Food critic outed and ousted from restaurant

From today's Tribune, a truly odd story.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-m ... 2220.story

I don't deny his right to deny service but the manner in which this transpired seems bizarre. If I waited 40 minutes, with a reservation, only to be denied service I'd be pretty ticked off - reviewer or not. I would think the people that they would want to be turning away are those faux reviewers that trade upon their alleged celebrity and clout to make outrageous demands on the restaurants, not those that actually try to maintain their anonymity - whether or not they like the content of their reviews.

And it seems the 40 minute wait was so that the photographer could line up a good "angle."

Good reviewers try to maintain objectivity and not "make it personal," but I'm sure it's hard for a chef to feel that criticisms of his or her art are not, indeed, very personal.

Refusing service would have arguably been an effective way for the operators to take "the right action" for themselves. Posting the picture of the critic was simply and intentionally vindictive, regardless of how one values the anonymity of reviewers.

=R=

If they ID'd her, her anonymity was already compromised. The restaurant just leveled the playing field... now every restaurant can kick her out or shower her with extra attention at their discretion, instead of just those who happen to figure it out.

She clearly wasn't anonymous. Now her readers know that.

I'm not taking sides, merely noting the strangeness of the situation. If she was so well known - why would it take 40 minutes to confirm her identity? Baby photographers deal with considerably more difficult subjects yet get their photos taken in MUCH less time. It seems more as if a call was put out, NCIS style, to verify if a (potential) patron was (potentially) a critic - one they didn't care for. Once said verification was made (again, allegedly) they felt it important to "out" her.

I don't know the critic or the restaurant - I just find the whole thing quite strange.

And if they hadn't outed her and kicked her out, and instead seated her ahead of other guests who'd been waiting longer, given her better service in general, and paid more attention to her food, maybe they'd have gotten an unfairly positive review. And her readers wouldn't know that she'd been identified and given special treatment.

Look, if this restaurant could identify her, other restaurants had already identified her, too. As a food media consumer, I want to know if my "anonymous" dining critics are truly anonymous to the restaurants they review. Do we honestly think Phil Vettel's face is a mystery to Chicago restaurants? Why continue the charade?

gleam wrote:And if they hadn't outed her and kicked her out, and instead seated her ahead of other guests who'd been waiting longer, given her better service in general, and paid more attention to her food, maybe they'd have gotten an unfairly positive review. And her readers wouldn't know that she'd been identified and given special treatment.

Look, if this restaurant could identify her, other restaurants had already identified her, too. As a food media consumer, I want to know if my "anonymous" dining critics are truly anonymous to the restaurants they review. Do we honestly think Phil Vettel's face is a mystery to Chicago restaurants? Why continue the charade?

Yeah, I don't care that they outed her. I just think they weren't being entirely forthright in their comments about what their real motivation for doing so was.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:

gleam wrote:And if they hadn't outed her and kicked her out, and instead seated her ahead of other guests who'd been waiting longer, given her better service in general, and paid more attention to her food, maybe they'd have gotten an unfairly positive review. And her readers wouldn't know that she'd been identified and given special treatment.

Look, if this restaurant could identify her, other restaurants had already identified her, too. As a food media consumer, I want to know if my "anonymous" dining critics are truly anonymous to the restaurants they review. Do we honestly think Phil Vettel's face is a mystery to Chicago restaurants? Why continue the charade?

Yeah, I don't care that they outed her. I just think they weren't being entirely forthright in their comments about what their real motivation for doing so was.

=R=

Oh, that's quite likely. But I think they did a bigger service to LA's diners by outing her than her review of yet another likely-mediocre restaurant would do.

gleam wrote:And if they hadn't outed her and kicked her out, and instead seated her ahead of other guests who'd been waiting longer, given her better service in general, and paid more attention to her food, maybe they'd have gotten an unfairly positive review. And her readers wouldn't know that she'd been identified and given special treatment.

I'm not in the least suggesting that. I'm only suggesting that perhaps they should have either:
A) immediately let her know they were aware of her identity
B) treated her like any other customer

the way they ended up going about it is, imo, bonkers

Kman wrote:

gleam wrote:And if they hadn't outed her and kicked her out, and instead seated her ahead of other guests who'd been waiting longer, given her better service in general, and paid more attention to her food, maybe they'd have gotten an unfairly positive review. And her readers wouldn't know that she'd been identified and given special treatment.

I'm not in the least suggesting that. I'm only suggesting that perhaps they should have either:
A) immediately let her know they were aware of her identity
B) treated her like any other customer

the way they ended up going about it is, imo, bonkers

If they'd done A, she probably would have walked out and not reviewed them and they wouldn't get the free publicity they got for outing her.

If they'd done B, well, then her readers still wouldn't know she wasn't really anonymous.

If you're the restaurant, you've ID'd her, and you want the best possible outcome, I think the options really are:

A) Take her picture and have the story go viral, with your restaurant getting lots of free press
B) Treat her like a queen and hope you get a good review.

I really should go read some of this woman's reviews. Because, to be honest, I read that article and my first thought was, what a total brat. It just comes across like a tantrum to me, and makes me never want to eat at any of his restaurants (Of course, I have no plans to be in LA anytime in the near future, so he has no reason to care about my reaction). I'm just wondering if her reviews are insanely harsh or unreasonable.

sweetsalty wrote:I really should go read some of this woman's reviews. Because, to be honest, I read that article and my first thought was, what a total brat. It just comes across like a tantrum to me, and makes me never want to eat at any of his restaurants (Of course, I have no plans to be in LA anytime in the near future, so he has no reason to care about my reaction). I'm just wondering if her reviews are insanely harsh or unreasonable.

As someone who has read quite a number of her reviews (albeit not terribly recently), my take is that she is pretty fair-minded. She is tough, probably a little too tough, but I don't recall ever reading a single review where my reaction was "insanely harsh or unreasonable." I've said "ouch" to myself more than a few times, but I've always found her both readable, extremely knowledgeable, and demanding. (You can find a link to all of her reviews for 2009 and 2010, together with a brief precis, here. By my count, she gave 2.5 stars or fewer, out of 4 possible, to 37 restaurants in 2010 and 3 stars or more to 10 places.)

gleam wrote:what a total brat

Couldn't agree more. Does he go to yelper's homes and accost them for getting details wrong? Petulant/childish/humorous. Love that Mina sold him out 100% http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/23/local/la-me-critic-20101223

I'm wondering why she hasn't published something. I think she has a real opportunity to make light of the situation...she is a symbol of the old-school that was literally attacked by the new, and I would love her to come out smart and triumphant. Right now it's just everyone else capitalizing on her story.

Phil Vettel, critic

Last night, food critic Phil Vettel showed up on our back porch hoping to get a meal. We don't care for him or his reviews, and it's clear to us that he has no understanding of what it takes to run or work in a suburban kitchen. While devouring anything he can get, some of his hissing reviews and general unfriendliness can be unnecessarily cruel and irrational. We asked him and his party to leave immediately, and will not be serving them again. Hopefully his image will serve other chefs so that they can make their own decisions about whether to welcome this type of commentator into their places.

And Vettel retaliates with a two-and-a-half-star review!!!

gleam wrote:If you're the restaurant, you've ID'd her, and you want the best possible outcome, I think the options really are:

A) Take her picture and have the story go viral, with your restaurant getting lots of free press
B) Treat her like a queen and hope you get a good review.

If you're the restaurant and in addition not a slimeball, there's at least one other option:

C) Treat her like a normal customer, let her write her review, and hope for the best.

cilantro wrote:

gleam wrote:If you're the restaurant, you've ID'd her, and you want the best possible outcome, I think the options really are:

A) Take her picture and have the story go viral, with your restaurant getting lots of free press
B) Treat her like a queen and hope you get a good review.

If you're the restaurant and in addition not a slimeball, there's at least one other option:

C) Treat her like a normal customer, let her write her review, and hope for the best.

Right, but then you're a bad businessman

Santander wrote:
Phil Vettel, critic

Last night, food critic Phil Vettel showed up on our back porch hoping to get a meal. We don't care for him or his reviews, and it's clear to us that he has no understanding of what it takes to run or work in a suburban kitchen. While devouring anything he can get, some of his hissing reviews and general unfriendliness can be unnecessarily cruel and irrational. We asked him and his party to leave immediately, and will not be serving them again. Hopefully his image will serve other chefs so that they can make their own decisions about whether to welcome this type of commentator into their places.

You had me totally fooled until I noticed that there wasn't any snow!

gleam wrote:

cilantro wrote:

gleam wrote:If you're the restaurant, you've ID'd her, and you want the best possible outcome, I think the options really are:

A) Take her picture and have the story go viral, with your restaurant getting lots of free press
B) Treat her like a queen and hope you get a good review.

If you're the restaurant and in addition not a slimeball, there's at least one other option:

C) Treat her like a normal customer, let her write her review, and hope for the best.

Right, but then you're a bad businessman

So to be a good businessman you need to recognize when you have an inferior product and to solve it by kicking out a tough critic in embarassing fashion and then commit an immature petulant act of revenge.

Choice D. Be a mensch.

I think there are a million better ways for the restaurant to have dealt with the situation.

For starters they just should have sat her and her party and treated them like any other party. If they have issues with past reviews she's written just go over and say so at the end of the meal in a concise and coherent manner, then just say you hope she had a great time and wish her a good evening. If the owners have the need to vent their spleens about her they should just do it via the restaurant blog or Twitter.

I'm not sure that anonymity is really that important. I think it's a good practice for reviewers to try and stay anonymous, but there are very few reviewers who are 100% anonymous. Reviewers should use a pseudonym when making a reservation and make sure to order some dishes that have required significant earlier prep (to make sure they are trying some dishes that haven't been crafted just for them). In the end a bad restaurant can't just pull it all together for one customer - a kitchen either works or it doesn't.

You know, that brings up an interesting point. I feel like this whole anonymity thing is waaay overblown, things have changed significantly from when Ruth Reichl wrote her famous dual review of Le Cirque (OMG, this happened after I graduated from college. I'm old. Officially.) She represented a group of people who didn't have a voice at the time. Well, for better or worse, we've got a voice now - so I'm not sure the cloak-and-dagger stuff is necessary anymore. Restaurant critics are about more than outing the bad experiences of the huddled masses; instead of watchdogs, they are more like art or theater critics, offering a broader context for the food they review.

However, I think if a critic makes a reservation at a place using the same name they use in their reviews, or otherwise deliberately name-drops to the restaurant staff before paying the bill, it's hard for the restaurant to take that as anything but a request for special treatment - and that is taking unfair advantage of their position. Other than that, I think a critic has no more responsibility to hide their identity than anyone else - After all, don't restaurant critics go to restaurants just to get some calories in, on occasion? I think the days of wigs and dark glasses are behind us.

I don't know what I think of this situation, but certainly it was not an exercise in civility on the part of anyone involved. I can see where restaurateurs may feel ambushed by the secret-dining-critic, though this seems like an odd and unnecessarily unpleasant way to handle it. I find the response of "now it's going to be harder to do my job" to be even odder - after all, she's a food writer, not the health inspector.

Mhays wrote:However, I think if a critic makes a reservation at a place using the same name they use in their reviews, or otherwise deliberately name-drops to the restaurant staff before paying the bill, it's hard for the restaurant to take that as anything but a request for special treatment - and that is taking unfair advantage of their position. Other than that, I think a critic has no more responsibility to hide their identity than anyone else - After all, don't restaurant critics go to restaurants just to get some calories in, on occasion? I think the days of wigs and dark glasses are behind us.

I don't know what I think of this situation, but certainly it was not an exercise in civility on the part of anyone involved. I can see where restaurateurs may feel ambushed by the secret-dining-critic, though this seems like an odd and unnecessarily unpleasant way to handle it. I find the response of "now it's going to be harder to do my job" to be even odder - after all, she's a food writer, not the health inspector.

She did not identify herself. She made her reservation under a different name. She wasn't looking for special treatment, she just wanted dinner. And the reason she said it's going to be harder to do her job is because she can't give honest reviews as an anonymous critic because she'll never know from now on whether she's getting special treatment. Don't you think that reviews from known critics who enter a restaurant with their entourage are suspect and that you as an ordinary customer are not going to get the same treatment? Why would you question this?

I was not discussing this particular case when I pointed out that there is one legitimate concern: if a critic deliberately drops his or her pen name (or brings their entourage, or otherwise makes an obvious display of being a restaurant critic) they are, by implication, blackmailing the restaurant to get a better experience. That is not OK.

In any other case, I don't think the critic's anonymity has any bearing on the accuracy of their reviews. A truly bad restaurant won't be able to fake a good experience, and a good restaurant doesn't need to - and if the critic didn't do their homework properly, the internet will show that they were fooled. If restaurants aren't treating "ordinary customers" well, they won't be in business for long - because "ordinary customers" don't look to critics exclusively - they also read Yelp and LTH and Twitter and Facebook. There is no longer an incentive for restaurants to give critics "special treatment," unless they plan to offer it to everyone mentions them as well. (I suppose there is no accounting for stupidity or bad business strategies.)

Mhays wrote:I was not discussing this particular case when I pointed out that there is one legitimate concern: if a critic deliberately drops his or her pen name (or brings their entourage, or otherwise makes an obvious display of being a restaurant critic) they are, by implication, blackmailing the restaurant to get a better experience. That is not OK.

But - unless I've totally missed the boat on how this all went down, none of what you say here applies. The critic was trying to retain their anonymity but was recognized and outed by the restaurant. You have valid points about those that abuse their "critic" status but would they not be better made in a thread dedicated to that topic?

imsscott wrote:She did not identify herself. She made her reservation under a different name.

I wonder what would have happened if the restaurant asked for an ID, to be sure the critic was actually the one who made the reservation. I've heard of cases where people were waiting at a bar, and the staff called out that xxx's table is ready, and three or four parties get up to claim the table.

Kman wrote:But - unless I've totally missed the boat on how this all went down, none of what you say here applies. The critic was trying to retain their anonymity but was recognized and outed by the restaurant. You have valid points about those that abuse their "critic" status but would they not be better made in a thread dedicated to that topic?

I was responding to the critic's statement about anonymity being critical to doing her job - as the world is now, the only case I can make for a critic's anonymity is the above, which didn't happen here. Her job is safe - unless, of course, she isn't a very good critic.

Mhays wrote:

Kman wrote:But - unless I've totally missed the boat on how this all went down, none of what you say here applies. The critic was trying to retain their anonymity but was recognized and outed by the restaurant. You have valid points about those that abuse their "critic" status but would they not be better made in a thread dedicated to that topic?

I was responding to the critic's statement about anonymity being critical to doing her job - as the world is now, the only case I can make for a critic's anonymity is the above, which didn't happen here. Her job is safe - unless, of course, she isn't a very good critic.

M - while I agree with you from a theoretical sense, from a practical sense it is still true that most major publications in major cities will not hire a critic whom they believe can't work anonymously. So being outed might indeed have a critical impact on her career.

I suppose that is a reasonable concern (though it shows that the publications aren't thinking things through, either.)

Mhays wrote:I suppose that is a reasonable concern (though it shows that the publications aren't thinking things through, either.)

I think you are being a little too dismissive of anonymity. For many people who read LTH Forum and know how to access the wealth of opinions on this and other sites, the opinions of many newspaper and magazine writers carry little to no weight. But there are certainly far more people who get their recommendations from their local newspaper. A good or bad review in the Tribune, Reader, Check Please!, etc. can be quite influential. Put simply, all else equal, it is better to have a good review in the local paper.

It is also clear that many restaurants can give a higher level experience to select diners, including well-known food writers. There's nothing wrong with this, per se. There are plenty of examples on this forum of chefs bringing out special dishes for patrons that they know. We have a good culture of making these ties known. But that model doesn't translate to a food critic for a major newspaper. Some people might appreciate it if every Tribune review was a Plotnicki-style review that included all of the great things one could have if they forgo the actual menu and just have the chef prepare special dishes. But that's not what most people want and I presume it isn't the kind of critic that most food writers want to be. They want to write about the normal experience someone is likely to have. Anonymity isn't the only way to ensure this, but it certainly a valid way.

You say that media outlets aren't thinking things through. How would you propose they do it instead and how do you think restaurant reviews would be different from the way they are now?

Darren72 wrote:Anonymity isn't the only way to ensure this, but it certainly a valid way.

You say that media outlets aren't thinking things through. How would you propose they do it instead and how do you think restaurant reviews would be different from the way they are now?

Except that the anonymity they have now (in Chicago, in New York, etc) is a sham. You don't think Graham Elliot has a wall of photos of critics in the back of the house? Anonymity in practice results in two classes of restaurants: those whose can ID the major critics on sight and those who can't.

Say two identical restaurants open around the same time. Restaurant A doesn't recognize the critic when they arrive and treats them like any other diner. The critic gives them a 2.5* review. B's GM recognizes the critic and the staff becomes more attentive and the chef/expediter spends much more time paying attention to that table's plates as they roll out. The critic gives them a 3* review. The reader thinks B is better than A because they assume the critic's anonymity isn't a joke. Sucks to be the reader.

Maybe Michelin's system is a bit better. Have a dozen hopefully anonymous diners in town, have a few of them visit the restaurant once or twice and then come to a consensus. Keep them on staff for a couple years and then rotate in new people. Publish all the reviews under one pseudonym -- "Bill Patel", say. Maybe even have one staff writer handle writing the actual review.

Means we don't have a Phil Vettel or a Pat Bruno staying on the scene for 20 years, pretending to be anonymous when, honestly, they know they aren't and their editors know they aren't and the restaurants know they aren't. A pool of a dozen diners could also review more restaurants, re-review restaurants more frequently (instead of after 10+ years in the case of Blackbird) and in general be much more useful.. like a curated Yelp.

Just one man's thoughts.