Restaurants Catching Critics

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/ ... itics.html

When the chief food critic for The New York Times came into Telepan to secretly review the new restaurant, the staff knew it instantly.

Pictures of Frank Bruni had been posted in the locker room and at the front desk.

...

But restaurants have adopted stealthy countermeasures. That includes compiling dossiers on important food writers and critics to help the staff recognize the reviewers.

The dossiers often include photos, a physical description of the critics (and sometimes their spouses), their culinary likes and dislikes and other identifying behavior.

After all, "you don't want to wake up one day and read your own obituary," said Drew Nieporent, an owner of the popular restaurants Nobu and Tribeca Grill.

Regards,

Cathy,

If this is an interesting topic to you, I would highly reccommend Ruth Reichl's latest work, Garlic & Sapphires, available in hardcover or paperback. Not only is she an excellent and engaging writer, but it focuses mainly on her period as the food critic for the NY Times and how she managed to escape recognition.

Equally interesting in my mind (and something I noticed you've brought up in the past), was how she focused on how she was treated differently, depending on her "costume" and "persona."

All of her books are excellent, but this one happens to deal with that particular subject.

Yes, Garlic and Sapphires was a fun read.

I find it frustrating how often Phil Vettel of the Tribune owns up to being recognized in his reviews. I feel like he is not trying hard enough not to be recognized. Ruth Reichl is not the only restaurant reviewer to go to extreme lengths to avoid recognition. Phyllis Richman, who was the restaurant critic for the Washington Post when I was growing up in DC, was also famous for her disguises and for not being recognized.

ekpaster wrote:I find it frustrating how often Phil Vettel of the Tribune owns up to being recognized in his reviews. I feel like he is not trying hard enough not to be recognized.

So what happens if he is recognized? If they don't know he's coming in advance, what can a restaurant do when they spot him in the dining room?

They can't change the menu or redecorate the dining room. They're unlikely to be able to substantially upgrade the ingredients. They can't call extra staff in. They can't prevent him from watching other tables to see what kind of food and service other patrons are getting and whether they seem to be enjoying themselves. All they really can do is devote a little extra attention to the food and service they send out to his table and make sure no mistakes happen. Big deal.

They could also comp stuff, but that isn't going to get them anywhere. A paper like the Tribune pays for its critics' meals, so it's not like they'd be doing Vettel any favors -- they'd just be offering him an ethical dilemma. (How does he know whether the comped dish is something they might do for anyone racking up a big bill or whether it's because they know he's a critic?)

Finally, even if they know there's a critic in the house, that doesn't mean that their best efforts will be any good.

Giles Coren on anonymity and Ruth Reichl

So what happens if he is recognized?

Well, the service can change, and the chef can personally oversee the preparation of his meal. If it isn't a big deal, why does Phil Vettel mention it every time it happens? He obviously feels it impacts how the reader should evalate his review. Ruth Reichl describes in her book -- which I enjoyed, but obviously not everyone did -- being treated differently when she went to certain restaurants in disguise and when she went to those same places as herself. Maybe the greatest impact is on the service, but I for one, thinks service matters, especially when I am spending a lot of money on dinner. As you say, you can't radically change your restaurant just because you spot a critic, but you can insure that the kind of thing that ruins a meal for average dinners -- an overly long wait between courses, or a condescending server -- doesn't happen. And then even a critic's repeat visits to a restaurant fail to expose these sorts of flaws.

ekpaster wrote:If it isn't a big deal, why does Phil Vettel mention it every time it happens?

He's covering his ass, in case somebody cares, as you evidently do. But apparently that's not enough, since even though he discloses it whenever it happens, you're still annoyed that he's being recognized at all.

I don't actually know what Vettel looks like. But what if he has some hard-to-disguise distinguishing characteristic? Are you saying only nondescript-looking people should be allowed to be restaurant critics?

Consider another critic for one of our local papers. Not only is he a distinctive-looking fellow, but his picture's plastered all over the net for anyone who goes searching for it. What's he supposed to do? Put a bag over his head?


Ruth Reichl

I've always felt that at most, you could maybe enhance the service 25% and the food 10% (mainly in regard to portion size) if you spotted a critic. Any more than that and if the critic can't spot that they're getting a dog and pony show at that point, what good are they at judging anything?

But it seems to feed the egos of some media types to imagine that they're so prominent and well-read that they have to do the cloak and dagger routine, all the way to Reichl's disguises (which I love to think were routinely greeted with "Hey, there's someone dressed up like a bag lady on TV at table 7, Ruth Reichl must be here tonight"). Which is why you associate this sort of thing with New York, the Big Ego, more than anywhere else.

People have asked me a couple of times if I try to keep the fact that I'll be writing a meal up secret. Well, I certainly don't draw attention to it, that tends to put people ill at ease, but I absolutely don't think of myself or anyone here as needing to maintain secrecy on any elaborate level because 1) I wouldn't assume people have ever heard of LTHForum (even though it's not at all uncommon to meet a restarateur who has by now), 2) I certainly don't think they'll specifically know me (and that part has proven pretty much true), and 3) even in the unlikely circumstances that I did get some sort of special treatment*, in the next two weeks ten other people are likely to try it and provide a corrective perspective. That is, I think, the significant point about how media are changing-- ten years ago when Reichl wrote a review, about the only response the average person could offer to it was sending in their Zagat vote and hoping that their little pithy "comment" "might be one" "of the ones" "Zagat used." Now we can all put our comments out there, where anyone in the world can read them, and judge all those points of view and different experiences on different nights together as an overall picture. Disguises unnecessary.

* Of course there is one kind of special treatment that we not only occasionally get but actively encourage-- the probing for secret menu items and the like which are then shared with everyone here. In those cases it's not only acceptable but desirable that restarateurs know that someone in a sense represents a community of food fanatics who will be interested in those things, and that we have some ability to get the word out which will lead to at least a certain beginning level of trial and awareness of those items.

LAZ wrote:
Ruth Reichl

I read Garlic and Sapphires, and thought it was more about "look how much fun I'm having playing dress-up" than anything else. But that photo has to be Ruth's best effort ever to disguise herself.

(Which of the two is she?)