- jphilipg/Wikimedia Commons
- Not all restaurant critics live here
It takes a special kind of myopia to worry that restaurant reviewing is dying when more Americans are doing it than ever. (Online restaurant critic, the last job Americans will do.) But the old model—wherein the critic was an anonymous figure with the power to slam what needed to be slammed and the publication was big enough to (usually) withstand a restaurant’s fury without worrying about being cut off from access for future stories—has become rarer, although it survives in a few places (like this publication). One-person food journalism operations—by which I mean blogs, but also once-major players whose food sections have been downsized to the point they’re no bigger than a personal blog—have to thread an impossible needle. They have to review restaurants as honestly as they can, on their own funds or as PR guests, while always looking over their shoulders to see which bridges to future access are about to burst into flames. (Or by simply saying “to hell with it” and getting right into bed with the industry.)
• On Wednesday I wrote about the tragedy that befell longtime chef Dean Zanella when his wife died suddenly, a week after giving birth to twin girls, and that a fund-raiser event was being planned at Mindy Segal’s Hot Chocolate by industry friends. The event will be start at 6 PM on March 31; admission is $200 (cash or check only), and a genuinely heartwarming number of local chefs and restaurants are donating food, drink, and their time, including Bill Kim, Heather Terhune, John Manion, Tony Priolo, Elisa Narow, Rob Levitt, Takashi Yagihashi, Giuseppe Tentori, John Hogan, and Roger Herring. There will be an afterparty at Big Star from 9:30 PM to midnight, with a portion of regular proceeds going to the fund. For reservations call Hot Chocolate at 773-489-1747.
