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The image of the mainstream restaurant critic, an older white man, surreptitiously but with a hearty appetite, making snobbish judgments behind a white tablecloth was outdated long before the pandemic struck. White men aren’t the only ones with valid opinions about restaurants; high-end iterations of French or Italian cuisine aren’t the only foods to talk about; and anonymity, the sacred shield of the food critic, no longer necessarily works as before. (As Soleil Ho, food critic for the San Francisco Chronicles said, I’m a millennial and have been on the internet for 15 years, it’s really hard to cover up my tracks at this point.)
Such changes in the world of criticism and culinary writing were already underway; then came the pandemic, which shook the entire restaurant industry (not to mention the media) to its heart. So we invited Devra First, Boston Globe food critic and food writer, New York Times food critic Tejal Rao, and food writer and podcast host A Hungry Society Presents Boundless Horizon Korsha Wilson to discuss how criticism has gone. changed over the past year and where she headed.
Below are slightly edited snippets of the conversation, which are part of our Eater Talks event series, along with a full video recording. For more ways to help the restaurant community, check out the Eaters How to Help guide.
COVID-19 has pushed food writers to move beyond reviews of traditional restaurants.
Tejal Rao: Around March, I had a conversation with my editors [at the New York Times]: Should I continue to submit weekly notices? Should I rethink the restaurant review? And I decided that I didn’t want to write direct reviews at all. So I did more, like weird essays and political reports and just a mix of articles like first person stories about how to think to take away right now, or how my relationship with cars has changed. Just look at it from all possible angles.
Devra First: At first when the restaurants inside closed and it wasn’t clear what was going to happen, I was like [to my editors at the Boston Globe], Hey, how about doing a daily cooking newsletter right now? And we just sent it to the ether. We didn’t know what to do or how we were going to cover it; for the first month or so it was a lot of guesswork and figuring out what it all meant for the restaurants and for us. It was quite tumultuous, but it’s settling down now. Where I work, at the Boston Globe, they also have a great deal of sympathy for the restaurant situation. We started this project called Project Takeout by simply encouraging readers to take out as much as they could. It was interesting to see us doing a bit like boosterism in the name of [restaurant] industry, a position we would never have taken before.
The pandemic has accelerated the reduction of journalism budgets.
First: It was really sad to lose Chicago Tribune food critic Phil Vettel and Detroit Free Press food critic Mark Kurlyandchik this year because the voices of Phil and Mark have been so important to their cities. I think it’s scary for Chicago and scary for the Midwest, but also, it’s an indicator of what the country might look like in the future, because so few publications invest in that kind of coverage. It’s expensive to do.
Wilson: When the pandemic started, there was this very frightening restriction on freelance opportunities, because people [in media] weren’t sure about advertising budgets and if they even had freelance budgets in the future.
Rao: The loss of alternative weeklies and blogs and many of those spaces devastates me forever. These spaces are so vital for local reporting, but also, for me, it was my journalism school. I wouldn’t have become a critic if I hadn’t gotten a job with the Village Voice.
As restaurants and the media change, increasingly diverse voices are emerging within food writing.
Wilson: As a freelance writer, I am fortunate to be able to study [food media] landscape and say, okay, what stories I wish there were in the landscape right now? then present them where I think it makes the most sense. It’s the same thing I do with my podcasts … For me, it’s really important to showcase people of color who aren’t getting a lot of attention. So it’s been a refocus or a doubling of what I’m already covering, which is: really talented people who add a lot and don’t get the attention they deserve.
It is really important for critics to point out what needs to change.
First: I think we have to look to different pipelines. I think people who write nationally and get information from local critics on the ground have cultivated other sources as well, and maybe more different types of voices. I hope in some ways that this pipeline, while shrinking in some ways, then widens in a different way to bridge that difference. Certainly, were going to see fewer and fewer restaurant reviews across the country. So I guess we have to ask ourselves what does this mean, what the readers want, what the audience needs, and how do we see the future and think about how we are going to convey this to the people at? the future ?
Wilson: For [restaurant coverage] to be dynamic, many different people need to make their voices heard. You know America is not all white men. This is not a news flash. But for a long time, restaurant critics have been cisgender white men. So what perspectives are left out in food criticism when this happens? For restaurant criticism to continue to grow, different voices must be at the table explaining why restaurants are important, and why their food is good or service is good. As restaurants change, so too must the people who cover them.
With more voices involved, restaurant reviews cover a lot more ground.
Wilson: An Eater Chicago editorial about the loss of the food critic called food critics the arbiter of taste, and I don’t agree with that. I think food critics are basically journalists, and they cover the pace of food in whatever region they’re in. And then national food critics take a look at the landscape of the American restaurant scene and talk about the changes, the big players, and the different cuisines available. . I think looking at it holistically like that instead of just it’s good, or it’s bad, that’s really where the review needs to go.
Rao: Should critics consider all the vital issues of their moment, like work, inequality, exclusion, all the forces that we don’t immediately see and how they shape our culture and our restaurants and all the spaces in? which ones do we travel to? Like, yeah, that has to be part of the job, even if it’s not part of every story. It has to be part of what motivates the work. I do not consider myself to be an arbiter of taste.
First: it’s really important that critics keep pointing out what needs to change, where there are weak spots, where culturally there are issues to really tackle issues in American culture through the lens of the dining room. eat.
Rao: Much of what has been illuminated this year was not new, it’s been around for a long time, and it doesn’t seem to go anywhere racial injustice, physical costs to workers, structural inequalities throughout. supply chain, environmental costs. Our food system is so broken and so dysfunctional, and people are suffering from it. And I think criticism can play several roles, including continuing to shed light on these issues.
It’s not his only role, but I think a lot about the power of that attention now. Like, where do I keep readers’ attention when I have it? What do I want them to think about? Pleasure is a way in, this delicious food is a way in, I hope good writing is a way in and then you have the readers’ attention, and what are you going to? make ?
Watch the full conference:
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