Everyone Eats . . . But that doesn’t make you a restaurant critic

[Melanie Wong]

By Robert Sietsema in the Columbia Journalism Review

http://www.cjr.org/feature/everyone_e...

[BobB]

Interesting read. To those who don't want to slog through the fairly lengthy article, I will quote the last two paragraphs which sum it up fairly well:

"As the eminent film critic Richard Schickel wrote in 2007, in response to a New York Times article on the decline of professional book-reviewing and the rise of review-bloggers: “Criticism—and its humble cousin, reviewing—is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions . . . . It is work that requires disciplined taste, historical and theoretical knowledge and a fairly deep sense of the author’s (or filmmaker’s or painter’s) entire body of work, among other qualities.”

Craig Claiborne, and those who followed him, lifted the restaurant review out of the realm of marketing and made it a public service—a job defined by professional standards and expertise. Today, despite whatever benefits come with the every-man-a-critic ethos, we are in danger of losing that public service."

Let the elitism-bashing begin!

[mcf]

I don't think it's elitist to believe that someone whose profession is reviewing ought to have specialized expertise. I've learned a lot about food and cooking from some reviewers and knowledgeable food writers.

I think there's also an appropriate place for the unwashed masses to share our thoughts and experiences about restaurants, too. Like right here.

[cowboyardee]

I think most people would be better off reading the entire article. Those last two paragraphs are not an accurate summation, but rather the author's final musings on the state of his art.

While the author does not do justice to the complexity and variety of 'democratized' food critiquing, his thoughts on the history and impact of professional (and principled) food critics are well researched, well stated, and enlightening.

[buttertart]

Perhaps Mr. Sietsema should reflect on the fact that he used to post on these very boards of which he is now so contemptuous, and that seems to use CH boards as scouts for suitable establishments to visit - amateur contributions obviously have value. I have found the quality of the contributions by many of the reviewers here to surpass his contributions to the genre - both in providing interesting and germane comments on the food and the restaurants in general and in searching out new and exciting establishments. I'm looking at you, scoopG and Lau, it's great to have access to people who really know whereof they speak when it comes to Chinese food - which I haven't found to be the case particularly with RS. People here tend also to be more straightforward and inject less of themselves into their reviews, and to rely less on standard catchphrases and word choice (RS's beloved "wad of..." [gag] and "annealed to" among other annoyances). Yes there is a place for professional reviewers - and yes there is a place for the everyday person to have their say.

[shaogo]

Sietsema's article is notable for its pretty thorough history of restaurant criticism in New York City.

I came to New York shortly after he did. He paints 1977 New York as a culinary wasteland. It wasn't, at all! Yes there were far fewer "ethnic" offerings -- but still more than perhaps any other American city.

The young lady who blogs and also reviewed restaurants for the Daily News for two years is spotlighted bleating about how she needn't be anonymous. How ridiculous! That's as ridiculous as the folks who extort free appetizers, drinks and dessert from restaurants by demonstrating their readership on sites like Yelp and Citysearch.

In order to be a restaurant critic, one must not only be a great writer. One must know one's ingredients, have a knowledge of cooking methods, have a knowledge of the cuisine (if it's a foreign cuisine), and last but most important, one must be very open-minded about new tastes and textures. A critic who writes for a paper local to me has completely lost my respect because not once, but many times he's completely misstated an important component in a dish. He called daikon radish potatoes; mistook star anise for cardamom, and whined about "canned mushrooms" in a dish made by a restaurateur friend of mine when both my friend and I know that the mushrooms he ate were fresh.

This is one of the best pieces of writing by Sietsema that I recall reading.

[jen kalb]

not his primary point, but I find it really weird that Sietsema refers to NY when he arrives 1977 as a food wasteland. I seem to recall some wonderful chinese (the great hunam in midtown, another place near the UN opened to feature fine PRC chefs, fine szechuan, some good peking and shanghai places), that fine Indonesian in Rock Center, an elegant Filipino place on 5th Ave, Brazil row, Cuban Chinese cooking all over the place, Korean, Japanese, several fine indian places, including south indian, thai cooking that hadnt yet been diluted by popularity, fine jewish bakeries (now all closed) - and plenty of elegant dining too. Great wines were available for rock bottom prices. All this without leaving Manhattan (but we know the Russians were cooking in Brighton Beach, the Columbians and Indians in Jackson Hts the Greeks in Astoria, etc). Italian restaurants in Little Italy were still serving their community instead of all tourists and some good Italian food was available there. Eating in NY was immensely pleasurable in those days. What there wasnt was all this self-counsciousness around it. One didnt one advance oneself in the eyes of society by enjoying a cuban sandwich. Im not so sure things are so much better now.

[buttertart]

Hear, hear - I didn't live here then, but I read a lot of writing on food in NY at the time, and the food scene in NY seemed much more sophisticated, varied, and exciting than even that of the Bay Area, where I was then living.

[jen kalb]

one thing Claiborne did (at least I assume that he did it) which Sietsema did not mention was bring an enormous range of exotic cuisines front and center in the food pages - I remember how exciting it was and how many new cooks and dishes were exposed there. Of course I was young then but the ethnic food scene was so exhilarating - far from what RS describes.
Its odd in a way - since he covers the type of the scene that was there, waiting to be written about - the expanded interest of educated young people in culinary matters and careers which has stoked our later food industry explosion was never his beat. Is he a snobbish slumming yuppie after all????

[buttertart]

One of the very first books to pique my developing interest in cooking was Claiborne's book on herbs and spices - I got it as a Bantam ppbk when I was a young teen. It has dishes from many cuisines in it. I also have or had collections of his columns, which among other things introduced so many of the cooks who went on to greatness in the food worls (Hazan, et al). He really did an amazing amount for the promulgation of world cuisines in the US and his contribution is not as well known as it should be anymore. Yuppie or not, RS lost me a long time ago, with his self-referential reviews and caprices/excercises in bad taste like the review of the North Korean place that was open in Ktown for a short while which he professed to enjoy.

[steve h.]

Robert is a gasbag.

[Melanie Wong]

My favorite local restaurant critic, Jonathan Kauffman of SF Weekly, newly returned to San Francisco from Seattle, weighs in about the article here.

"Why Do Restaurant Critics Think Criticism Is Dying?"
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/foodie/2010...

[steve h.]

Jonathan is both correct in his final assessment and incredibly kind in his intro. Robert, to me, is yet another lazy blogger with access to to a search engine.

[Steve]

"when it comes to cultural criticism there is a strong case to be made for professionalism and expertise"

Unfortunately, most restaurant reviewers are not very astute cultural critics.

I think they have a valuable place, I don't want my local media to get rid of them, and I enjoy reading their writing.

But you can learn much more about food culture from reading Chowhound.

As just one example, I have never read a professional restaurant review encouraging the reader to order off-menu at a Chinese (or other) restaurant.

Most professional restaurant reviews are written from a perspective of dilettantism and raw consumerism, leading to a pedestrian laundry list of menu items, blanket recommendations, and (gag) star ratings. Now there's cultural bankruptcy for you. I'll bet Roberert Sietsema learns more about food culture from reading Chowhound than he does from reading the reviews of other professional critics.

However, if you mostly care about questions like "where should I go out for my Anniversary next month?" or "how does that new Italian place stack up?" then I do agree that an astute critic as part of the mainstream media will be a far better source of information, opinion, and literate analysis than many a blogger/ wannabe restaurant reviewer.

[limster]

One point that has never been brought to the forefront as much as it should is that places vary. The same restaurant can vary in quality, the same dish may not taste the same every time, there may be good and bad dishes, and menus that change over time or with the seasons.

What this implies is that a small sample (tasting several dishes, perhaps a few times, over a few months) is not sufficient to obtain an accurate picture of the best stuff at a restaurant, of the consistency, or of the general quality of a place.

The solution is to get a much larger sample, over long periods of time (a kitchen that is bad at cooking morels in the spring might be great at using matsutake in the fall, who knows). As an individual, it's not feasible to have the same dish 50 times or to eat at the same restaurant 100s of times or to spend a whole year eating at a restaurant to get a picture of its seasonal variations.

But it's not hard for 100s of people to do so. Savvy, thoughtful, unbiased crowds working together and sharing information can continually generate real time data on a completely different scale, to provide information with depth and breath that cannot be matched by individuals.

If we want an accurate picture, we'll need more data than can be collected by one or a handful of individuals.

[greygarious]

Isn't that what the much-maligned Zagat ratings do?

[CindyJ]

I never really understood why the Zagat guides have as much credibility as they do. Have you ever filled out one of their surveys? It's hard for me to believe that the majority of folks who fill them out really take the time to consider each factor for each of the restaurants they're rating. And I've wondered how many raters are motivated to participate in the surveys primarily by the promise of a free Zagat guide.

I've never considered the Zagat data base to be comprised of "savvy, thoughtful, unbiased crowds..." I think the primary usefulness of the Zagat guides is in the indices in the back of the guide. If I'm looking for a restaurant in a particular neighborhood, or of a particular ethnicity, Zagat may be helpful. But once I find a restaurant that seems to be what I'm looking for, I turn to Chowhound to get the REAL scoop on that place.

[mcf]

I have filled out their surveys, but the comments are rarely shared. All I can say is I never use the Zagat guide to make decisions; to many bad experiences at a number of their top rated places.

[BobB]

To be fair though, before Chowhound caught on it was often the only resource available to a frequent traveler, especially outside the US. I've had Zagat steer me in years past to such chowish finds as a surprisingly decent Italian restaurant in an otherwise chain-outlet-ridden suburb of Cincinnati, a superb Thai place lurking behind an unprepossessing facade in an unfamiliar neighborhood of London, and one of the most memorable meals of my life within walking distance of my off-the-tourist-track hotel in Paris.

Nowadays I get this sort of info here, but Zagat had its day, and while I rarely pick it up any more and let my on-line subscription lapse a few years back, I still hold it in fond memory and cringe when I see the often vicious criticism it gets on this site.

[HillJ]

I wonder how many people fill out the Z. survey to receive a free book.

[BobB]

Quite a few, I imagine. But that doesn't mean they're going to lie or give no thought to their responses. You don't need to rate every restaurant in the survey area to get your free book, even rating just the few you've been to will do it.

And as my response above implies, I never used it to find "the best of" anything, but more as a guide when going into less heavily traveled areas, where you're less likely to get lots of the "yeah, me too!" type of ratings.

[HillJ]

No, I don't believe people would lie or give thoughtless response but any time any form of gift is offered, the motivation can (possibly) change.

I use the Z guide as an address book, never as a ratings guide. I wish it truly was an address book and that ratings were left blank for users to fill in and refer to.

[CindyJ]

Their rating system isn't even well-designed. It's close to impossible for me to determine how much dinner, 1 drink and tip would come to. Sometimes I'll have an appetizer, sometimes not. Sometimes I'll have dessert, sometimes not. Sometimes I'll have two appetizers and no entree. Often I go to BYOs, which are plentiful here in PA, so the cost of a drink is irrelevant, but a corkage fee, if there is one, needs to be factored in.

Zagat's usefulness has, IMHO, come and gone.

[PhilD]

I always think the flaw in that idea is the variation amongst the people who review. And that goes back to the gist of the OP. For me a reviewer needs to possess expertise. Whether that is deep subject matter expertise e.g. deep knowledge of Sichuan food or whether it is broad experience across a wide range of restaurants doesn't matter that much. I trust those to speak from a position of authority (based on knowledge not position).

To use an example, I will trust one review by Limster of a dim sum restaurant in London over 100's of other reviews from all sorts of sources. I know he knows his food and having followed his advice I know he is good on dim sum.

I don't see expertise as elitist. It simply shows a dedication to gaining knowledge, by reading, cooking, eating and/or travelling. OK people get stuck-up about it but when it comes down to it without a foundation to build criticism on it is simply meaningless comment.

Unfortunately aggregated scores tend to bring everything back to the average, the good reviewers input is neutralised by contradictory view of the less good. Thus I read the wise on Chowhound and ignore the masses on Zagat.

[HillJ]

I love irony. With countless online "comment sections" that follow every and I mean every article written today...what's the point of criticizing those who fill in the box? The toolbox has changed, opinion is commonplace and everyone (again) I mean everyone learns, steals, shares and shouts to each other faster than a one minute egg.

I often find the "comment" area more interesting than the articles. Perhaps the food blogsphere is giving career food critics a frustrating challenge. Every profession is experiencing a new world of messengers.

[mcf]

I think the fact that restaurant owners can no longer exercise any sway over the word that gets out is percolating up through the review industry, too. Relationships are often formed and reviewers are often much kinder to the restaurant operators they know and like. Consumers with no restaurant ties sharing honest appraisals can now make or break a place.

[HillJ]

Point taken and I would counter with word of mouth, pre blog, pre online arena was quite capable of sway; especially in food circles/tight neighborhoods. The ability to voice an opinion has always been. This article on serves to remind us all that CHANGE is here. Relationships are still earned.

[mcf]

That's all true, but with connectivity and social media, news travels a lot faster and wider. I can think of one famed and reviewer revered LI chef who is, I think, well liked and lauded by reviewers and who serves both wonderful and awful food at every meal, in our experience. I note that consumer reviews are much more mixed and often tepid as compared to professional reviews.

[HillJ]

That may very well be true and another good point.

News traveled pretty fast in print and by word of mouth when it was the only option. I completely agree w/you that connectivity reaches an audience faster and wider but this is the new tech world we all participate in. Chefs and food critics alike will find the good, bad and the ugly in this new (food) order. My appreciation comes from (one example, here) learning prior to traveling what restaurants and food destinations are out there. I take in not only a variety of opinions but hold those interesting remarks and experiences against my own personal view and wishlist. Overall, I find these reviews and their comment sections on balance and insightful.

[mcf]

Yes, and a shout out to CH for avoiding the food- while- traveling pitfalls that beset the badly or totally unmoderated Tripadvisor, rife with fake reviews by owners and attacks by them on negative reviewers. I actually asked TA to check out the moderation here to improve their operation, but I don't think they care to.
CH is, therefore, much more reliable.

[condiment]

It must be noted that consumer reviews are also more mixed and often tepid for unequivocally great and utterly loathsome restaurants too. Even, alas, on chowhound.

[Shane Greenwood]

The separation between the professionals and the amateurs seems pretty clear to me. You only have to consider the vehicle. Paid publications, like Village Voice, NYT, et al, pay and publish professional critics. Blogs and boards, like Chowhound and Yelp, give the amateurs and everyday eaters a place to share their thoughts. I don't think anyone would really confuse the two. And each serves a different purpose in the public discourse. Robert's argument that reviewing is an elite activity simply reveals how he wants to feel about himself.

[The Professor]

I agree...the line is pretty clear.
And I have learned long ago to take all reviews (both amateur and professional) with the proverbial grain of salt.

[dmd_kc]

I think his biggest real point is that reviewers who make their intentions known to the restaurants are violating probably the most important factor: that the critic is just any other diner as far as the restaurant knows. At least when the critic is anonymous, you know the kitchen wasn't going to great lengths to deliver a significantly above-average experience.

[HillJ]

Plenty of food bloggers, dining anonymously while intended to post a review on their experience, through personal blogs can claim that point.

[dmd_kc]

Absolutely -- the good bloggers do. But as he points out, some of those who were most influential earlier eschewed this requirement proudly. Huge problem.

[HillJ]

Huge problem? I respectfully disagree. Critics also have their critics. Where we elect to dine is influenced by all sorts of factors and the main issue I take away from the article highlighted here is turf and territory.

Further, there are professional chefs and food writers using blogging and welcoming new bloggers into the food genre. Funny, I believe the opportunity is to learn from one another. Takes confidence in ones own ability to do that.