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Criticism, Integrity, and the Value of Anonymity

Written By: David Snyder on Friday, September 14, 2007

The Delicate Dance between the Restaurant and the Critic

Everyone has at least one pet peeve about restaurant service. You know, that one thing that absolutely drives you nuts if a restaurant screws it up. For some people, their pet peeve is when the steak they ordered is overcooked. For others, they hate it when the sangria is not potent enough, or when their coffee cup doesn’t get filled enough times before the check arrives.

In the world of restaurant critics, the one universal pet peeve is, perhaps, a bit surprising: When a restaurant tries to comp the food or drinks. 

I know this first hand, as I review restaurants for a number of publications. And unlike some critics, I have the luxury of complete anonymity when I first walk in the door. The first couple of times I visit a restaurant, no one knows who I am. To the restaurant, I’m just your average Joe off the street. The beauty of this anonymity is that I can gauge the restaurant like a regular consumer—the service, the portion size, etc. I get no special treatment, which is key to assessing a restaurant accurately. 

But no critic’s anonymity lasts forever. For me, it usually runs out by the third or fourth visit, because that’s when I pull out my camera and start to photograph the food. But by that point it doesn’t affect the review; by then, I’ve already arrived at my most important conclusions, especially the ones about the things a restaurant could conceivably try to dress up for a VIP, such as the previously mentioned level of service and portion size.

Although anonymity is an important factor in this line of work, a critic can still review a restaurant effectively without it. Merely knowing that a customer may be a critic doesn’t give the restaurant the ability to change how the food tastes or how the restaurant operates. To borrow a phrase: "If you put a dress on a pig, it’s still a pig." And restaurant critics can smell bacon a mile away. 

But sometimes a restaurant will try to do something completely stupid and obvious that crosses the line—they’ll try to give the critic free food and drinks. 

I’ve been lucky so far in that no restaurant has tried to give me free items while I’m on assignment. If they did, I would slam them for it in the review. There have, however, been a couple of occasions where, after I’ve written a review, a restaurant has tried to give me a free glass of wine. And each time I made sure I paid for the drink.

For example, I was at one of my regular haunts a few weeks ago when a photo shoot for another critic’s upcoming review was taking place. The owner sent me the glass of rosé that was used in one of the shots, complements of the house. I was livid. I called the bartender over and insisted that he add the rosé to the bill. After a few minutes of discussion, he finally relented. And I paid full fare for the wine, just like everybody else would have.

Some restaurants just don’t get it. They think they’re being nice by comping critics, but critics see it as an insult. Even if it’s not intended as a bribe, it creates a conflict of interest that hurts both the critic and the restaurant: The critic’s integrity will be compromised, and every kind thing that was ever written about that restaurant, by any reviewer, could be called into question. 

If a restaurant wants to make critics happy, they should treat them the same way they do all their guests. A good critic, after all, will simply be able to look around his or her table and see the disparity. The quality of service should be the same for all guests. The portion size should remain constant. And a critic should never be offered freebies; an honest one will end up covering the cost anyway, no matter how insistent the restaurant is. And when he writes his review, he’ll likely make the restaurant pay for its faux pas. And believe me, that’s not a price worth paying.

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