WHAT'S HAPPENED TO THE
NY TIMES RESTAURANT REVIEWS?
By John Mariani

 

      It’s hardly worth mentioning that the James Beard Restaurant Awards have been a farce for several years, nominating contenders more for their supposed social consciousness than for their overall quality. But it seems that within the past year, since Pete Wells (left) resigned as NY Times restaurant critic after nine years, worn out by the rigors of visiting so many restaurants, that the paper is following the same scent as the JB Awards to cover out-of-the-way eateries whose design, amenities, service staff and wine lists are all secondary to their being ethnic restaurants rather than anything resembling fine dining.

    Worse, where the Times once had 52 reviews per year plus another 52 in a category devoted to just such ethnic eateries around town, it is now unusual to find more than one review a month; sometimes the Wednesday Food Section has none at all.
      This is particularly perplexing because they now have two principal critics and two subsidiaries (below): Ligaya Mishan, whom I have longed championed to be the top critic because she is a very good writer and earnest in getting things right, has had to resort to extravagant descriptions and metaphors to describe the contents in a taco on the Lower East Side. Tejal Rao is the west coast critic (why the Times needs one is anyone’s guess), who knows her stuff but seems so intent to find lesser restaurants serving a few dishes or sandwiches that she tosses three stars about with abandon.
    The second-string critics, Ryan Sutton (a very fine  and insightful writer) and Mahira River (whom I don’t know), mostly devote their space to those kind of outer borough restaurants that used to be covered by Mishan when Wells was top critic. None, by the way, any longer go anonymously to the restaurants.

      Lest anyone suggest for a moment that I hold a snobbish attitude towards small, ethnic restaurants in favor of upscale and fine dining establishments, they apparently haven’t read what I’ve written over the last 50 years, including a stint as the NY Times restaurant critic  in Westchester County and  for 35 years at Esquire, when I happily praised such restaurants all the time.  Way back in 1985 I included places like Pig Heaven in New York, Hu-Nan in Philadelphia, Viet Chateau in Richmond, Wilson’s BBQ in Pittsburgh and Fog  City Diner in San Francisco in my annual round-up. In 2013 I raved about Piaché in Marina del Rey, Rolf and Daughters in Nashville and Stampede 66 in Dallas. So spare me any accusations of bias against restaurants in the lower firmaments.

      The irony about the Times’ current coverage is that in trying to be more egalitarian they are beating a mea culpa that they neglected such places in the past when, as I said, Mishan had that very job, and before her, previous first-line critics, including Wells, Ruth Reichl, Bryan Miller and Mimi Sheraton always covered such restaurants.  Just as The Washington Post’s Tom Sietsema (above) did, The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Vettel did, as well as the editors of Food & Wine and Bon Appetit.

         Ten days ago in the Times L.A-based Rao flew to Portland, Oregon, to award two stars (very good) to a pho noodle restaurant named Paper Bridge (below) that serves iguana. In that same edition Sutton reviewed an Indian restaurant in Brooklyn and a Las Vegas steakhouse import in Greenwich Village, while Rao used her infrequent appearance to enthuse over two pizzerias, one in Bushwick and the other in New Jersey.

      Since Wells wearied of the job, saying it was affecting his health and becoming tedious, one might wonder if fine dining still exists in New York anymore, or even if there are any decent restaurants north of 14^th Street. For the Times’ just-published “New York’s 100 Best  Restaurants” Mishan visited 200 at least once. She insists, quite correctly, that “You can admire a four-star but adore a two-star, despite and maybe even because of its imperfections. The cramped (intimate!) dining room (or lack thereof), the bravura of a kitchen as narrow as a canoe, the wild ambition that doesn’t always hit its mark but still thrillingly teases the edge of the possible.”

    With 100 slots to play with it certainly wouldn’t be difficult to find a few of those not-to-be-missed two-star entries. But does the “proudly scruffy” Kabab King where, as Mayor Mamdami told Mishan, the  service is “horrendous  [and] the attitude as brusque as the kebabs are tender,” deserve a place at Number 100?  How about A&A Bake and Doubles in Bed-Stuy at Number 95?  Is Mishan doing a service to the Times reader to urge a visit to Trinciti Roti Shop (No. 88) when “The wait for the A train to Ozone Park can stretch as long as 20 minutes, the it’s another half-mile walk from the station” to sample a “roti as big as a shirt?” Can a take-out window in a truck named White Bear really be Number 83? Every single restaurant down to No.  63 is Mexican or Peruvian or Ecuadorian or Nepali, etc. The first Italian restaurant besides a pizzeria is the highly regarded critical and popular Italian restaurant Rezdôra, not even mid-point at No. 63, then it’s back to a Tibetan food truck for No. 62. (In this week's review, she awards three––out of four––stars to Meju, a nine-seat counter in Long Island City, Queens, devoted to "the age-old craft of fermentation," saying, "Food here is medicine first."

      I am gob-smacked at finding Daniel Boulud’s flagship, Daniel (left), at No. 56, just above Ha’s Snack Bar. The exquisite Jungsik only No. 41? She likes the Bar at Danny'sThe Modern over his dining room that overlooks the Sculpture Garden; nor is she impressed apparently by Meyer’s  Gramercy Tavern, Union Square Café, Manhatta or The View, all of which have won kudos from other critics.

      New York is where the steakhouse was invented and has more good ones than I can count, but only Keen’s Chop House makes the cut at No. 28. Then follows the Levant storefront named  Tone Café in Brighton Beach and Warung Selasa at Indo Java where the chef cooks only one day a week for two tables and four stools, at No. 22.

      She admires the extraordinary Le Bernardin only enough to slot it at No. 22, just above Khao Kang “steam-table joint.” Soon we’re down to the top ten, starting with the storefront Mama Lee “beyond the reach of any subway” in Bayside; the exquisite Jean-Georges limps in at No. 5; then Meju with its “nine-seat counter hidden behind a banchan shop in Long Island City.”

      The owners of Torrisi  (No. 3), which has not quite  figured out if it wants to be Italian, Jewish or  Jamaican, have long been the Times’ darlings, although their overwrought Italian-American send-up Carbone is not on Mishan’s list.  Neither is the Afro-Caribbean restaurant Tatiana by Kwame Onwachi (left), which was Peter Wells’ choice as No. 1 two years ago.  How did that drop down to No. 12?

    It's really hard to take seriously a list of 100 of New York’s best that somehow ranks a kebab shop or  take-out truck as superior to restaurants like Delmonico’s––America’s first ever––French bistros like Benoit and Balthazar, top French like Gabriel Kreuther and Essential by Christophe (right), superb Italian dining rooms like Fasano, Locanda Verde and Casa Lever, and impeccably stylish New York places like Perry Street, Gage & Tollner, The Boathouse and so many more. There was also a time when the Times critics re-reviewed the four-star restaurants every four years or so to see if they were still at that rank. Not any more.

      

    I’m sure that most of the restaurants on the Times list deserve attention and some are unique in what they serve. But can you imagine if the Times’ dance  critic covered performances of Ukrainian folk dancers in Astoria but ignored the NYC Ballet? Or the theater critic only reviewed Off-Broadway shows? Or the art critic only Asian galleries in Soho? Or the movie critic only Turkish and Korean indies shown in art theaters in the West Village?

    I’ve had some people tell me they think the  Times must be cutting back on expenses, but when you hire four new restaurant critics to replace one and bankroll Mishan to eat at 200 restaurants in one year, that doesn’t sound plausible. Others insist it’s because the Times got burned for not being P.C. enough and, like the James Beard Awards, are trying somehow to spread praise around evenly, but in so doing avoid the very restaurants that New Yorkers––not least the ones still with expense accounts–and foreign and domestic visitors seeking what the best restaurants really are–want to know about. Does the guy from St. Louis really care about a pho noodle shop in the farthest reaches of Queens? But not read a word about Peter Luger?

    The star system of restaurant ratings has always been flawed, and most restaurant critics hate them.  After all, the Times doesn’t hand out stars to Broadway musicals, Carnegie Hall concerts or shows at MOMA. Then again, it’s difficult to justify aligning all kinds of restaurants on the same plane, in the way that the Times does not rate NFL football teams against college teams or a Bach concerto at the Philharmonic against a hip hop ensemble playing the Beacon.

    Criteria do count, and they should not simply be based on the taste of one pizza slice or a tasty gyro sandwich. There are simply too many puzzling omissions on the Times 100 Best without setting some categories––omakase versus dumpling shops, steakhouse versus burger joints,  Italian ristoranti versus pizzerias. Being so darn nice to everybody at the risk of offending an ethnic group is no way to rank the best, the very good, the good and the fair.

    Oh, and what is Mishan’s No. 1 restaurant––the best in New York? You probably never heard of it: Kabawa (right), a Caribbean restaurant on the Lower East Side where you can order up a dish of octopus “with dog sauce,” a skirt steak with onions and a coconut turnover with cream cheese, all for a mere $145.

       Katie expected the “no comment” response she got from Bill Clinton’s office, then four years out of the Presidency. But she knew a few people who were Clinton insiders over the years who might talk about his involvement with Epstein. One of them had been a White House liaison named Lisa Robertson, who had known Clinton since they were together at Yale Law School. She and Katie saw each other socially when Lisa was in New York. She was now a partner at a Washington think tank. And she was an unflagging gossiper.

       Robertson was happy to hear from her friend and in fact told her she’d be in New York the following day on business and would love to have lunch together.      

“What are you in the mood for?” asked Katie.
      “Something expensive. I’m on my company’s dime,” said Robertson. “Hey, how about the ‛21’ Club? Bill always went there when he was in New York. They know me there, too. Let me make the reservation, okay?”
      Katie was delighted by the prospect of dining at ‛21,’ a legendary speakeasy during Prohibition that became one of New York’s power lunch restaurants and one of thecity’s most expensive. The owners claimed that every President since Truman had dined there and that Richard Nixon had his private cache of wines in the restaurant’s cellar, which was located behind a four ton white brick wall (right) that federal agents could never find when they raided the place back in the 1930s.
      It had snowed in New York during the night so the next day the famous jockey statues lining the staircases in front of `21’ looked cloaked in ermine. Katie arrived at the restaurant’s iron gates on West 52^nd Street to be greeted by a doorman in full uniform, then once inside by Shakir Naini at the front desk, where he’d stood for decades. Katie gave him Robertson’s name and he brought her into the main dining room and bar where she found her friend sitting at one of the coveted banquette tables against the old stucco walls.
      Robertson pointed her thumb upward to the ceiling, festooned with Old Boys’ toys like boats, cars and planes.
      “That’s Bill Clinton’s Air Force One right above us, right next to JFK’s PT 109,” she said as a captain seated Katie. Her friend then directed her thumb behind her to a brass plaque. “We’re sitting at Humphrey Bogart’s table.”
      Katie was never one to pretend nonchalance in such places, and as she looked out over a room full of mostly older clientele—the women looking as if they’d just come from the salon, the men all in dark suits, some at the old bar that hadn’t changed in seven decades, She said, “I think I love this place already.”
      “I know,” said Robertson. “Quintessential New York. There’s nothing like this in DC, unless you count that horrible Monocle on the Hill. The Jockey Club's gone. See over at the bar? There are panels that open onto chutes that go to the cellar, and whenever the feds raided the place, the bartender would push a button and all the booze would go down the chute. Lotsa stories in this place.”
      The waiter brought the menus and asked if the ladies would be having a cocktail or wine. Robertson said, “I’m kind of in the mood for a bourbon Manhattan. What about you, Katie?”
      “What the hell,” she said. “It’s Friday, isn’t it?”
      “That’s the spirit. I haven’t got any appointments this afternoon. And let me suggest a couple of items: The crabcakes are to die for, and the steak tartare is perfect! You like Dover sole? Fabulous! The ‛21’ burger is really good, even at $21.”
      The two women ordered and their drinks were brought to the table.
      “Here’s to Olde New York!” said Robertson. She was dressed in a ladies-who-lunch ensemble of royal blue with a gold brooch and a white collared shirt and Hermès scarf. Katie was wearing her wine-colored blazer, black turtleneck and pleated camel-colored skirt.
      Over cocktails the two friends got caught up. By the time the food arrived, Katie was ready to talk about her article. Robertson looked as if she’d heard it all before and wasn’t the least surprised  by the unsavory nature of it all.

      “That’s the way all these guys are,” she  said. “Bill was no different, and even after the Lewinsky thing he was even worse when Epstein  came in to the picture.  As a matter of fact, he was very tight with Epstein, who came to the White House with Ghislaine four or five times while I was there. He’d been a fundraiser for Bill, and he always said Epstein had a good head for topics like currency stabilization and foreign exchange. Which should have been expected since he stashed so much of his own money outside the U.S. Believe it or not, Epstein was at the time on the board of Rockefeller University, and the Council on Foreign Relations.  Go figure.”
        Robertson took a last bite of her Dover sole. “I don’t know. He’s quashed things before, like that Ponzi scheme he walked away from. But this is the kind of thing that makes the media go wild. If he actually gets convicted, he’s going to go to prison, maybe as much as twenty years, depending on the number of counts.”

       “And what if he threatens to blow the lid off all his dear friends like Bill and Prince Andrew?”
       “Oh, he’ll try to play that card, probably by telling the police he will blow the lid unless he’s let go or given a short sentence. There’ll be a lot of people from here to Buckingham Palace who are going to be pissing in  their shoes waiting to see. Oh, and by the way, I deliberately did not advise him on the Monica thing. He really disappointed me on that one. I knew he was a philanderer, but, Jesus, inside the Oval Office? With a cigar?”      

  “What about after Bill left the White House?”
       “Ha, the press dubbed them the ‘Two Musketeers,’ for their social life in New York and Palm Beach. 
          “So he went to all those Epstein parties with the underage girls?”
       “Of course, though I have no idea if he had sex with any of them. Even for Bill that might be a little too risky.”
       Katie leaned back on the banquette and asked, “Well, do you think in any way that Epstein had Bill in his pocket because he didn’t want anything to leak out?”
       “Like I said, they were close friends. Still are. Bill still has that incredible hubris that he’s made of Teflon. But if this investigation heats up in Palm Beach, Bill will distance himself from Epstein as fast as possible, doing that ‛I’m shocked! Shocked!’ routine.”
       “Well, as a lawyer—and I assume you advised him on the Lewinsky affair—what do you think of Epstein getting away with this indictment?”

    Katie left messages with others of Epstein’s regular guests, but, unlike the eager-to-talk Trump, no one else would. Usually a script reading press representative said her client was out of town or could not be reached. Some said their client could not comment on an ongoing investigation, an excuse that usually indicated some involvement, including George Stephanopoulos, Les Staley and Woody Allen. Katie fully understood why Allen would not speak to her, for he had ten years earlier gone through a mean-spirited  child custody court battle over his wife Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter, Sun Yi, then 22, with whom Allen, then 56, had had what he called “a fling,” after admitting to taking nude photos of her. He would afterwards marry  her, but for years Allen’s obsession with very young women whom  he cast in his movies was the butt of talk show jokes, as was Bill Clinton’s sleazy affair with Monica Lewinsky .

Katie had already gotten from Harvey Weinstein all she could, and she knew that by fiat no member of the Royal Family like Prince Andrew would ever speak to the press about such a matter. Even less probable was  Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (right).

What bothered Katie most was that Epstein’s parties had so often appeared in the social columns, often with photographs, and so many people had to have known what went on behind those closed doors in New York, Palm Beach, the Caribbean and Zorroland. There had always been innuendos but they seemed tossed off by the Old Boys Club as rich, entitled men just being men. There was nothing novel about it. But it was criminal and it worked as long as everyone agreed to be quiet about the massages and the underage girls. It was simply a question of “don’t ask but definitely don’t tell.”

Katie believed she was getting close to exposing the sexual trafficking part of the story, but she still felt Epstein’s financial misconduct could not yet be tied into it. Money never changed hands, just promises of support, mutual business interests, bank loans difficult for others to obtain. More work needed to be done, and she hoped David could pry out instances of wire fraud and bank mismanagement from his contacts with former cops and district attorneys.

Then the phone rang. It was Dobell.

“Katie, I need you to come to the office ASAP. I’m having a pow-wow with the whole staff in an hour.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’ll let you know when you get here.”

 © John Mariani, 2024