On Anonymity & Other Standards in Food Reviewing
“Hello, it’s sooooo nice to see you again!!! It’s been so long since we last saw each other. I’m so glad you’re here!” said the restaurant owner.
I never met this person in my life.
I knew them. They knew me. But only through chat and direct messages on social media.
Not only had we slid into each other’s DMs, but many years ago we had a semi-famous contentious social media exchange, where in response to my criticism of their spot, they basically called me a piece of…well, you know.
And yet, here we were. We never met. They pretended we had and I was now their best friend.
I’m usually very up front about things most people are uncomfortable with. I suppose it’s why I’m able to be a food critic. But in that moment, I was so shocked, I didn’t say, “But, we’ve never met!”
I just shook their hand and let them guide me to my table.
You’re probably also asking yourself, “Mike, how could this happen? You use pseudonyms for reservations, fake credit cards, and try to protect your identity.”
Well, one member of my party didn’t know this was a review meal, nor are we close enough friends that they know how I operate. When they arrived before me, they gave my real name for a reservation. That reservation under my name didn’t exist, but that the owner had that piece of info and an old picture of me I can’t seem to remove from the internet, that was enough for me to be identified.
I bring this up, because what I can tell you is my meal that night was incredible. There were some amazing and awkward things that happened with service, and free food showed up. What I can’t really tell you is if the experience I had was representative of what you’d get as a regular unknown diner.
I clearly got special treatment, and I’m pretty sure the reason I received the fake acknowledgement of our friendship is that the truth isn’t as important as making me feel special in this moment so that I rate the person’s business more favorably. I’m not mad at this person. I understand why they did what they did. I would have done the same if I were in their position.
But that it was done makes my job hard to do, or at least the way I believe I should do it. Being recognized changes the value of the objectivity I aim to bring you.
This experience of mine was oddly coincident with another thing I read last week on The LO Times, the excellent Substack Newsletter from NYC food critic Ryan Sutton in which he discussed the New York Times interim co-critic Priya Krishna and the paper’s decision to show her face on an accompanying video reel discussing her recent review of all the Carbone restaurant locations in America.
Sutton wrote:
“Maybe more critics, including myself, need to rethink preconceptions about anonymity and apply their craft to social vids. You don’t need to be on camera to make reels, but there’s something to be said for the style of a newscast hit. It’s about making a human connection. It’s about trust.”
If a random person or one of the many critics who had long ago thrown away the standards of anonymity had written those words I probably wouldn’t have thought much about it. But I was moved because Sutton who was once the critic for Eater New York operates under a similar commitment to anonymity that I do. I respect him a lot. I needed to see if I was missing something.
I wrote him the following…
Hi Ryan,
Per your observation on Priya, is the value of seeing her face worth the devaluing of her ability to receive an objective dining experience as a critic?
This is the question I keep asking myself. I think we both know how everything changes when you're known. Now some critics pretend that's not the case or they act like they can still be critical or objective in the face of that. I know they can be, but they can only be objective or critical of the experience they're receiving as a known critic, not as an unknown one, and that's where it gets conflicting for me.
The value of going on camera theoretically is that you can establish a deeper relationship with your audience by being a seen face that people can connect with.
Now that we're Substack critics and no longer bound to the old ways, we can do what we want theoretically.
And certainly, if one is good at being on camera, breaching that wall by being a known face can have value for us to grow our newsletters.
However, that feels to me like I'm choosing growth of the newsletter and/or my personal need to be seen over the pursuit of the anonymous review, which I still believe is the highest, or at least one big, differentiating value.
I guess the question is what is my value? Is it producing the closest I can to unbiased information as I can?
Or is it growing my following and my financial support via that following so I can do more reviews which while maybe not delivering the same value in terms of objectivity maybe guarantees more sustainability?
I ask these questions, because I know like me you've been doing this a while and you do it the way I do it, aka anonymous etc., and you're a really thoughtful voice, and I think more than almost anyone out there maybe best equipped to provide a compelling argument on whether we should breach the wall.
Like I don't buy what Adam Platt (former New York Magazine food critic) and everyone else who came out in the past says so far. One of the contentions was ‘everyone knows me now, so it's just a charade, so why play it?’
My argument would be then it's time to get a new critic and Platt or [Pete] Wells or whoever it is can write features. Like I don't know what's in their heart for sure, but I fundamentally believed most of these people came out with their identities because it made their lives easier or the hoops less to jump through or even appealed to their ego, maybe all of these things at the same time. I have yet to hear an argument that it made them better at being an unbiased critic.
I mean if I'm even more transparent, I'm looking for someone to finally give me a compelling argument that I should just do this job like an influencer would but with the greater knowledge and professionalism I have. Because for sure my life would be easier. But I keep returning to the idea that I'm choosing my personal comfort over my professional and ethical obligation.
As an independent it would also be easier for me to take free meals, go to media previews etc...because my funds are limited. But similarly, that eats into the objectivity again. So I don't do that.
But also if everyone else does it and consumers don't seem to care (some do, it's why I believe I have the paid subscriber base I have now) should I?
I feel like when I buy the alternative argument I'm mirroring the ego-driven actions that have permeated our culture so much that it's now normalized a place where Supreme Court justices just do pay for play or get what's good for them. I know that sounds crazy that there's even a connection, but I fundamentally believe when we all just give in to what we want vs what we seems right for everyday low stakes things, it creates the climate for high stakes breaches of ethics too.
Obviously "what's right" is subjective and the hardest to pin down here. But, as I've already established I think pay your own way and anonymous reviewing gets us closest to the regular diner experience and isn't that what we want to do? Isn't anything less than that closer to entertainment and or personal enrichment?
I know, lots of words. If you got this far, I appreciate you. I don't know why this means so much to me. People think I'm crazy and I should just be on camera and take free dinners.
Also, I don't know maybe if we have a meaningful exchange here we could simultaneously publish it on our newsletters to open up a broader dialogue and let others weigh in. (No need to of course, just an idea)
Mike
I didn’t ask Sutton if I could publish his response, so I won’t repurpose it here. But the gist of it was that I made a lot of fair points and that he has no personal plans to be on camera personally and he’s also still working through a lot of these ideas.
I legitimately hoped for a Yoda-moment with Sutton shooting down ultimate wisdom. That did not happen.
I want to say that’s because the whole issue is more gray than black and white. My uncertainty in many of the questions I pose above are real. I really don’t know. But, also as I was about to accept all of that I read Krishna’s NYT bio…
It goes out of the way to tell you she “tries to dine anonymously” … while she does reels showing her face?
Are her disguises Sacha Bara Cohen level where her real visage will never betray her to a future restaurant owner? Probably not. Does she want to sneak into a restaurant under the radar? Or does she want her face on camera? You can’t genuinely pick both. These things are at odds.
I suspect these videos aren’t Krishna’s choice, since her co-interim critic Melissa Clark also does them. This “pivot-to-social” is more like a standard imposed by the Times. And why would the Times make that choice? It feels like it’s because they feel like they have to compete against influencers on IG and TikTok in modern times.
The thing is the New York Times is relevant. It’s one of the few remaining successful stalwarts of old guard media. And, sure, some of this success has come through modernization, but a lot of it has been by staying the course with things that truly differentiate in 2024, which is to say by adhering to smart ethical principles and crafting work with high standards.
It just feels like the culture’s changing in a fundamental way, like it’s better to be famous and/or get yours then it is to think about what’s right or best? That can’t play out well.
But like I said, I’m looking for answers. There’s a lot of you here, and I’d love to hear what you think? Are these standards like anonymity, paying your way, disclosing things you receive or avoiding them all together not that important? Should I go to media previews? Should I take free meals if it means more content for The Hunger readers? Should I do TikTok’s with close-ups of my nostrils as I review a Michelin 3 star place? Am I my own worst enemy? I genuinely don’t know. But maybe someone does?
___
If you’re only here for the pithy reviews and not the existential writing dilemmas, don’t worry, I’ll reveal which restaurant I was at in my “review” as a known critic this Friday on The Hunger.
I think the points you are and have been making are important. I think that what you and the “influencers” (restaurant and other reviewers who get paid by the establishment for their positivity, honest or not) are selling is two different products. That could be fine if everyone understood the difference. Maybe the “followers” try to pretend that they recognize the differences and weigh them differently. I.e. Turn to unbiased, anonymous, ethical journalism for an accurate summary of a restaurant, or turn to the influencers to see what’s hot. But not enough people think very hard about the differences. Most people don’t really care enough to write off a hot spot because the journalist said it was no good. And conversely, most people are not going to skip going to the hot spot because all these influencers shilling it aren’t being honest about their experience, or even receiving an honest experience to begin with. The place is being talked about which means “we gotta go so we can talk about it, too!” Honestly, half the time, it doesn’t even matter that much if it turns out to be bad, we just have to be able to say we went and either gush about how amazing it was and how well-dined we are because we’ve been to the latest spots, or dish about how bad it was and how well-dined we are because only people who know better can understand what’s bad… we all love to hate!
I guess part of the question is really what you are selling. Are you entertainment? Education? Advertising space? Are you protecting the less-savvy reader from wasting their hard earned dollars at a restaurant not worthy of them? Which of those things are people in the market for? Maybe very few people actually want to be protected with some guarantee, they just want to go out and try it, good or bad. Or does it matter to you who wants to buy what, do you just want to do what you do ‘cause you love it?
In terms of your professional ease, depending on how you define that, as a food critic you’re probably getting in your own way, yeah. You could probably sell out, do the thing everyone else does, lose a bunch of followers who are disappointed in you at first and once everybody forgets that you were the guy calling everyone else out to begin with you could rise to mediocrity and make more money and have even more weight to throw around the restaurant scene like the 50k-followers influencers who are just billboards.
In terms of being a self-respecting and self-aware human being who feels obligated to choose what they stand for no matter what professional medium they do it through, I think you’re 100% fighting the good fight. I also think fighting the good fight is probably futile in terms of changing the way society works and hoping to reverse the fall of integrity and honesty and intention, at best it is slowing the wheel from turning too quickly in the wrong direction, but that’s not nothing! It’s certainly worth $5 a month to me! How much is it worth to you?!
I won't say what one should or shouldn't do, but I've found it tremendously valuable that you have not-great experiences at well-regarded places and talk about them candidly. In a world where I had infinite time and money, I would try all the places I want to try. In the real world, I have to prioritize heavily, and I do think you are steering me—and I hope a bunch of other readers—toward quality and honest good work, and that's worth a lot for me.