Restaurant Reviewers

[Steve Plotnicki]

Oh where is Macrosan when you need him the most?

[Fat Guy]

I can't see where anonymity stands in the way of either going to a restaurant ten times or asking the kitchen to cook a special, off menu meal for you.  I have done both those things, and my name isn't Ruth Reichl.

Thank you, now please explain that to Jordyn!

[jordyn]

Thank you, now please explain that to Jordyn!

I agree with what Wilfrid wrote completely.

I just think he'd get a different off the menu meal than Ruth would.

I also agree with Steve's last long message about how great eGullet is.

[Fat Guy]

I just think he'd get a different off the menu meal than Ruth would.

Maybe, maybe not. In my experience there's an upper limit of performance in any restaurant kitchen and that level of quality is available to any interested customer. It's not necessarily a money issue, either. Interest and enthusiasm are legal tender in any serious restaurant. There's a bit of redistributionism going on in any dining room, which is why a young and interested customer taken under the wing of the waitstaff can get as good a meal as the older, wealthier customer. Maybe not as many white truffles, but just as strong a performance from the kitchen.

I think you're also overstating the case of what a Ruth Reichl or a William Grimes would ask for. I mean, of course you want to evaluate every aspect of the restaurant. Take a look at how William Grimes reviewed Ducasse. I haven't looked over it lately, but as I recall (doesn't matter if I'm right or not, it would still be sensible), he started out by working his way through the regular menu. I don't know if they recognized him or not. They probably did. But it doesn't matter -- that's almost always going to be a critic's first move. If he's recognized, all it really does is it eliminates the inconsistency factor. And who cares? Do you really think that in three or four visits you get a statistically meaningful view of consistency anyway? It's totally random. "The steak was purrrrfectly cooked on one visit; overcooked on the next. This restaurant is very inconsistent!" versus "On my two visits, the steak was cooked as ordered both times!" Bullshit. It's so petty and all it does is plays into the hands of the already suspicious customer who thinks every restaurant is just out to exploit him and serve him shitty food. So you give a restaurant the chance to make its dishes as well as it can make them. And any restaurant can screw up sometimes. Big deal. These should be givens. Later on, after Grimes made his way through all the menu items and the tasting menus, he called Didier Elena (the exec chef on location here) and said something that I imagine went like, "Hey, Didier my man, it's Biff Grimes. Listen, I want to come in and take over the private dining room and I want you to go totally fucking crazy. Make me the best shit you've got. Show me what you got you French bastard if you think you're so good. Are you up to the task?" And so then he got the crazy-good meal that we all fantasize about. He experienced the upper limit of the restaurant. I see no reason why Didier -- a serious chef -- wouldn't want to try to achieve that level of performance. And if he can't, he's a moron if he does it just for one person who's going to write about it, because he'll just have a lot of pissed off customers coming in day after day asking for that meal and being disappointed.

[Steve Plotnicki]

"I see no reason why Didier -- a serious chef -- wouldn't want to try to achieve that level of performance. And if he can't, he's a moron if he does it just for one person who's going to write about it, because he'll just have a lot of pissed off customers coming in day after day asking for that meal and being disappointed."

Not only that, if he could fill the restaurant with those types of customers every night they would make a fortune. How about this gets discussed from a restaurants perspective and what type of customers they like to see. Whose a drag to serve etc. Any brave restauranteurs out there?

[jordyn]

Fat Guy: Numerous trains of thoughts are crossing. Let me clarify the extent of my argument:

1) Generally, a known critic will receive better treatment in a restaurant than a typical restaurant patron. It may be possible to overcome this gap, but all it takes is the byline for the critic to get the special treatment. In some cases, this variance can be considerable. Reichl seemed to think this was the case at the old Le Cirque--I'm sure there are other examples as well.

2) You're undoubtedly correct that a critic would be unlikely to request the crazy special meal that you describe. I only brought this issue up, because Steve P has suggested that he would *like* the description of such a meal. If such a meal were created, it seems likely that it might not be available every night to every customer, because it would be a crazy effort and almost definitionally unusual.

3) It can be useful to know what a typical diner might expect in a restaurant.

That's it. That's the entire extent of my argument. You seem to be suggesting that the typical diner and the critic are likely to be treated equally. Do you really believe that?

[lizziee]

Later on, after Grimes made his way through all the menu items and the tasting menus, he called Didier Elena (the exec chef on location here) and said something that I imagine went like, "Hey, Didier my man, it's Biff Grimes. Listen, I want to come in and take over the private dining room and I want you to go totally fucking crazy. Make me the best shit you've got. Show me what you got you French bastard if you think you're so good. Are you up to the task?" And so then he got the crazy-good meal that we all fantasize about. He experienced the upper limit of the restaurant. I see no reason why Didier -- a serious chef -- wouldn't want to try to achieve that level of performance. And if he can't, he's a moron if he does it just for one person who's going to write about it, because he'll just have a lot of pissed off customers coming in day after day asking for that meal and being disappointed.

As Nina would say,"I love it when you talk dirty."

[jordyn]

Not only that, if he could fill the restaurant with those types of customers every night they would make a fortune. How about this gets discussed from a restaurants perspective and what type of customers they like to see. Whose a drag to serve etc. Any brave restauranteurs out there?

I find it unlikely that he could produce such a meal for all of his customers every night.

[Steve Plotnicki]

"I find it unlikely that he could produce such a meal for all of his customers every night"

This is exactly what goes on in the French Laundry and it used to go on in Bouley. It still might go on there but I've not been to the new Bouley yet. And in France it happens all of the time in places like Gagnaire, Arpege, Troisgros etc. You'd be surprised at how often it happens.

I think something Fat Guy said earlier didn't get enough airtime here.

"Interest and enthusiasm are legal tender in any serious restaurant."

I can tell you the story of a famous 3 star restaurant in Paris that used to be impossible for Americans to get dinner reservations at (I won't name the place but it should be obvious.) But through a friend of mine who is a partner at one of the top law firms, his Paris office got us a dinner reservation. Cutting to the chase, they were particluarly happy with the way we ordered the meal and the wines I chose which although weren't particularly expensive (neither bottle over $200) were "a point" and went perfect with the meal. At the end of the dinner they gave us little cards with private information about how to book a table for dinner in the future.

I think this aspect of dining is totally underestimated. Chefs and service staff in top restaurants love diners that know what they are doing. It gives them pride in what they do. For you to go into a place and communicate to them that you know about food and you are interested in them doing their best for you, I think that inspires them to do a good job. Wouldn't it inspire you? I think that so many of their customers don't understand what the experience is about that they look forward to doing their best for the ones who do.

[jordyn]

Steve P:

I'm not disagreeing that a large amount of the gap between reviewer and typical diner can be made up. But it's work, and who knows exactly what approach is going to work at what place? Especially for a diner with a budding interest in fine dining as opposed to an experienced epicure, it may be difficult to communicate interest to the staff in a manner that is sufficiently compelling.

Regarding your examples of places turning out fabulous meals to a lot of people every night, I'll go along and agree that the places you list perform to the absolute peak of the kitchen's capacity for every diner every night. However, you've listed off essentially a collection of the best restaurants in the world; I'm perfectly willing to agree that we should have a different approach for reviewing the best restaurants in the world as opposed to pretty good restaurants in New York City.

[Steve Plotnicki]

As Fat Guy has already calculated elsewhere, there must be 500 restaurants around the world that can perform to that standard. I think that is a sufficent number to keep us both happy no? Trust me, once you tell the chef to do it *his way,* there is no turning back.

[jordyn]

Steve: I think there's a distinction between asking a chef to do it his/her way and having the chef actually provide you with the very best meal that they are capable of. In many places, a well-known critic is more likely to get the chef's best possible effort than a typical diner. Maybe not in the places you listed, but certainly a lot of places that eGulleters eat at.

[Wilfrid]

Since we've had a number of very long threads on this issue, I think I'll start a poll on where people get their restaurant recommendations - because, although the discussion is interesting, I am not sure reading restaurant critics has much effect on my dining habits, let alone whether their anonymous or not. To be honest, I couldn't generally tell you whether they are purportedly "anonymous". Grimes is, is he? I emphasize "purportedly". I remember Reichl was. What about Asimov and Moira Hodgson. Am I unusual, because I just don't know?

[Fat Guy]

Jordyn: A fair point, but the pretty good restaurants rarely have the capacity to kick ass at a high level. Their attempts to fleece critics are quite transparent and usually pretty funny. I don't see it as a serious threat to objectivity.

Basically it comes down to what you see as the role of a restaurant review. If it's consumer protection, fine, undercover reviewing probably makes the most sense. I've heard plenty of reviewers and editors say consumer protection/advocacy is the only purpose of a restaurant review. That strikes me as a shallow view, and one that leads to reviews nobody wants to read. With an attitude like that, how are you going to beat Zagat, where you have lots of real consumers filling out lots of little numerical survey forms? No, a restaurant reviewer is emphatically not an ordinary consumer (Why should he be? He's an expert.) and to me a restaurant review is about a host of different things and one small part of that is an attempt to be an advocate for the consumer. It's a balance. Of course totally revealing yourself is going to make you a somewhat less effective consumer advocate in the narrow sense, but in the broad sense the best consumer advocate is the one who educates the consumer with great food writing, all the inside information, the real scoop on the chef and the food and the thinking behind the whole shebang. You just don't get that in a follow-up fact-checking phone call after three anonymous meals. And I also think a reviewer has a duty to the craft; that is to say a good reviewer is trying to elevate dining by being an advocate of excellence, just as art and film critics are in part trying to push the art and film worlds to improve rather than cater to average tastes (which is always the path of least resistance). So sure, anonymity is a useful tool in a reviewer's toolkit, and in certain outrageous instances it's a really nice thing to be able to go in undercover and blow the lid off a restaurant where the owners really are cynical assholes who want to rip off every customer. But you know what? So few restaurants are actually like that, it's a shame to throw out the baby with the bathwater and limit the way you review every other restaurant in the world.

The craft of restaurant reviewing is right now at an all-time low. The reviews on the whole aren't interesting to read, and Zagat and other shorthand rating systems are crushing the reviewers. The only power the reviewers have right now is their stars, not their reviews, and that shouldn't be the point. We need to change the way we think about restaurant reviews. We need to bring them up to the standards of other serious criticism or they will slowly disappear into obscurity. We need reviews that the folks here on eGullet will rush to read every week because they are forward-thinking, sophisticated, well-written, and contain the best available information. And those that aren't as enthusiastic as eGullet's users need to be infected with our enthusiasm. They need to be shown an unadulterated love of food and dining and restaurants and all the trappings. They need to be educated, cajoled, whatever it takes to get them interested in something more than stars and Zagat ratings. I don't know if anybody's up to the job but it seems obvious to me it's what we need to be doing.

[Steve Klc]

Beautifully composed and written Shaw.

[lizziee]

"best consumer advocate is the one who educates the consumer with great food writing, all the inside information, the real scoop on the chef and the food and the thinking behind the whole shebang. You just don't get that in a follow-up fact-checking phone call after three anonymous meals. And I also think a reviewer has a duty to the craft; that is to say a good reviewer is trying to elevate dining by being an advocate of excellence, just as art and film critics are in part trying to push the art and film worlds to improve rather than cater to average tastes"

FG, I started this thread with the thought that maybe anonymity might produce better/fairer reviews, but I have completely changed my position. I now think that full disclosure is absolutely the only way to ensure good restaurant reporting.

I wish every chef/owner and critic had a copy of what you just wrote and pin it on their wall and remember that the goal is to elevate dining as well as educate for excellence.

[jordyn]

Fat Guy: As Steve Klc and lizziee have already pointed out, your argument is as persuasive as it is articulate.

As you recognize, anonymity can serve a useful role in providing consumer protection, and I think it's important not to understate the value of that role, but perhaps there is a way to use both anonymity and announced interactions with restaurants to acheive the best of both worlds. I can't articulate what that way is, but I'm sure cleverer people might come up with something.

[Fat Guy]

If Special K, Jordyn, Lizziee, Plotnicki and I all agree on this, we must be completely wrong.

[lizziee]

Now that is saying a mouthful!

A first for e-gullet!!!!!

[Fat Guy]

Maybe Plotnicki will oblige by disagreeing. That would make me feel more confident in our rightness.

[marcus]

I don't buy it.

A reviewer reviews what's there. If the reviewer interferes with the creation process such that what's there is now different, then the review is inherently less relevant. The best way not to interfere with the creation process is to be anonymous.

All of fat guy's comments about the current low state of reviewing, the need to educate the public, to influence chefs and restaurants to be better, advocating excellence, are entirely valid. But the way this is done by reviewers. including art and film critics is through the review itself. The review itself is of course not anonymous, and the quality of these reviews will determine a reviewers influence.

[Fat Guy]

Okay, I feel better now!

[Suvir Saran]

FG, I started this thread with the thought that maybe anonymity might produce better/fairer reviews, but I have completely changed my position.  I now think that full disclosure is absolutely the only way to ensure good restaurant reporting.

I wish every chef/owner and critic had a copy of what you just wrote and pin it on their wall and remember that the goal is to elevate dining as well as educate for excellence.

"The craft of restaurant reviewing is right now at an all-time low. The reviews on the whole aren't interesting to read, and Zagat and other shorthand rating systems are crushing the reviewers. The only power the reviewers have right now is their stars, not their reviews, and that shouldn't be the point. We need to change the way we think about restaurant reviews. We need to bring them up to the standards of other serious criticism or they will slowly disappear into obscurity. We need reviews that the folks here on eGullet will rush to read every week because they are forward-thinking, sophisticated, well-written, and contain the best available information. And those that aren't as enthusiastic as eGullet's users need to be infected with our enthusiasm. They need to be shown an unadulterated love of food and dining and restaurants and all the trappings. They need to be educated, cajoled, whatever it takes to get them interested in something more than stars and Zagat ratings. I don't know if anybody's up to the job but it seems obvious to me it's what we need to be doing. "

Steve that was the most amazing piece of writing I have read in a long time. How beautifully you have shared the need of the day. You could certainly bring many to your side on this debate if they read what you wrote.

Lizziee is both kind in her post and also makes her reputed fine taste, honesty and intelligence known by sharing not only what she feels, but by also exposing openly how she has changed her original thought after reading your views. Not many would do what she has. Kudos to her for being public about it. We need more that are as confident about themselves as her, that they can appreciate and compliment and follow after those they originally did not want to side with in one particular issue.

And lastly, I cannot tell you how poignant you words are. They are infectious and I agree with Lizziee that it would be great for all restaurant owners and chefs and reviewers to read what you posted. It is beautiful, it is apposite and it is the call of the moment.

And it does not surprise me that it comes from your mind and is first read at eGullet.

[Steve Plotnicki]

No I'm in total agreement. I'm always complaining that food gets short shrift compared to other aesthetics, and that the consumption of food is all too often considered gluttony and an extravagence as opposed to an act of intelectual stimulation. I don't buy Marcus's profer. Picasso knew reviewers were going to assess his work and so do movie directors when they release a film. Why shouldn't Daniel Boulud know? Because he won't do his best work if the reviewer is anonymous? How can you tell the difference between purposely not doing your best and an off night? The inference is he will cheat if he knows.

[Suvir Saran]

No I'm in total agreement. I'm always complaining that food gets short shrift compared to other aesthetics, and that the consumption of food is all too often considered gluttony and an extravagence as opposed to an act of intelectual stimulation. I don't buy Marcus's profer. Picasso knew reviewers were going to assess his work and so do movie directors when they release a film. Why shouldn't Daniel Boulud know? Because he won't do his best work if the reviewer is anonymous? How can you tell the difference between purposely not doing your best and an off night? The inference is he will cheat if he knows.

Absolutely!

If we cannot give a culinary artist the same respect and leeway we offer the visual artists, we should not even bother having reviews.

Art is art in any form. Be it that hanging on a wall as a painting or a serigraph, a movie or documentary, a play, opera or a street dance. They all need to have the same rules for criticism.

It is the ability of modern day chefs to take simple and haunting foods from the homes and transform them into visual and yet edible feasts for all our senses that has made food become one of, if not the most indulged art form of all. Why should we then deprive these artists of the same standards we have employed when critiquing the others? To not do so, is to stunt the growth of this most satisfying and essential of creative arts.