Critiquing the Critic

    I couldn't help compare Sam Sifton's writing to that of  the notorious A.J. Liebling.   In the first critique I read by Sifton, he had just visited Ai Fiori.  Like Liebling, his writing was undeniably beautiful, vivid and eloquent.  However, my immediate reaction was: pretentious. When he described the restaurant on the ground level of the hotel with "farmhouse tables, rustic food and shouting," I found that unbelievable. From the one photo posted on the article, the restaurant looked anything but.  Although he gave the restaurant three stars, he said the risottos were "not magic but [. . .] hardly clunkers."  He said the meal tasted of "wealth and self-satisfaction." I loved when he got so excited about the forks "set in high-European manner" but by the end of the article, I wasn't sure if he was being serious or bitingly sarcastic. 

     The second review I read only grounded my initial feelings more. Sifton described Bar Basque having an extremely uncomfortable atmosphere, and said it "evoke[d] a future in which everyone lives inside a mobile device." His skill for writing was still evident when he described the food, his cod dish was accompanied by "baby root vegetables [sitting] around the plate as throw pillows might surround a feather bed." But I was still not convinced.  While I felt that Sifton's writing was much more accessible than Liebling's, I still felt cold; I didn't feel that these stuffy-seeming old, white, rich men were capturing what I have always considered to be good food. 

But as I delved deeper, I connected with Sifton. In his Hey Mr. Critic series, he became human, just as Liebling did for me in his New Yorker articles. When a local couple mourns the loss of one of their favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurants, I was worried Sifton would respond by suggesting they check out a new $60 per person French Haute cuisine restaurant with a view of Central Park, 8 courses and all the Bourbon they could drink and to screw Dim Sum. But he knew the exact restaurant they were describing. He lamented with them, admitting he "ate there in the heat of summer and the slush and cold of February and all months in between, for years." Then he took it a bit too far, comparing losing a good restaurant to losing a loved one or a family member. But then I thought about the restaurants that I've loved that have left, a place called Nora's in particular. 

     It was about ten minutes from my old house, and my family's top choice for family dinner outings.  They had a salad bar that my sister and I loved, with homemade macaroni and cheese, creamy cheddar molten on the inside with browning bubbles on top. My sister particularly loved the pop-overs which for some reason—we have no idea how she came up with it—she referred to as 'Buffalos.' My mother would order the Pork Chops and my dad the Walleye and for desert we'd split a turtle sundae. After dinner we played 'shadow tag' in the parking lot until our stomachs cramped from too much food and laughter. Seven years later we still talk about how great that place was and how lame the new French place is that took its place. 

     I was starting to get Sifton. His next Hey Mr. Critic article I read talked about how to get the "Maximal Flavor for Minimal Cash." While he did let people know about the $50 options, it turns out Sifton knows that the best way to get cheap, good food is to look for those small, unnoticed ethnic places that are rich with flavor and culture. I liked that he had an opinion on restaurants that offer reservations vs. places that don't and actually created a dialogue with his readers, making me laugh out loud when he posed the discussion: "That is a subject you can argue about in the comments below if you like, at least if you’ve been to the restaurants a bunch and can write a civil sentence about them. (Otherwise: step off.)"  You can tell his readers like him by the comments they post on his critiques. Even when they have something negative to say, they are usually formal and polite.  This may have a lot to do with his audience, but I also think it has something to do with his honesty, his humor and his accessible writing. Even if I was a well-known food critique and my job was to let my readers know the truth about good food and the "intersection of eating and health," there is NO way I would tell my audience I consumed 24,560 calories. But that's what I enjoyed in Sifton's writing. His honesty. That he talked about his family, that he defended his lack of vegetables. That he posted a YouTube video to all the haters commenting on his health article. That he admitted that sometimes he has a bad day and heads out for chicken wings and beer with some reporter friends.