Understanding Hospitality Responds to The Hunger's Allegations and Questions

Dear Readers,

I wanted to update those following along on my recent piece “The Unethical Food Critic and His “Secret” Boka Restaurant Group Black Card”. Grimod just responded to some of the questions I asked yesterday and I wanted to share them here so you have a full picture.

It probably seems silly to put the original piece behind a paywall and the response from the object of my reporting free for anyone to read. That being said the thousands of you who subscribe to The Hunger for free likely understand my observations even if you can’t read beyond the paywall.

Since that’s the case it feels like it would be fundamentally unfair to bury the response from the food critic, Grimod, that I reported on.

Best,

Mike

The Hunger: Seems you had a BOKA black card and use your real name for reservations with Boka group? Is this true and if so do you see any ethical conflict with using your real name consistently with the group, especially since you've chosen to use a pseudonym so strongly on the site. Is there any ethical conflict you see in using a preferred diner program which grants you previews and discounts while also in theory representing evaluating restaurants as the ultimate insider?

Grimod: I received my black card in January of 2020 (see picture). Given the timing (shortly before the pandemic and my souring toward the group), I never attended any previews (like the Le Select Opening Party) or events or received any discounts. I never used the reservation concierge either.

The Hunger: Did your wife work for the Boka restaurant group and was she laid off during COVID?

Grimod: Yes.

The Hunger: If so, have you declared this conflict in your pieces on the group?

Grimod: No.

The Hunger: Your wife works for Gibson's group and you gave Bazaar [Meats] 3 pineapples and wrote about Adalina which is former Gibsons. Should you have disclosed the relationship? Do you feel there's any fundamental conflict here?

Grimod: The relationship was revealed in the Bazaar Meat article at the time (see picture—this was at Fooditor's urging which I appreciated).

The HTML mark-up from Understanding Hospitality’s website showing his disclosure around his relationship with Gibson’s group.

I do not regret the rating (Shaum's work there earned him a Jean Banchet Award), but the concept suffered a fire early in its life and wasn't quite the same after that. I don't think this carried as much weight in the Adalina piece. I was a regular customer at Gibsons Italia before my wife joined the group, and Adalina was opened by one of the managers I came to know as a regular customer there. This did not yield any discounts or even much special attention (other than a warm welcome, a free appetizer). I think Adalina was/is arguably positioned as a competitor to the Gibsons restaurants, so I think the relationship would cut both ways if there was any influence.

Other thoughts: my disdain for BRG is personal in the same way that my disdain for Alinea Group (whom I think I've devoted about as much time bashing) is personal: I am a former regular of the group, who loved their work as much as anyone, who witnessed a decline in quality and value firsthand. The COVID layoffs affected my (now) wife, but the wider cleaning house of longtime employees across the concepts (as well as the failure to replace them) is in my view the larger story. I think that's why I have looked more at the wider group (Lee Wolen as the headlining chef, the strategy pursued by the founding partners) rather than bashing, say, Stephanie Izard. I also think my writing about Lettuce Entertain You demonstrates a consistent tendency to hold Chicago's largest groups to a higher standard: judging the moves they make from a more sweeping perspective while also still trying to pinpoint the quality/value being delivered.

I don't think I'm masochistic enough to spend thousands of dollars at Boka (or any of my subjects I visit a minimum of three times) and recount its history over many thousands of words out of sheer hatred. Rather, my writing tries to take every point into consideration, present them all, deduce some kind of logic or pattern, and make a conclusion. The reader has access to my full train of thought and can decide (along with experiencing each restaurant on their own terms) where I've gone wrong. If there are things about my life I do not reveal, and they influence my perception of a subject, the reader will sense that my palate is not reliable. However, the point of the process (a minimum of three visits, a notable investment of time and money, a very thorough steeping of myself in the topic) is to "show my work" (as excruciatingly as possible). Talking about wine selection and markups, tracing the development of recipes over time, describing the intended balance of ingredients in each dish, as well as the execution (insofar as one is clear and detailed) comes as close to the "objective" side of food criticism as possible. Everything else (emotion, "experience") is bound to be subjectively perceived in ways, no matter how hard we try, we are unaware of. I have always had faith that taking this work as seriously as possible and providing as many data points as possible is the only way to overcome biases: both conscious (as this may appear to be) or unconscious (parts of ourselves that we will never acknowledge or admit to the world). Someone who sees me spend a sizable part of an article criticizing BRG's corporate strategy isn't being left in the dark about my feelings. Just the same, they may still find certain aspects of the experience I describe appealing (neither Alla Vita nor Boka received my lowest rating, and aspects of each were praised).

For me, anonymity has always been more about signaling to my readers that I'm not looking to build a personal brand through my writing. My taste and standards are pretty particular, but, if you invest the time required to follow my arguments all the way to the end, you should be able to orient your own taste successfully. The content is not monetized or promoted, so there's no temptation to make clickbait or take extreme positions for the sake of fueling engagement or selling subscriptions. All I really have to offer is an extra degree of detail, cultivated over a large number of visits, assembled out of love (and whether I like or dislike a place my writing is always some kind of expression of love) for dining, for Chicago, for the act of writing itself.

I was a "known" serial fine diner long before I ever published a word about Chicago restaurants. If you frequent concepts (really frequent) and order fine wine, there is no chance of flying under the radar. There is also no point in doing so when the impressions of a known enthusiast, equipped to dine more frequently and be more exacting than a journalist, provides a different kind (in my opinion a superior kind) of value to the audience. I could easily translate my experiences into anonymous Reddit or Instagram posts, complete with ratings, and do a drive-by 250 word review of every place that offends me. I could make one visit to a place, early on in its life, and brand it to my followers for the rest of its existence. I have chosen an anthropological, historical, (consumer) psychological, and artistic approach that is more challenging and rewarding for myself and the reader. Even if only a small number of people pay any mind to what I have to say, some of the ideas will hopefully diffuse throughout the wider dining population. The goal is really to cultivate a better class of consumer, put words to what others may only vaguely sense, and improve the dining scene. The goal is also to record some sense of these living, breathing restaurants in all their glory (or shame) for posterity—not blurbs but deep meditations on what these places meant at a certain point in time. There's no other feedback loop or fame to be found in doing this, in this manner, no matter how "personal" things get behind the scenes.

If anyone read my pieces on Alla Vita or Boka and decided not to visit the restaurants, I regret not being more forthcoming. But I think that kind of decision-making (seeing the rating, making a snap judgment) runs so contrary to the spirit of what I publish. The arguments I am making go well beyond "go here" or "don't go here." The content is only there to enrich or inform the experience of those who already know enough, who are obsessed enough, to engage in a dialogue with me (often subconsciously but sometimes in writing). I think everything I have said about BRG (and Lettuce, and the Alinea Group) is rather apparent. But most consumers care nothing about the machinations of these larger groups so long as they can get a good (or special occasion) meal from them every once in a while. Given the level of quality they've all settled on, they're really not that exciting to write about either.

Maybe saving my attention for smaller concepts is more worthy work. But I've only tried to visit places I naturally take an interest in, submitting it to the equalizing force of my process, and passing on as much as I've learned. That's all I can continue to do.