Food Critics
To publish or not to publish…
There has been something of a landmark case in the Irish courts this week regarding a Belfast pizza restaurant which sued the Irish News for a defamatory review of its restaurant. The initial hearing found in favour of the restaurant and awarded them £25,000. The newspaper contested the decision and won the case at the second hearing.
This was significant in that the judges voted essentially in favour of freedom of speech over a review that could, and probably will have long lasting damage to a business.
It is an interesting topic to consider, a restaurant is a business which sells a product to the public and it is in the public’s interest to know if their money will be well spent or not. On the other hand, how far should a critic go with it? When does constructive criticism become nothing more than a vehicle for a journalist seeking a cheap laugh or worse, revenge at a restaurants expense?
Some critics have the power to make or break a new restaurant and that cannot be right. Many reviews I read in the UK border on the irrelevant, the main professional catering journal in the UK has a weekly graph which shows each of the main critics, how many words they have written and the percentage of those words that actually relate to the restaurant in question. AA Gill of the Sunday Times usually wins with his reviews which are ninety percent nonsense and ten per cent criticism.
I respect Gill as a journalist but he could get to the point in about 500 fewer words, that said, when he gets stuck into a restaurant he really does: here’s what he said about the Langley in London in 2000:
“Slow baked cheese and onion tart-snot in a box. Grilled Kipper-smoked postman’s odour eater…Coq au Vin was thick-skinned chicken knuckles soaked in tepid brylcreem and aftershave. Sherry triffle-unspeakable. Black forest gateaux and apple pie, both would have worried Gypsy caterers at a Troggs concert in Norwich.”
The Sunday Times has a considerable circulation both here and abroad so Langley’s and others must wonder what has hit them, if the food and service is as bad as he says then fair enough but are the reviews considered in the cold light of day? Do the critics review their own work prior to publishing in the interest of fair play? Would you be influenced by such reviews as the following….
“Nastiest, and most memorable was the oyster omelette, like fried lung cookie in emphysema. Pudding-a fruit plate-was a Patpong ladyboy sex show:tasteless, underage, hard and not what it’s cracked up to be”
AA Gill in a 2007 review of London restaurant, Suka.
It is difficult to think of a profession which is consistently open to the levels of criticism and analysis that restaurants are subjected to. Is it fair? Should other areas of the service industry such as garages, plumbers, house builders and the like get a taste of it? What would happen if I wrote an artcle attacking ‘John Smith Plumbing’ in a leading newspaper? If his business suffered as a direct consequence of my article how would a court judge that?
I would be interested to know your thoughts.
Miles
an interesting point.
There does seem to be a divide between things which seem to be ‘open to criticism’ and those which are not.
As you say if you blogged that John Smith the plumber ripped you off and was professionally useless he could sue you for defamation.
If he blogged that your food was a rip off and you couldn’t cook that would be a review.
Many of these reviewers are not restaurant critics IMHO but columnists.
It’s there for entertainment in a national newspaper for a national audience.
Personally I suspect Fay Machler of the Evening Standard really wileds some power as people who read her eat in London.
Before we castrate poor old AA Gill and even Michael Winner (sorry to mention that name on your site)
I draw your readers attention to this Google search for a hotel in Grimsby
It’s the #1 match in Google, check it out, ignore the 3 ’sponsored results’ at the top
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=queen+elizabeth+grimsby
Read the first comment by Our Man in the Kitchen
This page gets a lot of traffic, shows the dangers of a bad review online, they never go away potentially, the critic being an award winning Lincolnshire chef of some note !
Cheers
Rod
March 13, 2008 @ 8:37 am
Rod,
Point taken but then I have never and will never defend hotels and restaurants that serve frozen ready made meals and charge the same prices as restaurants serving freshly made dishes. That is a con, they are capable of making a pan of tomato soup or a yorkshire pudding, if not then they should either not operate at all or charge significantly less. The corner cafe doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t but these establishments will happily charge thousands of pounds for a couple’s wedding in the full knowledge that the entire meal has come from a manufacturer. You could argue that I am defending one but not the other, I am not. I would say that there should be a level playing field if the public’s interest is at heart. As for those who are allowed to serve packet meals at award winning restaurant prices I shall always vent my spleen at those who continue to downgrade my profession.
I suppose the fact that I spent years working my guts out including many unpaid hours in that kitchen to see it come to that was upsetting-and unnesscecary.
March 13, 2008 @ 9:14 am
Miles,
As for those who are allowed to serve packet meals at award winning restaurant prices I shall always vent my spleen at those who continue to downgrade my profession. … well said.
Cid
March 13, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
Cid,
Thankyou, I appreciate that.
Miles
March 13, 2008 @ 11:14 pm
Miles
There are some interesting points here.
I have no time for the food comments made by Winner and Gill and fail to see them as entertainment. The language used is very poor and not deserving of the space in the Times. It is meaningless rubbish.
If food restaurants should have food critics writing about them then they should have a professional background and give it a balanced description.
Personally, I don’t think they are necessary as food will speak for itself and the reputation will spread accordingly.
Chefs like yourself who pride themselves in the way they cook should make their customers fully aware that they are not serving pre-packaged factory foods and that it is cooked to the highest standards on site.
Elsie
March 14, 2008 @ 8:55 pm