How a Food Critic Plots His Pans

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/reader-center/peter-luger-negative-review.html

Version 0 of 1.

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.

The best part of writing criticism, most people who do it for a living will tell you, is the opportunity to sing out when something comes along that’s new, different, exciting, paradigm-shifting or even just better than average. We’re all exposed to a lot of dismal examples of whatever it is we’re charged with assessing, so the good stuff cheers us up. The really, really good stuff makes us want to grab people by the collar and rave about what makes it so great, until the police are called and we have to find someone else to bother.

It’s hard to work up a froth about mediocrity, though. There’s just so much of it. Time is short and space is precious, even on the internet. In a typical week I eat out at least five times but I write only one review. That leaves enough leeway that when I encounter bad restaurants, I can practice a catch-and-release policy and throw almost all of them back. The ones I don’t throw back have to be big enough to be worth keeping.

In other words, I tend to write negative reviews, which can hurt the bottom lines of relatively small businesses, only when readers are at risk of wasting their money on the basis of an established reputation. It could belong to a famous chef, a deep-pocketed restaurant group or an institution whose historical and cultural significance reaches far beyond its neighborhood. The subject of my review this week, Peter Luger Steak House, is in the last category; a 132-year-old holdover from the days when a substantial number of New Yorkers had moved here from Germany, it has become famous around the world as one of the city’s original beef palaces.

When an idol falls on its face, the critic who points it out will be greeted as a hero in some corners and, in others, as an idiot, a philistine, an elitist, a liar, a score-settler, an agenda-haver or as some of my Twitter friends put it this week, “a whiny little bitch.”

The cheers that always come after a negative review don’t affect what I write, but my worry about a backlash does. It drives me to go over the copy again and again, looking for weak arguments, adding praise where it’s deserved, snipping out adjectives that are a little too barbed and acknowledging certain objections in advance.

I knew that simply describing the sole at Peter Luger would open me up to charges that I didn’t know what to order in a steak house, so I joked about it and made sure it was clear I had eaten plenty of red meat, too. I knew my criticisms of other aspects of the dining experience, including the service, the wine list and the side dishes, would strike Luger loyalists as beside the point, so I ended the review by recognizing that. The bees might still swarm, but at least I would have closed the doors and patched the window screens.

Swarm they did. The days that my negative reviews are published are not, as a rule, very productive ones. I try to stay away from social media. Three years ago, as soon as I knew that my review of Per Se — which knocked the restaurant from four stars to two — had gone online, I went offline entirely. I shut down the Wi-Fi at home and opened a manila file full of photocopied research I had been working on. It isn’t just the potshots at me that I’m avoiding at times like this; it’s the way a negative review can bring out the torches and pitchforks on both sides. Mobs can be intoxicating to watch, but I don’t trust them.

Later, when the smoke has cleared, I’ll try to catch up on my inbox and, if I have time, my Twitter mentions.

I always learn something. After I criticized the restaurant Daniel for making some diners feel more welcome than others, dozens of people wrote to say they had always had wonderful experiences there. That was great to hear, but twice as many people told me they had felt like less than valued customers. Both kinds of email rounded out my understanding of the restaurant — and of what people want when they go out to eat.

This week, on a rough estimate, roughly 10 readers agreed with me about Peter Luger for every one who came to its defense (or simply wanted to tell me what a fish-eating jerk I am). The letters from people who had experienced bad meals often had an undertone of heartbreak, of romance gone wrong. I could relate. The ones from loyal fans of the restaurant were either incredulous or dismissive. I’ll eventually respond to the civil ones, but I don’t know what to say to the people who’ve never had a bad meal at Peter Luger, except to wish them many happy returns.

Follow the @ReaderCenter on Twitter for more coverage highlighting your perspectives and experiences and for insight into how we work.