Americans are thick and write dreary drivel - Giles Coren

When asked by Waitrose Illustrated "Is it fair for critics to judge a restaurant after just one visit", (citing that in NYC, "reviewers go to a restaurant several times before writing their review") Giles Coren, Critic for the Times of London, had this to say:

"If you can't tell on one visit, you can't tell on three. Americans go so often because they are too thick to get enough material from one visit. Have you ever read the dreary drivel they write?"

Don't know Giles Coren, but just off the top of my head, it seems to me that multiple visits - leaving fairness out of it altogether - allow one to assess/compare for one's readers' benefit:

* a greater percentage of the menu
* a wider range of specials (or just whether there is a wide range)
* how they handle slow times vs. rush times
* lunch vs. dinner
* groups vs. solo diners
* walk-ins vs. reservations
* consistency of the same dishes at different times
* consistency of staff training/performance

And perhaps any number of other things worth knowing.

But then, I'm:
* American
* thick and getting thicker all the time
* a frequent writer of drivel

Just noticed that in the OP his name is linked. So, intrigued, I clicked.
My gosh what a lot of 'tude one has to wade through just to learn something (or not) about a restaurant. Jaw-clenching, headache inducing toxic levels of snarkier-than-thou-ishness which might be tolerable if it seemed natural and effortless, but, alas, seems all too drearily straining for attention and angry letters from readers to validate his column space. So glad he's over there. Give me Antonius, Hammond, Sula, my pal Will, Wiv. et al any (and every) day.

I'd say that's about normal for London's restaurant reviewers, eh?

If you're a reviewer, going out with 3 other people, tasting everything they're ordering and maybe ordering more than 4 apps, you're going to get a very good sampling on one visit. Of course, there's the consistency question -- but if a restaurant is poor, even abnormally poor, on one visit, isn't that likely to happen again?

First off, thanks to Queijo for bringing this to our attention; as funny as irritating and, following the link, interesting too, in the way that from an anthropological standpoint, almost anything is worth seeing, if just to know what's possible.

Thanks too, Mrbarolo, for the endorsement, as it were... I pretty much agree with what you say in reaction to what you saw following the link. A little attitude, a little iconoclasm, a pompous overstatement, all these things most definitely have their proper place in the world of rhetorical devices, but Mr. Coren seems to have incorporated as the major part of his journalistic persona the high-schoolish syndrome of thinking cleverness depends wholly on negativity. I didn't have enough time or stomach to wade through all that much to see if there were any real substance behind the attitude...

But then again, one visit is enough.



Antonius (Thick as a Brick)

gleam wrote:I'd say that's about normal for London's restaurant reviewers, eh?

If you're a reviewer, going out with 3 other people, tasting everything they're ordering and maybe ordering more than 4 apps, you're going to get a very good sampling on one visit. Of course, there's the consistency question -- but if a restaurant is poor, even abnormally poor, on one visit, isn't that likely to happen again?

True, but by the same token, if a restaurant is extraordinarily good on one visit, is that any guarantee it will be good on the next visit (or routinely good)? Not really; maybe they are only good once every three nights, or when certain staff are working, etc. Maybe there was a guest chef in the kitchen; how would you know? So as you suggest, multiple visits may not be necessary to pick out stinkers, but you might get a lot of false positives for good restaurants if you rely only on single visits.

Queijo wrote:"If you can't tell on one visit, you can't tell on three. Americans go so often because they are too thick to get enough material from one visit. Have you ever read the dreary drivel they write?"

Brits only go once because their teeth aren't good enough to chew more than one meal. (Whatever that means)

Funny to see Giles Coren mentioned here - I had last seen his name mentioned in this context.

I don't like his writing very much and, honestly, he seems like a bit of a tosser. Still, I'm the sure the quote about Americans was meant in jest

LionRock wrote:Funny to see Giles Coren mentioned here - I had last seen his name mentioned in this context.

I don't like his writing very much and, honestly, he seems like a bit of a tosser. Still, I'm the sure the quote about Americans was meant in jest

L:

Well, probably better a tosser than a dosser, but that shower-head thing... aèk.

A