A Food Critic Gets Exposed, A Famous Chef Throws Out the Hospitality Playbook

The Hunger weighs in on the tale of a San Francisco Chronicle dining critic almost getting kicked out of the French Laundry

Few people set out to be a food critic. Most are former features writers or food passionate individuals who end up in the role. Some, like former New York Times dining critic Frank Bruni, were former political correspondents.

I was a Cellular Biology and Political Science major working in e-commerce who fell in love with food writing. In burgeoning internet times, I channeled my passion into feature stories, a blog, a podcast, and eventually, criticism.

Because I did not start out anonymous, I had to contend with my public persona.

In 2006 I’d written a feature story on a local pastry chef. I didn’t think much of it until I showed up at a now famous restaurant which was then run by a Charlie Trotter restaurant alum.

I was fascinated because this was one of the first times a Charlie Trotter vet and leader had left to make their way in Chicago with their own vision.

I chose to visit this restaurant not because I was reviewing it, but because I wanted to celebrate my wedding anniversary at an up-and-coming place with a chef I thought would bring some new ideas to the table. Nowadays, I rarely celebrate special occasions with dinner out precisely because of what I learned at this meal.

I used a pseudonym, as I generally do, and showed up in the restaurant vestibule, not knowing that pastry chef I’d written a story on was working as a host.

When I gave my fake name, we locked eyes. The pastry chef/host did what she was supposed to do. She informed the restaurant staff.

I was whisked to one of the best window seats and the server who approached our table dialed up the love.

My wife and I ordered two apps, two entrees, and two desserts. Four apps showed up. I told the server we appreciated the gesture, but we didn’t need any additional dishes. Four entrees appeared. I told him again, we were cool. He said, “It’s ok. We know who you are.”

I told him that wasn’t the point and I wasn’t writing about the meal.

Four desserts landed on our table.

We waited interminably for the bill. It never came. I called the server over and asked for the check. The server said, “There is no bill!” I explained that while I was not writing about the restaurant, I might in the future, and if I took the comp, I would not be able to do so.

He responded, “Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone.”

I told him I would know and that alone was not in line with my personal ethics.

A few minutes later the owner brought the bill over and looked me in the eyes and said, “I hope you didn’t think we were doing something out of bounds.”

I understood they were in the business of putting their restaurant in the most favorable light. I explained that I too had a business and these were the terms of doing that work in the most ethical way. If anything, it was my fault that I’d been mixing features work with critical work which created these conditions.

I opened the bill to find we were charged for not only what we ordered, but what the kitchen had sent. This was roughly $100 extra (today it would likely be over $200). My wife and I got into an argument about the extra charge.

I paid the full bill out of my pocket (no budget because this was a personal dinner). It hurt a little, but it was the right thing to do according to the principles I was advocating for.

There’s a price for being known. This was a pivot point. As long as I now worked as a critic, I would try to remain anonymous, use pseudonyms, keep my public persona as low as I could, and always pay my way.

I did this because if the critic’s job is to assess how a restaurant acts for regular diners, the way to do so most effectively is to act like a regular diner. I also did it because I learned that a restaurant’s extension of extra hospitality toward VIP guests can also negatively impact a personal or professional dining experience in ways that are not preferable, despite everyone’s best attentions.

It’s awkward at best, and at worst it can have an impact on a personal relationship, especially if you need to stick to your guns. It absolutely skews the picture of what a restaurant does on a nightly basis which is what most readers care about.

Most of the current, and at some point, even the last generation of critics no longer adhere to these principles. Many like Adam Platt (then New York Magazine’s critic) or the late Jonathan Gold (Los Angeles Times, other alt-weeklys) came out of their critic closets suggesting it was easier than playing “Kabuki” theatre pretending they were someone else while everyone knew who they were.

I have some sympathy for Gold and Platt who were famous, impactful, and had careers of unmatched longevity. In some ways they were bigger than most of the restaurants they covered. Everyone did know them at a certain point.

But they were also the one-percenters. Their lesser-known peers who could sneak into places saw their icons coming out as permission to do the same.

New critics, including folks like Nick Kindelsperger and Louisa Chu of the Chicago Tribune, Carlos Frias at the Miami Herald, Lyndsay Green at the Detroit Free Press, and Mackenzie Chung Fegan, the current San Francisco Chronicle critic, and their publications published glossy photos near their byline and declared anonymity dead from the jump.

Chu and Kindelsperger when they were announced as the new Tribune Co-Critics

As far as I can tell, Tom Sietsema of the Washington Post might be the only major food paper critic in the country who doesn’t have a company approved head shot available on their publication’s website. Although, there are plenty of photos out there of him in a suit, generic baseball cap, and wraparound shades, representing like some dining critic version of Kendall Roy.

When Chung Fegan’s appointment was announced, she said something along the lines that it would be too difficult to scrub her internet presence prior to becoming a critic, so she chose to publish her picture.

The current crop of interim New York Times food critics Melissa Clark and Priya Krishna also broke with the gray lady’s long tradition of anonymity. Clark and Krishna do video recaps of their meals without disguise. Krishna and Clark wrote features before becoming interim co-critics. Because they had a past as features writers, I imagine they had similar motivations of not being able to kill their digital past.

I also believe that in modern times, they and their employer felt that to compete with influencers and content creators, they had to create a known public identity for themselves.

I doubt any of these folks would admit this, but I fundamentally believe that, critic or not, the basic human instinct to be known, celebrated and on par with famous people, and to avoid the hard work of doing something that should be done in favor of what the culture allows, dictated these critics’ desires to break free of anonymity for personal aggrandizement.

It feels good when people treat you special.

But if you want to be taken care of at restaurants, be a celebrity or a captain of industry or a game-changing artist. Don’t work for papers of record as a food critic. Continue as a features writer or go start your own Instagram-fueled content empire of compromises.

The blame here lies less with individuals, though, then it does with the Tribune, the Chronicle, the Times, and New York Magazine, for lessening standards out of their own personal insecurity in troubling media times.

The Chronicle looked the other way for many years as its long-standing critic Michael Bauer allowed his partner, a restaurant investor, to allegedly shake down restaurants in his name. They were not alone. The Chicago Sun-Times and Tribune let Pat Bruno and Phil Vettel do the same. Vettel was rumored at one point to be doing tequila shots with chefs at media dinners near the end of his tenure.

In Corporate America, when a person is unable to perform their job according to the duties outlined, they are reassigned or let go. If a critic becomes truly known and struggles to do the job they once could, the publications should appoint a new writer who is not compromised.

If you once reported on food, why not go back to writing features? It’s still an amazing job that offers a chance to practice your passion.

Even for those critics who had photos on the internet prior, you don’t need to start your new role by publishing your photo in highly read venues so even more people will be aware of your identity.

Still, if you believe that this is the new way of doing business, don’t act surprised or annoyed when you realize the ability to do your job is compromised.

And yet, that’s generally the script that is followed, and it was followed most recently by Chung Fegan in this article about her recent visit to The French Laundry.

Chung Fegan says she visited the Laundry not to review it, but to see how it was operating because her role demanded it.

She says, “I’m not here to write a review, I tell him [chef Thomas Keller] honestly. My predecessor, Soleil Ho, weighed in 2½ years ago, and it’s not customary to reassess so soon after. But I eat at restaurants I’m not planning on reviewing all the time, and my credibility demands that I visit one of the most celebrated and enduringly popular restaurants in the country — helmed by one of the most powerful chefs in the world.”

She used the pseudonym Margaret for her visit. She tells us that she often likes to wear an N95 mask or sunglasses when she arrives at a restaurant to conceal her identity. Chu of the Tribune too has been know to wear a mask during her dining forays.

Nothing says food critic, or maybe professional house painter, like wearing a Home Depot mask four years post-Covid-epidemic to house some restaurant foie gras which has absorbed every particle of dining room air on its way to your table.

This is weird, right? You publish your photo in one of the biggest papers in the country by your own choice and yet you go through these charades. That tells me that the critic knows anonymity is still important, but they still chose to promote their personal brand.

Because Chung Fegan’s photo was out there, she was sussed out by the Laundry staff. She was whisked away to speak with Keller in the Laundry courtyard while her dining companions waited for almost an hour without food.

Keller told her he guessed she was nice, but didn’t want Chung Fegan there, that he didn’t trust her intentions. Keller’s restaurants have been the subject of multiple take downs from the Chronicle and the New York Times over the last decade. He asked her to leave.

The chef and the critic then swapped a bunch of personal stories.

Highlights include:

Keller believed a critical review killed his friend Michel Richard.

When Melissa Clark from the New York Times visited the Laundry, she did so in a blonde wig and aviators in the identity of a fitness instructor named “Emma”. This ruse did not work long, because Clark does videos like this.

Keller misses the old days when critics were cheerleaders and on the “same team”, citing his friend Michael Bauer, predecessor to Chung Fegan and Soleil Ho at the Chronicle. As we’ve established, Bauer was likely corrupt and in Keller’s pocket. Of course Keller misses those days. It’s notable that in her piece, Chung Fegan doesn’t mention Bauer’s entanglements.

When Ho was a critic she pilloried the Laundry. It dropped off the Chronicle’s 100 best restaurants list. It still hasn’t returned. The current 100 list includes pizza spots, restaurants with no full-service dining room, and three-star Yelp-rated spots.

I’m sure the pizza spot is magnificent, but degree of difficulty matters. Even a slightly reduced French Laundry vs. the very best pizza place is like Simone Biles vs. a good college gymnast. That the Laundry is not on this list suggests a deliberate slight, not reason.

Mackenzie Chung Fegan says, “No murky bong water mushroom soup for you Thomas Keller.”

Ho liked Keller’s Mexican spot La Calenda, but backhandedly dubbed it “cultural appropriation done right”. A lot of food criticism is no longer about assessing whether the food and hospitality are good. It’s now the pulpit for a culture war toward realigning the dining landscape to uplift small independent LGBTQIA+ BIPOC at the expense of the Michelin-set.

I welcome activist criticism that moves the culture, but only if it’s grounded in fair play and with a consideration of the restaurant’s actual performance. Too much of this stuff now reads like snarky asides based in assumption toward forwarding a very personal agenda.

Like Ho, Chung Fegan tries to nail Keller for being a straight white old man. She does this with subtle asides in her piece like mentioning that Keller’s autographed plates collection has a Woody Allen component.

She highlights Keller’s belief that there is no such thing as cultural appropriation because America is a melting pot.

She suggests that Keller has a tokenist delight in telling Clark on her visit that the Laundry’s chef de cuisine was a woman.

Chung Fegan tells a story about Keller’s excitement sharing that when the Laundry’s famous courtyard tree dies, he’s commissioned a company that builds fake trees for Disneyland to create a replica to take its place.

Chung Fegan almost cries because she is moved by Keller’s candor. She is also shaken because she’s a “straight A student” and has a hard time reconciling that she’s being called to the principal’s, chef’s, office.

Eventually Keller doesn’t kick her out. Chung Fegan returns to her table gets a free bottle of wine and apology truffles and a full Thomas Keller-origin story restaurant tour.

Keller tries to comp the bill, but Chung Fegan insists on tipping out the full $1,800+ bill.

To most people the story is compelling because it seems to vilify the totem that is American chef god Thomas Keller. Because of what I do and how I try to do it and how I feel it should be done, I see Chung Fegan’s “almost” tears as crocodile tears.

She told Keller she wasn’t reviewing the Laundry, and yet, while she did not review the restaurant, she publicly reviewed the man in what I believe was a private moment.

After these private moments, Keller provided as much grace as he could by killing Chung Fegan’s dining party with kindness. Chung Fegan returned the favor with a kill for the Chronicle.

I don’t empathize with Keller’s tokenism or the silly idea that cultural appropriation can’t exist in a melting pot. I’m genuinely torn about the Disneyland tree story. I want to see it as a MAGA moment, an installation of cheap artifice to invoke a better time that maybe never existed. But also Disney and the Laundry are game-changing icons. They deserve a monument, so why not the most beautifully engineered one? Maybe it would just be better to plant a new tree as a reminder about rebirth and evolution.

But I do get where Keller is coming from in general. He’s not wrong.

Michel Richard was not killed by a critic, but there is a real weight to the critics’ word. I saw it in Jake Potashnick’s face on my second visit to Feld this year as he was trying to emerge from the series of bad reviews the restaurant had received early on

The Chronicle piece appears as original, but it is part of a pattern: knock down the giant over and over. I have not been to the Laundry in quite some time. But I ate at Bouchon in Las Vegas last Monday and I’ve been to Keller’s Surf Club in Miami a few times in the last year. These are some of my favorite restaurants in America.

Is the Laundry what it was in the beginning? Is it pushing game-changing innovation? Maybe not, but it’s absolutely one of the 100 best restaurants in the San Francisco area. Its tradition is responsible for so many of the new ideas popping up every day. It’s a straight line with just a few stops from the Laundry to Alinea to Benu to Oriole or Vespertine.

Critics are primed for the new. Keller understands this. It’s why when he discovers a critic is in his dining room he sends out his mushroom soup in an actual glass bong. In any other context this would be an example of modern thought, a tongue-in-cheek callback to Pete Wells’ famous bad review of Per Se. It’s the kind of thing a critic would usually love. But most of them do not. Their bias seethes, because Keller has called out the fact that they don’t do their job professionally, they’ve given away their identities freely. The critics don’t like being reminded of their failure.

As for maintaining tradition, does Keller 86 the dishes that sustain the demand for his business just so a critic can be happy? Diners who have never had the luxury of visiting the Laundry until now have never had Oysters & Pearls and the salmon cone. They want the greatest hits.

Recently, Louisa Chu of the Chicago Tribune said Alinea should give up its fabled balloon dessert course because it’s tired. If it goes away because someone who had the luxury of eating it multiple times says it should, well, that feels like a very privileged “let them eat cake” moment.

And when people are actually coming for you, your team and your livelihood, what is a restaurant supposed to do? I’m making a distinction here about whether Keller is failing on the plate vs. whether he’s an actual target. I think maybe there’s a little bit of the former, but I do believe most of it is the latter. The Laundry and Per Se are in high demand, no matter what the critics say. If the Laundry is as bad as depicted in these reviews, eventually people would stop paying the high freight of entry.

When you’re a target, you should move. And that’s what Keller did. He did it clumsily and he dishonored the basic idea of hospitality here, holding Chung Fegan’s dining companions hostage while he had this chat. The desire to kick the critic out even in the context of Keller’s suspicions or his desire to protect his staff feels a little like Trump kicking reporters out of his White House press conferences, a deliberate act of censorship.

I think he should have served the group and then maybe pulled Chung Fegan aside for a discussion afterwards, or asked for her contact information to discuss later. If he had, she probably wouldn’t have written this piece and he still could have made his case.

Despite the piece’s intention, which I believe is to capitalize on Keller’s standing, to make him look washed-up and out of touch, and ultimately make the critic seem like the aggrieved party, I do think it’s a good one.

I think Chung Fegan violated her promise not to write a review, at least in a metaphorical way, but she is gracious in her empathy toward Keller by providing the details of their conversation without too much overt judgement.

I strive to honor both the restaurant and the diner with my work, but this piece makes me realize I can and should do a better job of considering the perspective of the chefs and servers more. It’s something I recently tried hard to do in my second review of Feld last week. I hope for Chung Fegan and other critics who choose to expose themselves to the public or take free stuff or cozy up to chefs, it makes them realize there’s a real price to casually waiving away your anonymity as a food critic.