Food Critics and Anonymity, Redux

So after the heated debate that my Las Vegas Weekly column spurred last month over the recent book "Eating Las Vegas" and the disturbingly clubby relationships between the three critic authors and prominent Vegas restaurateurs, the topic just erupted in a massive way in Los Angeles, too.

The L.A. Times' food critic, S. Irene Virbila and some companions went to a new restaurant called Red Medicine in Beverly Hills the other night. For 16 years, she has worked as under-the-radar as possible. But someone on the staff at Red Medicine believed he spotted Virbila, who had made reservations under an assumed name. The managers spent a little time confirming it and made the party wait 40 minutes before bursting out, shooting her photo and informing her they would not be serving her at the restaurant.

The restaurant then put out a photo of Virbila on their website, too, and Gawker and Eater.Com also posted it. Her anonymity, such as it was, is gone. She spent 16 years avoiding photos of herself being published.

There is much to say, obviously. Managing partner Noah Ellis thinks he's a hero, telling the L.A. Times that Irene's reviews in the past have been "unnecessarily cruel and irrational." She is said to have immense power over the fate of new restaurants, and she tends to eat at least three times at a place before making a decision.

This situation is a Rorschach test for those who line up on various sides of the debate. I, of course, believe that food critics ought to try their best to visit restaurants unannounced and incognito in order to have as accurate a representation of the food and experience as possible. Those have been the phrases I've been using for weeks on this matter, so imagine how gratifying it was to read Virbila in the L.A. Times story on her outing saying that it is preferable to not make a spectacle of yourself because if you do, "it's not an accurate representation of the restaurant."

If I'm deluded into believing that it's not that hard to be a quiet, effective food critic, then the other side -- including L.A. Weekly critic Jonathan Gold, who thinks there's "absolutely no difference in being recognized in restaurants" -- is at least as equally, but more insidiously, delusional. It's shocking and laughable when Vegas Seven critic Max Jacobson said on KNPR that he doesn't evaluate service because service doesn't matter, showing how insufferably removed from the reality of ordinary restaurant patrons he is. (Jacobson also announced on that show that anyone who needs to try a restaurant more than once to evaluate it is a poseur, someone lacking in "instincts." Good grief.)

Those who believe that anonymity is a total myth, however, point to the fact that Virbila was noticed at Red Medicine and that chefs say they know who the important critics are and coddle them whether they know it or not. The entire charade is worthless and silly, they squawk.

Except there are 72-oz-porterhouse-wide holes in that logic in this situation:

* After 16 years in Los Angeles, it took Red Medicine a great deal of deliberation before they could determine if, in fact, this was the person. Thus, they don't ALL have her photo up in their kitchens or her face memorized. These were veteran restaurant people and they weren't entirely sure.

* The purpose of this outing was to forewarn other restaurant owners and make Virbila's work harder. That implies that she had managed to be successful at her undercover work at least some -- a lot? -- of the time.

* The logical conclusion of this idea that critics ought to give up being anonymous and allow restaurants to shower them with extra goodies and attention is that criticism by the very people who have real culinary expertise -- such as Mancini, Curtas and Jacobson -- becomes disregarded by the public. The reader knows these guys are coddled and that they won't be, so the reader is more likely to discount rave reviews as the result of some nefarious, unfair meddling. That leaves, essentially, the Yelp! universe. I don't mind that -- I look to Yelp! often -- but the odds are the Yelpers don't have the history or expertise that long-term professional critics have. The outcome is the triumph, essentially, of less informed opinions.

Of course, there's a space between the true-anonymity and the critic-as-rock-star poles. In there, food critics simply try to keep a low profile, to not draw attention to themselves, do their best and at least maintain the implicit contract with the reader that they're working on their behalf. They don't make chums with chefs and owners any more than I'm chums with top casino executives I cover or Jon Ralston is chums with politicians or Mike Weatherford is chums with actors and directors. You can be friendly and civil without it becoming a friendship, you can maintain a detachment that allows you to assess situations and information through a prism that enriches the public that you serve.

There is a reason why this topic -- and now the Red Medicine event -- is so fascinating. There is also no other discipline where an artist or purveyor of creative goods is permitted to select their critic. No author or film studio can stop a critic from consuming the material and rendering a response. Only in food criticism is it even possible to alter the product for a person's specific tastes or actually exclude them altogether from being able to evaluate it.

That's why the Virbila situation is so weird. No matter where you stand, it ought to be instinctively offensive that Ellis would actively work to out this woman and refuse to serve her. That reflects, to me, two things:

* The restaurant must truly suck.

* The owner is incredibly bitter.

Food Journalism and Criticism Under The Microscope

I knew some folks wouldn't like what I had to say about "Eating Las Vegas," the new book by three leading Vegas food critics. But still, wow.

In this week's Las Vegas Weekly column, I took aim at the strange spectacle that John Curtas, Max Jacobson and Al Mancini made of themselves unveiling their book naming the city's 50 most "essential" restaurants. The reason I did so was because it was an only-in-Vegas event; it is very abnormal for serious food critics to be personally handing out awards to restaurants or posing for photos with chefs.

Food critics typically try NOT to draw attention to themselves, hoping to approximate the experience that real diners would have. It's a simple concept. It's also one of the guiding principles of the Association of Food Journalists.

Well, holy hell. The blowback has been fascinating. I ended up in a Twitter feud with a fellow whose work I had really enjoyed, admired and promoted until he came at me on Facebook not with a measured, mature response but with the ridicule and haughtiness that are his standard.

It went downhill from there until these moments of professionalism:


What brought all that on? Well, this blogger/Tweeter believes that food critics will be recognized anyway so they ought to soak up the sun. That critics all over the country do what they can to guard their identities so that they can be a proxy for the public is a "ruse" to him. (Aside: These are the extent to which food critics work to protect their identity in other places.) The entire rest of the food criticism world are populated by "idiots" and how clubby, provincial Vegas does it is the only sane method.

Beyond this classless fellow's inability to disagree respectfully -- he asked someone who wanted us to stop arguing why she had to "step on [his] balls" -- he also claimed he was recognized in Vegas restaurants after just two months of doing his blog. That's simply too ridiculous to take seriously; restaurants on the Strip are actually some of the easiest to slip in and out of without being noticed as a reviewer because they're huge, the staff changes so frequently and they see thousands upon thousands of different faces every month.

Only a select few critics warrant the sort of effort that would go into figuring out who they are and tripping alarms when they're around, and this vainglorious blogger is absolutely, positively not at that level. As I've said, I admire(d) his work and believe(d) he could get there some day. But not now. Neither, incidentally, am I. I have absolutely no problem going to restaurants without anyone knowing who I am, and I've been responsible in past years for selecting eateries for the Conde Nast Traveler Hot List.

So this rang false to me, and I called it. Either it's untrue or this fellow's doing something to draw attention to himself. Those are the only choices that make any logical sense. Either way, his completely deranged response showed a person who has little self-control. I'd hate to be his waiter.

Meanwhile, fellow Las Vegas Weekly scribe John Curtas, the city's eminent foodie, responded with a more mature version of that guy's commentary. And here is what he said:

I haven't been anonymous in Las Vegas restaurants for almost ten years (except in Chinatown, where I could be on the cover of Time magazine and no one would care), and neither was Frank Bruni (or Sam Sifton - his successor at the NYTimes). That anonymity myth was exploded years ago in the Big Apple and something journalist Freiss should know.

For better or worse, the days of the stealthy, journalist/critic are gone. The best I can do is tell my readers when I pay for a meal and when I don't...and then call 'em as I see 'em after that.

Steve makes a good point about sucking up to publicists -- something I refuse to do...much to the dismay of many a flack in many a Strip hotel. If I suck up to anyone, it's to the hard working chefs who put out the world class food that has made Vegas famous in the culinary world.

Fine. That's the other point of view, that celebrity is unavoidable and does not taint the experience.

We all know that the second part's not true, though. We need look no further than a passage in "Eating Las Vegas" in which Al Mancini talks about giving Nove at the Palms a very bad review and then being spotted there and allowing the chef to fawn all over him until he changed his view. Just because the chef takes extra care for him and, perhaps, tailors things to Mancini's particular palate, doesn't mean that he'll do the same for you. In fact, he won't.

It's a conundrum, no doubt about it. But there are two legitimate points of view. My side is that food critics ought to err on the side of trying not to make spectacles of themselves. The effort to conceal identity is honorable and, if it even works half the time, it's worthwhile.

Meanwhile, oddly, there was this sighting of me, courtesy of Mr. Curtas' Facebook:


Sorry, pal. I was right here at home last night, after doing the first wave of Thanksgiving Day shopping. I've still yet to go to Lakeside Grill. Perhaps we can go together and carry on this argument there. I bet we get awesome service.

P.S. Big kudos must be offered to the Weekly for even printing my piece given that Curtas is the resident food critic. I bet you all a dollar that neither Mancini's Las Vegas CityLife nor Jacobson's Vegas Seven will print anything seriously critical of the book.

Your Sunday Reading Assignments

I've finally caught up on weeks of reading and found some stuff of Vegas relevance to recommend. Most is from today's paper, actually, but some is kind of old, but if you haven't seen it, it's new to you:

* Margo Bartlett Pesek's Trip of the Week column. In an otherwise worthless R-J travel section, Margo does a really nice job of offering some intriguing day-trip suggestions. This week's piece on wineries -- yes, wineries -- near Vegas was clip-and-save caliber.

* Henry Brean's really well-written piece today on the new critters they're finding in Snake Valley and how it intersects with Las Vegas' plan to suck water from northeastern Nevada via a really, really long pipe. Really cool, beautiful video, too, by John Locher.


Too bad the R-J's crack Web staff still hasn't figured out how to let people embed it.

* This piece by Adrienne Packer of the R-J about Clark County goons who busted and left carless a desolate 51-year-old woman for trying to make ends by picking people up at the airport. She had an ad on Craigslist offering to do all manner of chores and errands, including providing rides, and the Transportation Authority actually executed a sting. It's understandable that they need to make sure drivers picking up people at McCarran are licensed and not evil-doers, but when they realized this wasn't some big fake-cabbie ring but a nice, desperate lady, maybe they could've applied some common sense?

* Brendan Buhler, whose work I always have enjoyed but who handled the desperate publicity circus surrounding the Pink's Hot Dogs hilariously and then turned around and wrote sensitively and tastefully about how the new domestic partnership law would benefit a lesbian couple and their family.

* My Las Vegas Weekly colleague Rick Lax's really funny cover piece recently about trying to "live" at Town Center. Also, Dave McKee's profile of the classic French restaurant Le Pamplemousse for CityLife. Rick's was an idea I wish I'd thought of, McKee's was one I'd considered many times and never gotten around to doing.


* LVW food critic Max Jacobson has a piece in Gourmet this month listing seven places in Vegas worth their prices. I agree with many of his choices -- Raku, Simon and Lotus -- but am baffled by his praise of Beijing Noodle No. 9 at Caesars Palace. Having lived in China for two years, I'm here to tell you that food was bland. Also, the dining room is a little too kaladascopic for me.


Makes ya dizzy, no? Food's not that great, either.