Part 1: The Restaurant Critic

The Restaurant Critic

When deciding where to go for dinner, we almost automatically go online or flip through a phone app that helps us navigate our way through the local food landscape, wherever we are. And if we don’t care for electronic devices, we can count on printed restaurant guides, as well as magazines and newspapers reviews. We are used to reading (and hearing) other people’s comments and advice before choosing our culinary destinations, whether at a high-end establishment to celebrate an important occasion or a mom-and-pop’s little hole-in-the-wall for an informal night out with friends. At times we 

prefer to heed reviews from established authorities, like food critics in the papers on or TV. On other occasions, we rely on the diffused and distributed wisdom of the Internet. These sources of information are widespread and accessible all over the world, playing an increasingly relevant role in the development of the culinary arts. Why are these opinions – professional and not – so important in the contemporary food landscape? Has it always been the case? In this unit we reflect on the figure of the restaurant critic, its origin, its development, and its future.

To do so, we look at the life and impact of one of the media figures that most influenced restaurant criticism in America: Craig Claiborne. Although he was not the first food journalist, as we discuss also in the unit about Clementine Paddleford in INNOVATORS OF AMERICAN CUISINE, Claiborne introduced relevant innovations that are still in use today.

Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Craig_Claiborne_1981.jpg Links to an external site.

Let’s watch Andy Smith’s intro to Claiborne.

In his book The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat, Claiborne’s biographer Thomas McNamee points out that he established a template for food writers — especially critics — that survives even today, despite the emergence and success of more widespread criticism in the form of blogs and review websites. For McNamee’s take on Claiborne, click here Links to an external site..

His voice as a writer was very distinguishable. The New York Times created a reader Links to an external site. of his work, which includes his report Links to an external site. on his famous $4,000 dinner with Pierre Fernay in Paris.

Former New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells wrote in his piece Links to an external site. about the 50^th anniversary of Claiborne’s first “Directory to Dining” column: “Claiborne and his successors told Americans that restaurants mattered. That was an eccentric opinion a half-century ago. It’s not anymore.” Despite his frequently snobbish observations, he showed great interest in “head-snapping juxtapositions of linen and linoleum” and ethnic cuisines, even in neighborhoods that were far from fashionable. Wells continues: “Claiborne observed everything when he was reviewing, but ultimately he judged restaurants by what came out of the kitchen. As this idea caught on, it became harder to confuse the country’s best restaurants with the ones that were merely favored by the aristocracy. A different hierarchy in dining, ordered by creativity and excellence in cuisine, was slowly taking shape under the guidance of a new aristocracy: an aristocracy of taste. Today, we call members of this aristocracy ‘foodies.’”