greater challenge, personally, to be engaged with the industry than it is to keep the industry at arm's length. When reporters spend weeks on the campaign bus, or are embedded with troops, it requires a strong sense of journalistic fidelity -- and a willingness to make enemies -- to write stories that are critical of the campaign or the military. But that's what good journalists do. Restaurant critics -- the ones that are good journalists at least -- can do exactly the same. Or they can watch the bus through binoculars and write irrelevant, out-of-touch stories.

[slkinsey]

One of the core messages of Turning the Tables, however, is that anybody with a modicum of desire can become a regular easily. Simply being polite and expressing keen interest in the menu at the outset can often get you on the radar as someone the kitchen wants to cook for and the waitstaff wants to please.

I've always expressed a lot of interest in the food, asked questions, shared my thoughts on wine with the sommelier but let him help me choose, etc. This is interesting, because I've also noticed that there are certain restaurants where I have always had what seems to be a better experience than most people who post about it. I never payed much attention to this, nor thought that the two might be related, because I wasn't expressing my enthusiasm deliberately to get a better experience. But after having read Steven's book, it's something that's been in the back of my mind. A few weeks ago I visited a very good NYC restaurant with a few friends and decided to pay attention to what was going on at the other tables. We had the tasting menu with wine pairing, but asked the chef to work in an extra foie gras dish from the appetizer meny. Throughout the meal, we talked with the waiter about the provenance of various food items, correctly identified which dishes had been cooked sous vide and talked a little about that, asked about the wines and commented on the ones we thought were particularly good, etc. . . more or less what we always do when we're out at a restaurant of this caliber. It also just so happens that we got a number of extras compared to another table doing the tasting menu. We got a few more amuses they didn't get, our glasses were topped off when it was a wine we really liked, we were comped the wine that was paired with the extra foie gras course, etc. Now, these people don't know me from Adam, and yet they were pleased that we were so interested in their cooking and so excited about their food that they were happy to give us some special treatment -- which is just what I would do in their position.

There was a fascinating scene in the Australian documentary series "Heat In The Kitchen" when the highly influential Sydney Morning Herald critic Matthew Evans dines in Aria, one of the city's top restaurants. Chef Matt Moran is aware the critic is in the dining room and even goes out to say hello. When he returns to the kitchen he initially says that he will leave the cooking of the critic's food to his team saying something like,  "That guy there is the best fish cook in the business and that guy is the best meat cook. I couldn't do any better myself so I'm going to let them get on with it."

Within seconds however, Moran is choosing which piece of meat (a duck breast I think) the critic should get. Then he says to the cook "actually, if you don't mind I'm going to cook this one myself", then he plates the dish himself. . .

Here's the thing. . . the meat cook very likely would have cooked the duck breast better than Moran. Who do you want cooking your duck breast: The meat cook at Daniel who has been cooking a zillion orders of the duck breast dish to chef Boulud's exacting specifications for years? Or Daniel Boulud himself, who has probably not prepared that duck breast dish himself in months, and who has cooked it several thousand times less than his meat cook?

critics must develop relationships within the industry in order to comment upon it meaningfully.

I'm afraid I utterly disagree with this. Critics have to decide who it is they're serving: the dining public or the dining industry. Perhaps it does require insider relationships in order comment 'meaningfully' for insiders; e.g. in the trade press. On the other hand, writing for a public outside the industry requires none of these relationships in that for a review to be useful, the experience of the critic should echo the experience of the diner, and not V.I.P.

There are two issues here. Issue number one is the question of who the restaurants are cooking for? Are they cooking for the "general public" or are all high-end restaurants fundamentally cooking for regulars? I would argue that they are cooking for the latter, so why should a restaurant critic go into a restaurant and try to experience the lowest level of the experience -- that of a complete unknown? A related question is whether it is even possible for a restaurant critic to experience the "common man's meal" at a restaurant. You don't think Bruni is getting VIP treatment every time he sits down at a restaurant table? Really, I'm not sure that the critic's job is to serve any public at all. The job is to experience the thing-to-be-reviwed and say what you think about it.

Issue number two is the oft-mentioned thought that restaurant critics' opinions will somehow be unduly influenced by their relationships with people in the industry. . . like writers and critics in all other fields are immune. Readers understand that these things happen no matter what. You think readers of the NY Times restaurant reviews weren't aware of Amanda Hesser's fondness for Jean-Georges? It's been known for years in the opera community that a certain NYT reviewer is enamored of Renee Fleming and that as far as he is concerned she can do no wrong. We all read his reviews of Ms. Fleming with this in mind. Or maybe there is an art critic who just doesn't like photorealism, etc. Everyone has biases, influences and relationships. Could you imagine an art critic who doesn't know any artists? Or a sports reporter who doesn't hang around with any athletes?

[markk]

One of the core messages of Turning the Tables, however, is that anybody with a modicum of desire can become a regular easily. Simply being polite and expressing keen interest in the menu at the outset can often get you on the radar as someone the kitchen wants to cook for and the waitstaff wants to please.

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I enjoyed the book very much, but this core message didn't resonate with me.

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I read Steven's book, and this cor message resonated deeply with me, and gave me great pause for very happy retrospection (although I'll make this message not-so-much about me, or try to keep it about him...)

On my first trip to Rome in 1973, at age 22, on the third night we went to a restaurant in a hidden plaza populated only by native Romans, and the food was other-worldly great. We went back the next night again, thinking it was better to try the things we didn't have the first night than to go to a new, untried place. On that second night they were glad to see us back and took extra special care of us, bringing us food we didn't order, etc. So went back again the next night and were served an all night feast that was more like a Roman Orgy - it was certainly the greatest dining experiences of our 22 year old lives. To make this long story short, we were in Rome for 3 weeks, and ate there every subsequent night. (Well, on the one night a week they were closed they gave us directions to their brother's restaurant, and let him know we were coming so they could papmer us there.) And back at this place, they took me into the kitchen to watch them make my favorite dishes, the chef came out to sit with us after the meal (his wife gasped that he had never done that with an American in his entire life), and we repeated this several week visit on 4 subsequent annual returns to Rome.

Then I started doing it in France when I started traveling there a little later in life. Of course, there's nt a great point to doing it if you really don't get a sense of loving the restaurant you're in, food wise - you move on until a place says to you "I want to be a regular here!". And so there's one place in Alsace where the chef is my bud, where I'm allowed in the kitchen to hang out and photograph whenever I want, and where the staff knows that whatever else people are ordering, Thierry is feeding me whatever he comes up with for me that night. One night, I had expressed a desire to have "cassoulet" which I'd never had in France. Of course it's a dish from the southwest of France and this was Alsace in the height of the Christmas week dining season, but that didn't stop Thierry - he started from scratch a few days in advance, and made a special batch of cassoulet for me on his day off (to his wife's amazement and frankly, horror)...

me earning "regular" status in a restaurant in France

But Steven is right, it can happen just as rewardingly at a simple, local restaurant as well, so I'll direct you to a recent thread here on eG where I posted about a great local joint owned by two guys who really really can cook, and as you'll see, all the special, off-menu things they create for me all the time get in the way of my trying to photograph and post only their regular menu items...

a local joint where I quickly achieved "regular" status

And so I think Steven is right, of course, because without even knowing that this was a "method", I've been doing it for over 30 years.

And I don't think that this interferes with the critics job, although Steven didn't present it in that context, I don't think. I took it to be that he was telling people how they could get the most out of their daily dining experiences, and of course, is he ever correct!

As far as when there's a critic in the house can they do something better? I don't know, some say that aside from extra touches, not much, and then Ruth Reichel pressed the issue with her disguises, and I certainly wouldn't choose to go that route myself if I were looking for a great meal but it's understood why she did and interesting too.

As far as what happens if you go to a famous restaurant that's supposed to be great, and because you're not famous you realize instantly that you're not getting the same treatment you read about, and get the feeling that you're not going to get their most carefully prepared meal either? - you should get up and leave.

I do it all the time. Not all great restaurants treat unknown first time diners that way, but when I sense that's what's happening, I do get up and leave. It's part of my own dining strategy, and I was so happy to see that obvioulsy Steven was born with an similar, fully developed one as well.

Edited September 7, 2005 by markk (log)

[Fat Guy]

We had the tasting menu with wine pairing, but asked the chef to work in an extra foie gras dish from the appetizer meny.  Throughout the meal, we talked with the waiter about the provenance of various food items, correctly identified which dishes had been cooked sous vide and talked a little about that, asked about the wines and commented on the ones we thought were particularly good, etc. . . more or less what we always do when we're out at a restaurant of this caliber.  It also just so happens that we got a number of extras compared to another table doing the tasting menu.  We got a few more amuses they didn't get, our glasses were topped off when it was a wine we really liked, we were comped the wine that was paired with the extra foie gras course, etc.  Now, these people don't know me from Adam, and yet they were pleased that we were so interested in their cooking and so excited about their food that they were happy to give us some special treatment -- which is just what I would do in their position.

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In the book, I call this "how to become a regular on your first visit." You don't have to dine out often to do it, just like you don't have to buy a car every day in order to be an intelligent buyer of a new car -- you can dine out once a year, buy a car once a decade, and still do very well. You just have to know how. I've tried to do my part by writing a book that shows people how to do exactly that. Those who wish to rail against this state of affairs are free to do so, but they're going to run into the brick wall of reality.

[Dirk Wheelan]

If anything, it is a greater challenge, personally, to be engaged with the industry than it is to keep the industry at arm's length. When reporters spend weeks on the campaign bus, or are embedded with troops, it requires a strong sense of journalistic fidelity -- and a willingness to make enemies -- to write stories that are critical of the campaign or the military. But that's what good journalists do. Restaurant critics -- the ones that are good journalists at least -- can do exactly the same.

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I quite agree that it is a greater 'personal' challenge to be a critic and be engaged with the industry, but only in the sense of maintaining an impartiality that could be far more simply gained from not engaging in the first place. From the perspective of a consumer (again, I'm assuming that reviews have a function to impartially inform the consumer) where's the benefit? Your argument for not being anonymous suggests that, at best, it can be as good as anonymity, so what's the point of complicating the task with self-promotion?

Or they can watch the bus through binoculars and write irrelevant, out-of-touch stories.

Clearly food writing in general would suffer from this approach, but in the case of restaurant reviewing specifically why should anything more than the dining experience be necessary? I don't see how buddying up to chefs helps write good reviews, although I can see clearly how it can undermine critics' integrity.