Eyes Without a Face

Anonymity under fire

By Warren Rojas

“No critic that restaurants care about is really anonymous,” Jonathan Gold, the Pulitzer Prize-winning restaurant critic, decrees when pressed about the painfully obvious pantomime many dining scribes and hospitality professionals are obliged to engage in on a nightly basis.

Or are they?

In an era where traditional dining columns are now routinely swept up in the white noise of off-the-cuff, grand-opening tweets, passive-aggressive blog posts and cutesy, man-on-the-street vimeo reports, some industry professionals—including world-renowned food writers—are openly questioning whether anonymous reviewing has outlived its usefulness.

Regardless of the final analysis, retired restaurant critic Phyllis Richman, who graded hundreds of eateries during her 23-year career at the Washington Post, sees room for improvement across the board.

“We’re reviewing something that changes every day with every meal. The whole thing … is an imperfect system,” she counsels—particularly since, in the minds of many Internet-agers, casually skewering restaurants is more sport than discipline.

“When anyone can have a public forum, the restaurants have to deal with people … who aren’t really valid judges,” Richman says of the Wild West that is food blogging.

Local chef Dennis Marron (The Grille at Morrison House, Jackson 20) remains philosophical about always performing with prying eyes about, suggesting, “If anonymous critiquing allows for accurate reporting, then of course there’s value.”

Who’s Zoomin’ Who?

Restaurateur Cathal Armstrong (Restaurant Eve/The Majestic/PX/Eamonn’s) claims to have no illusions about what’s going down in his dining rooms on any given night.

“Everybody is now a restaurant critic,” the award-winning toque says of the impact the web has had on the once semi-private customer feedback loop.

Factor in the revolving door of professional reviewers who’ve recently “discovered” the D.C.-Metro dining scene—“We now have critics from New York and national publications coming in, so we have to be at our best all the time,” Armstrong says of the burgeoning scrutiny his budding gastroempire now faces—and you’ve got a recipe for confidence-rattling paranoia punctuated by periodic bursts of “Hell’s Kitchen”-style meltdowns.

Which is why Armstrong says he decided long ago that baiting critics with faux fabulousity would not be part of his business model.

“You will get caught serving a false product,” he says, estimating that even a minor misrepresentation could come back to bite you in the ass.

Restaurateur Geoff Tracy (Chef Geoff’s/CG Tysons/CG Downtown/Lia’s) shares Armstrong’s disdain for disingenuous service.

“In our restaurants we don’t [play] … let’s try to find the food critic,” he states.

Not that he’d reject a dossier on local food spies—should one ever fall into his hands.

“No one’s ever handed me a photo of any of these people,” he says.

Although he’s certainly heard rumors of detailed critics’ galleries adorning competitors’ kitchens, Tracy swears that even after over a decade in the hospitality business he still has only second-hand knowledge of who to look out for. His through-the-grapevine description of the Washington Post’s curent restaurant scout, Tom Sietsema—“Tall guy, crew cut, Scandanavian. Sounds like a James Bond villain to me,” was the best Tracy could muster—would undoubtedly draw blank stares from even veteran police sketch artists.

Eventide general manager Dave Pressley claims he’s got a few critics’ faces committed to memory.

Short of spotting them on their way in—“I might not even walk by them [a critic] until they’re eating appetizers or entrees,” he says of his often-harried existence—Pressley insists that playing to an audience of one would be a logistical impossibility anyway.

“If the focus is to do your best at all times, you’ll be fine,” he said of his stay-the-course mentality, estimating that “if your sauces aren’t seasoned correctly, your proteins aren’t cooked correctly, your prep work is slapdash, your wines are incorrectly stored and your service is shoddy, they’ll [critics] spot it either way.”

“Critiquing restaurants is part of your job. Making people happy is part of ours. Let’s just both do our jobs, you know?” he suggested.

Pressley’s pragmatism sounds like a much better system than the tragicomic espionage Richman encountered years ago at D.C.’s now-defunct Vincenzo.

Richman says she and then-Washington Post managing editor Howard Simons stepped out for a bite at the restaurant only to be met at the door by the owner. Having worked at the Post many years before, the gentleman enthusiastically greeted Simons (whom he knew) and Richman (whom he didn’t), and hurriedly ushered them towards a semi-private table in the back.

As the meal progressed, Richman noticed a rising tide of visiting food reviewers and local critics rolling into the main dining room. “The place was probably one-third full of food people,” she says of the hired mouth convention that had serendipitously formed.

When the cocksure waiter returned, he made a big production about catering to all the attending food scouts, rattling off the names of Richman’s competitors and colleagues. When Richman coyly asked how certain he was about having everyone nailed, the clueless server replied, “Lady, I’ve been in this business a long time. I know all of ’em,” and stepped back into the fray, leaving Richman to bask in all her incognito glory as Simons looked on.

Although Sietsema admits sticking around any one area naturally contributes to word getting around—“You can’t work in this town, or anywhere else for that matter, for very long and not have restaurant people know who you are,” he states—the journeyman eater muses that restaurants actively engaged in name/phone number/email tracking could be grievously disappointed come check-in time.

“A gal pal of mine returned to a José Andrés restaurant with her husband and told me the staff there was less than pleased not to see the food critic in her party, too,” Sietsema shares.

Still, Gold believes the days of cloak-and-dagger dining are numbered.

“With iPhones and Facebook and blogs and Twitpix, we are all less anonymous than ever,” Gold maintains, noting that while he continues to play the game (actively employs aliases, pays cash/with pseudonymous credit cards, shuns media events/press dinners) the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against us.

Unless, of course, you bow out of the service-spy dance entirely.

“Our goal is not to sneak around, wear a disguise or play games to avoid notice,” Michelin North America public relations manager Tonya Polydoroff says of the marching orders given to their corps of famously clandestine inspectors. Discretion is paramount (see Michelin Myths sidebar).

But meticulously documenting the reality of every dining situation, over time (usually a year or so), takes precedence over surreal evasion tactics.

“A Michelin inspector has experiences very much like an average consumer—just many, many more of them,” Polydoroff says, stressing that “we regularly have the worst table in the house, wait half an hour for an appetizer … and find foreign objects in our food.”

Then there are those who get the VIP treatment—whether they like it or not.

Nobody’s Fool

“For the first five or 10 years, it was easy to be anonymous, because nobody paid attention to women in that job,” Richman says of the natural camouflage her sex bestowed early on in her career.

Given her slow march to full-blown hospitality magnet—“It’s never cut and dried. I was gradually recognized”—Richman says she became adept at sensing when her cover had been blown.

“Staff from other parts of the room would sidle up to get a glimpse,” she says of the service stampede a spotting would often incite. Other telltale signs staff switched to panic mode: bread baskets were hastily swapped out for oven-fresh loaves, servers downplayed less-desirable dishes (claiming they were out of stuff she could plainly see on surrounding tables), extra large portions suddenly became the norm, or elaborate garnishes graced every order.

“You generally figure out what’s going on,” she notes.

Tim Carman, who, by virtue of his restaurant critiquing, food writing and blogging at the Washington City Paper, often cannot avoid direct contact with hospitality insiders, says the pandering can get downright preposterous.

“I was at Dino recently, and our waiter was practically insisting that I order certain dishes. When I tried to order something else instead, he questioned my choices and suggested I’d really like these other dishes more. I found out later, from Dean Gold, that he had told the waiter to push those items on us,” he relates.

Carman figures he’s gone through similar “dining charades” at plenty of well-known locales (Four Sisters, Sea Pearl, Rasika, Equinox, PS 7’s). And while he can’t control any overzealous reactions to his presence, Carman swears he’s wise enough to separate the PR glamour (exorbitant wine pours; protracted waits between courses to give the kitchen bonus fine-tuning time) from the nitty-gritty of a well-honed dining operation.

“Don’t let anything influence your opinion other than what crosses your palate,” he argues. “You’re not dining to make restaurants popular. You’re dining to serve your readers.”

And don’t get him started on the question of comped meals.

“I cannot write a single sentence about food that I haven’t paid for,” Carman says of the No. 1 taboo in the industry.

“Chefs/owners always want critics to understand their jobs and businesses better, but sometimes they don’t seem to understand ours … which I blame, in part, on some of the new media food writers, who will shamelessly take free food and write about it without blinking an eye,” he grouses.

Gael Greene, former New York Magazine food reviewer-cum-tell-all author, admits to being done with the fits of fawning that her once-well-hidden face now often elicits.

“Recently, I have felt attacked when first the waiter, then the captain, then the manager and maybe the owner all stop by to ask: ‘Is everything to your liking?’ ‘Are you loving it?’ ‘Is everything all right so far?’” she says.

Greene much prefers when restaurants keeps the craziness contained to the back of the house.

She recalls how once, while enjoying a meal at David Keh’s Uncle Tai restaurant in New York, “I saw three men walk in wearing long black coats over chef’s white, marching into the kitchen. He [Keh] had called another of his restaurants, David K, up the block for reinforcements.”

Sietsema knows from surprise cheflebrity appearances.

“More than a few times over the years, José Andrés has popped up behind the bar at minibar, but also at Zaytinya and Jaleo, during the middle of my meals. And I recall a tired-looking Michel Richard popping into Citronelle two years ago when I was in; supposedly, he was fresh off a day-long plane ride from Los Angeles,” he says of his own high-profile run-ins.

Gold paints most last-minute service scrambles as painfully transparent and largely counterproductive. Which is not to say he’s never experienced a carefully choreographed, culinary quick step.

“The only obvious improvement I’ve ever noticed was at a Michelin three-star in NYC where the food was oddly substandard until the chef noticed me. The raspberry tart at dessert was the most magnificent pastry I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting,” Gold admits. “I would say that perhaps half a dozen U.S. restaurants have the ability to pull off something like that.”

Michael Bauer, the longstanding San Francisco Chronicle critic (23 years and counting), suspects many Bay Area eateries are wise to his tricks by now. Which is why his most pressing concern is often which card to drop (Bauer cops to keeping around a half dozen active aliases at any given time) at the end of the meal—particularly if staff have tripped his Spidey-sense.

“I always assume I’m not identified and act anonymous whether I am or not,” Bauer says of his modus operandi. If the jig does appear to be up, Bauer typically sticks with established accounts that have most likely trickled into the public domain rather than sacrificing a fake name he hopes no one has glommed onto yet.

Then again, sometimes restaurant folks just manage to crack the code.

Right before his first write-up in the Washington Post, Tracy remembers a bartender at the original Chef Geoff’s who brought it to the attention of the higher-ups that one of his patrons seemed to be up to something.

“We walked around and took a little look,” Tracy says of the quick recon executed at the barkeep’s insistence. Shortly thereafter, management noticed the same gentleman lurking around with greater frequency, so staff made sure to keep tabs on his behavior/ordering habits. The conspicuous client was, in fact, ex-Washington Post reviewer Walter Nicholls.

Marron recalls how, while coming up in other restaurants, a poorly hidden notepad or an overly inquisitive guest could cause restaurant-wide panic (the ensuing service tweaks were “obvious and insincere,” in his estimation). Nowadays, the red flags might very well be invisible.

“People can tweet throughout their meal, or put together a whole blog or story and send it out before the check even drops,” he notes.

Decisions, Decisions

Frank Bruni, the recently retired New York Times restaurant critic-turned-memoirist, sees no reason to entirely give up the anonymous dining ghost—yet.

“I think anonymity is a great GOAL—goal, I stress—because in reaching for it, one ends up being more frequently anonymous that one otherwise would be,” he opines. “But I don’t think it’s close to the most important thing in restaurant criticism. And I trust critics based not on how secretive they were and are, but on how smart and informed and fair they are. Those things matter more.”

Bauer similarly favors comprehensive dining experience—“you have a professional faculty that a typical diner doesn’t have to have,” he expounds—and a firm command of regional history over absolute anonymity.

“If anonymity becomes the all-encompassing factor you are trying to preserve, you probably should change critics once a year,” he advises media outlets still mulling over their reviewing guidelines.

Conversely, he wonders whether critics should drop the act entirely and simply acknowledge themselves to staff AFTER being seated. His reasoning being that that way, reviewers could stop second-guessing the machinations of every meal (everyone involved would know they were under a microscope), restaurant owners could put on the best show possible (sans advance warning, anyway) and readers would be presented with the absolute, best-case dining scenario as a frame of reference (which is what everyone expects when they dine out, right?).

Carman resolutely believes “critics should always strive for anonymity.” But, perhaps more importantly, he’d like to see some sunshine penetrate the nebulous blogosphere.

“Do I think bloggers/food writers who accept freebies can write honestly about the food? Sure, but … the bottom line is, I have no clue who actually accepts freebies and then writes about their meals. I only have speculation, which is really part of the problem,” he proffers. “It’s hard to know who’s on the take anymore.”

Although the food writing game has changed dramatically since her retirement a decade ago, Richman maintains that the fundamentals bear repeating.

“Anonymity is a useful tool. But it’s only one part of the mechanism for reviewing,” she counsels.

“Knowing/understanding cooking and hospitality culture, being able to write in a way that the public can enjoy and understand” are just as important, if not more than, staying undercover, in her opinion.

“It’s not a life or death issue, either,” Richman maintains. “It’s not that you can’t review a restaurant if you’ve been recognized. It’s just better if you are there anonymously.”

Richman also has no qualms with the growing democratization of restaurant criticism—“I think there should be more than one critic’s voice. The more the better,” she stipulates—but she does worry about potentially damaging pronouncements widely disseminated by “people with no expertise.”

Expert or not, Grace Abi-Najm Shea, co-owner of the 30-year-old Lebanese Taverna chainlet, says she dedicates a good deal of time to trolling through the virtual flood of customer feedback their 11 locations generate on a daily basis.

Shea says her job now encompasses monitoring any mention of the Lebanese Taverna on social media (the LT group is active on both Twitter and Facebook), personal blogs or anywhere else on the web (give it up for Google alerts). “Whether it’s right or wrong, it was their experience while they were here,” she says of the spirited narratives she routinely uncovers as part of her online sleuthing.

Shea adds that she doesn’t really mind reading invective-laced reviews—so long as the despondent party demonstrates the courtesy of weaving their contact information into their tirade.

“It’s always our goal to get the person back into the restaurant and get them to have a positive experience,” she says. “The thing that’s hardest is when bloggers aren’t just negative, but nasty.”

Other times, a flogging from the mass media is well warranted and refreshingly instructive.

Shea cites a 2008 Young & Hungry piece calling LT on the carpet for shortchanging kebab fans as a prime example of watchdog journalism. After reading the piece, Shea had staff at the Bethesda location examine the dish in question, and they did, in fact, discover a discrepancy in the portion sizes. She rectified the service snafu, posted a mea culpa on Carman’s blog and was rewarded with some online love from Y&H readers impressed by LT’s willingness to come clean and make amends.

Whether the barbs are launched from cyberspace, a PDA or the printed page is immaterial, according to Marron. It’s the name attached that matters most.

“Restaurant critics will always be influential and widely read … [just] look at the followers of critics on Twitter or how busy a restaurant gets after a dining guide has been published,” he says. “That’s not going to change.”

Free At Last

At least some don’t seem to mind being in the public eye all that much.

Houston Press critic Robb Walsh recently bid farewell to his anonymous ways via the paper’s blog. And, as far as he’s concerned, there’s no going back—for any of us.

“Anonymous was better—until it got impossible. And unless the newspaper makes a surprise comeback we will all be bloggers soon,” he predicts.

Gold finds the whole critic-tracking phenomena to be absolutely hysterical. “When you are unmasked, the experience is less Curnonsky [aka, celebrated gastro-scribe Maurice Edmond Sailland] commanding the great toques of Paris than it is that of a movie critic sitting next to a director who is constantly poking him during the good parts and reminding him just how expensive it is to put two kids through Swarthmore,” he quips.

Richman, meanwhile, continues to dine out with working critics, but now leaves the gastronomic scorekeeping to the pros while she simply enjoys the ride.

“Now, I can be a participant in the food world, rather than being an anonymous, standoffish critic,” Richman points out. “It’s much more fun.”

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Restaurants That (Probably) Have Me Pegged

Restaurant Eve/The Majestic/PX/Eamonn’s
Principals Cathal Armstrong and Todd Thrasher are somehow always firmly planted at their various properties AND front-and-center at every fundraiser/awards gala/hospitality demo in town.

Inox
A mutual acquaintance threw me under the bus while co-founder Jonathan Kinn was still at 2941. (His moving to the front of the house at Inox didn’t help much.)

EatBar
Popped in for a bite and stumbled upon a high school acquaintance—who is well aware of how I earn my livelihood—slinging drinks behind the bar.

Inn at Little Washington
Interviewed founder Patrick O’Connell face-to-face early on in my food-writing career (not like he needs my endorsement to keep the Inn busy.)

2941
I suspect eagle-eyed maitre d’ Rachid LaKroune has a looooong memory (see #2).

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Michelin Myths: Dispelled

Each year, hospitality vets the world over wait to see how they rate in Michelin’s fabled “red guide,” the restaurant-ranking Bible for over a century. To this day, very little is known about the hyper covert Michelin inspectors—until now. Michelin North America public relations manager Tonya Polydoroff helps peel back the veil on the fraternity of highly revered—and often, feared—gastro-referees.

Myth #1
All Michelin inspectors are French.
False. “In the U.S. all of our inspectors (10) are American, and are residents of the respective cities they cover,” Polydoroff says.

Myth #2
Michelin inspectors predominantly focus on French restaurants/cuisine.
False. Polydoroff insists U.S. inspectors cast as wide a net as possible. “We include restaurants from formal to very casual, inexpensive to extravagant, in a wide geographical range,” she says.

Myth #3
Michelin inspectors only dine with their own.
True. Solo dining is very much the modus operandi for most Michelin visits. What about more romantic spots? “When it’s not appropriate to, two inspectors will go together,” Polydoroff states.

Myth #4
Michelin inspectors cannot divulge their position to anyone.
False. Although secrecy is clearly a prime directive—“Our inspectors are very committed to working discreetly. One even chooses not to tell her mother what she does for fear of exposure,” Polydoroff shares—inspectors are not prohibited from sharing their position with loved ones/confidants.

Myth #5
The D.C.-Metro area is on the short list for new red guides.
True(?).”Washington D.C. and the surrounding suburbs have an interesting and unique restaurant scene that would make for a good-quality guide,” Polydoroff says, stopping just short of giving our area the green light for the full Michelin treatment.

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Stepping In It

Short of transitioning into restaurant writing directly from the Central Intelligence Agency or ninja training camp, your average food critic has to hone their misdirection skills on their own. And even James Bond slips up every once in a while (doesn’t he?).

Tom Sietsema admits to occasionally letting his guard down—“handing luggage, with my ID attached, to coat checks; leaving a fake credit card behind, then having to retrieve it without proper identification”—but suggests that absent-minded companions are the often greatest liabilities. “Typically, it’s not me, but my guests, who forget not to call me ‘Tom’ during a meal,” he says.

Frank Bruni copped to inadvertently broadcasting his private number following a cell phone swap. “I once changed cell phones and didn’t realize that the ‘block caller ID’ function I’d programmed into the prior one hadn’t automatically carried over. For that transfer week, so to speak, restaurants I called from my cell … would have seen my name as they took my reservation,” he notes.

Though meticulous about crafting aliases, Michael Bauer initially dropped the ball when reserving through Open Table by “not realizing that it was the phone number that gave you away rather than the name.”

Phyllis Richman says she was once bested by one of her own. She recalls one instance of unsuccessfully trying to calm her tantruming daughter. The fuming child announced to the entire restaurant, “I don’t want to be the Millers anymore. I want to be the Richmans!”

(January 2010)