The Waning Use of Restaurant Reviews

The plate is stunning, a brilliantly simple disk of white. Nestled in its center, a deftly cooked lobster tail sits defiantly atop a loose circle of fresh pea risotto, lush with butter and brilliant lobster stock and artfully dotted with truffle shavings. A thin bead of vibrant yellow saffron-thyme aioli arcs and swirls gracefully around the rim of the plate. The dinner rolls, soft and supple, ease the butter gently into every nook and cranny. The wait staff, adorned in elegant Armani tuxedos, are armed with such an intimate knowledge of the food and wine that it borders on a PhD. The review meanders along like an adjective filled stream of consciousness. We are drawn in, to say the least, feeling oddly like a Peeping Tom as the critic daringly savors dishes, bravely sampling complex, Rubik's Cube-like sauces and soups and sternly eyeing each and every possible nuance that you, gentle reader, could possible experience..... If only you were there, sporting a genetically identical set of taste buds, liking the same slow braised toenail of Tibetan ox, and savoring the same rose colored swill that some wineries pass off as French oak aged cabernet, stomped lovingly at the vineyard by 6 toed virgins from high up in the Swiss Alps....

At another table, seated only a few feet away, you and I may have ordered the same dish and received, in our humble opinion, a broiled lobster tail, a rich, buttery rice with oddly flavored mushroom shavings and a tangy sauce that was splashed across the plate, looking faintly like someone with a tremor may have been in control of a paint gun. The first description, beautifully written, is a slice of food writing laid on paper by, in most instances, someone who is as elementally qualified as Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Public to talk food, standard critic gibberish heaped daily like white rice at a Chinese buffet upon those who are more than happy to eat by proxy, letting someone else's taste buds do the tasting. Who knows, maybe a new industry will blossom. We may soon see an army of food tasters, taking restaurant reviewing and eating to a new level, not looking for poison in a king's banquet but doling out opinions to those who long for the experience but lack the time, money or imagination. . "Leave the tasting to us!" may be flashing by you on a city bus in the near future.

From a young age, we are taught to hear and consider other's opinions. We take in their thoughts and critiques, blend them with our own and render a new, and often daily, improved version of ourselves. As we mature, those opinions and thoughts from others become the laughable haircuts we find gracing our scalps in high school, those distinctive tattoos of beer logos that adorn our shoulders in college, and the "festively" pink colored, and barely street legal, sports cars we buy during a mid life crisis. When an appreciation of food reared up in our twenties, when hellishly hot wings and well done burgers were de rigueur, suddenly that doddering old fart spouting about vibrant consommé's and supple duck confit in the local paper became a cheap way to find suitable places to take that new date and impress her/him with an intimate knowledge of a place's cuisine and it's winners and losers. How better to impress a date than with a casually offered "The foie gras, seared in oil of endangered 3 eyed Vietnamese lemur, is stunning." And you didn't even have to spend a dime to get that little morsel of brilliance. Your local food critic braved that one first, just for you. Opinion and knowledge for sale, buried behind "Starlet pregnant with aliens baby" or "Local wine merchant sees John Lennon's profile in spilled bottle of merlot!" in the daily paper.

When did we give up our desire to taste? When did we kneel at the altar of critics, proffer up our sense of taste and wait, like panting puppies, for a judgment to be rendered by someone else's mouth? And damn it, why? Was a critic gifted by some higher power with super taste buds? Is their take on medium rare deigned by a food deity we have yet to discover in some ancient Egyptian pyramid? Is their sense of salmon, coupled with an innate ability to tell what ocean swell was last felt by the fillet, any better than mine or yours? I don't think so. A car review is helpful to me. I want to know if the main tire has a strange propensity to fly off taking turns at 50 mph, or of the brake pads are made out of recycled kitty litter and last only until it is driven off the lot, uncovered by any form of warranty. Too bad, so sad, good luck driving home!

A steak, possibly cooked a minute too long, becomes "cheap shoe leather", causing a critic to dwell upon the horrific waste perpetrated on some poor, unsuspecting bovine. Fish, perhaps cooked to a warm rare when cool rare was anticipated, becomes the bastard child of a fouled sea, something that should have sunk with the very nets it gave its life up in, and sent down to mighty Poseidon with a staunchly raised middle finger to choke on, but in no case ever set upon a plate in front of the omnipotent critic. Vegetables, something simple like a baby carrot or green pea, become reviled in the hands of the cook who coaches them past "al dente", no longer an accompaniment to the entrée but a repulsive suitor, clamoring for a place in the courtyard of food but shunned by all present. But a risotto, gently nudged to just beyond a firm al dente and crafted with intense flavors and elite ingredients, becomes something that should be served atop a Picasso or Rembrandt painting, a creation paralleling the brilliance of the masters, such a labor of perfection that merely eating and digesting it becomes a transcendental experience. That aforementioned steak, if only taken off two minutes earlier, would have done nothing short of elevating that 8 oz of prime beef to a stature known only to minor deities and the Hollywood elite. These are the viciously capricious whims that the critics defer to when putting pen to paper and taking the chances in the food world for you.

A restaurant can be made or broken by someone's viewpoint. Livelihoods and careers hinge on the benevolence of the critic's words and opinions. Control of a restaurants future is offered up to the whim of someone else's taste buds, someone else's version of a medium rare steak or al dente pasta, someone else's likes and dislikes. Some owners nibble their finger nails to the very bone the first few weeks of opening, dreading the arrival of a critic, others drink heavily, adapting an alcoholically enhanced "what will be, will be" attitude. Calls are frantically, yet discreetly, placed to friendly competitors to find out who is current reviewing in what paper, what aliases they book tables under, what disguises keep them under cover and what they have liked and disliked in the past few months. The Cold War and it's tales of intrigue and deception seem like a mere child's game of dress up compared to the covert world of food critics and their followers.

In the 70's, 80's and early 90's, the New York Times employed a series of restaurant critics who staunchly defended French cuisine in New York City by ensuring that the name brand restaurants, such as Le Cirque, Lutece and Aureole were consistently given glowing reviews. No wrong could be perpetrated on fish there as long as a French sauce or name was splashed across the dish. All was right with the world. But in 1993, Ruth Reichl came along and actually began reviewing restaurants the lacked French names and the ubiquitous braised right leg of Marseille frog. She established 5 or 6 personas and costumes to go along with them, and off she went, unknown to the restaurant elite. No longer were restaurant owners able to spot her and elevate her dining experience to one that the "common" diner would never experience. With her new approach came heat from the Old Guard of the NY Times reviewers, Bryan Miller in particular, who saw her as bucking a system they had set up to ensure that the lofty status of the French restaurants they loved so much would never fall. But at the end of the day, even with her "avant-garde" approach to eating an relatively unknown places, Ms. Reichl was still tasting New Yorkers food for them, though not as many dishes with odd French names as in years prior. And like every person on the planet, she had her own set of peccadilloes and tastes. She later left to become the Editor in Chief at Gourmet Magazine.

But, maybe, just maybe, there is a glimmer of hope. The current trends seem to point to a tightening of the belt in America, with "lavish" spending on items like, well, dinner out, waning. The critics, while still bravely going to restaurants and tasting food for you, may be having a smaller impact on what their readers do and eat. The thought of someone renting you their opinion when dinner out is becoming a treat is akin to someone telling you what Santa Clause has under the tree for you. The pleasure of opening the present yourself makes it all the worthwhile. The enjoyment of eating at a new place, tasting someone's interpretation of an Italian classic or a cutting edge fusion dish is such an intimately subjective experience that, whether spending a weeks wages or a few dollars, it needs to be done in the first person, not by proxy. A diner shouldn't want hints and opinions to tarnish their experience. It is your wallet that is being parted open and it is your tongue that should do the tasting. I'll take the heads up on the crappy line of cars from a reviewer, but I'll taste my own steak, thank you. Check, please!