May 15, 2009 |
Short Order
Is There a Fly in My Soup?
The search is on. Everyone into tabletalk is speculating who will be the Times new restaurant critic. Remember, the Times does favor plucking an unlikely candidate out of its ranks, provoking “a quizzical buzz.” That’s how editor Bill Keller put it, describing Frank Bruni’s summons from the Rome bureau in an online letter yesterday to the staff confirming Bruni’s move from dining out to a new assignment. Alex Witchell is currently being wasted. I nominate her. I also like Cintra Wilson,who dissects new boutiques with heart-stopping metaphors in Thursday’s Style section. Although perhaps she’s not a passionate gourmand. I’ve noticed she often writes about belts, an accessory most foodies disdain. But there she sits dipping her pen in blood, right under their noses. That may be a clue. I do wonder if she eats.
Clearly the Times has an ideal candidate in the 12-year-old boy anointed a restaurant critic in a recent column. He actually looks like a miniature Times man with his retro haircut. He carries a big leather notebook and makes notes in plain sight. He’ll need to buy something smaller so he can write under the table. And he can bring his mother as a kind of disguise. I got an email a few weeks ago from a 10-year-old boy in Australia who wants to be a restaurant critic. Not yet spoiled by too much attention like the 12-year-old, the Times could mold him.
Would it be a blogger? Grub Street asks. (Perhaps someone from Grub Street?) I would hope the Times would not stoop to a blogger unless all else fails (Murdoch forbid) and the print edition folds. But for her singleminded aggressiveness, Restaurant Girl deserves a bid. Danyelle Freeman was always crystal clear that she hoped to metastasize her blogospheric fame to a print job and the News fell for it. Of course, unlike the News, which posts a close-up photo of her alongside her column, the Times will want anonymity. A little plastic surgery, a haircut and a more conservative wardrobe might be necessary. And Ruth Reichl could coach her on disguises.
Maybe Tim and Nina Zagat could share the byline – they would do short pithy paragraphs, perfect for the new smaller, thinner Times, the better to fit if Dining Out gets folded into Business. Woody Allen eats out all the time and he’s great in the New Yorker. Martha Stewart could handle it. I bet she has nothing to do between 2:30 and 3 a.m. anyway.
I nominate Florence Fabricant too. After all those years as a bridesmaid she really deserves it. Would they consider bringing back Molly O'Neill? Look how often they brought back Marian Burros. They lucked out with Ruth Reichl. Maybe they’ll look to L.A. again and tap Jonathan Gold.
Why am I not surprised that Frank Bruni has whipped off his napkin and resigned as restaurant critic? That’s what restaurant critics do at the New York Times. The job seems to grind them up. In my 31 years as New York’s Insatiable Critic, I watched dozens of restaurant critics come and go, some of them two or three times. After the Great God Craig Claiborne, Raymond Sokolov, and after a second round of Craig, a most unlikely interim forchette, art critic John Canaday (who deferred to his wife for a word on dessert), Mimi what’s her name had her bruising reign. Marian Burros was brought back two or three times. Then Brian Miller took over reluctantly with Pierre Franey as coach in l985. "When I started leaving tips for my mother, I realized that I was at this job for too long," he said announcing his departure. After a golden era of Ruth Reichl came William Grimes. Who? Biff Grimes. Who? Was it Burros again? Amanda Hesser for a brief hiccup and then Bruni.
His tossing the fork aside is not really a surprise. You could read it between the lines in recent columns. Surely his "Dear Graydon, I was wrong" assay of parody in a review of Restaurant Charles could have been seen as a farewell to useful criticism. "Graydee baby, I have a confession. Don’t be cross! But I cheated on you. For a while there…"
At the moment everyone is being gracious. “As a correspondent in the Rome Bureau, Bruni was not the obvious choice to take over the role in 2004,” Keller wrote, but "five years later, the choice seems not only obvious, but inspired, proving that sometimes editors get one really right. Not content to review his way around New York with authority and brio, not content to blog discoveries that do not yet merit a fullblown review, he has also performed more ambitious feats of criticism: his unforgettable cross-country tour of the iconic fast food joints of America, for instance, and his quest for the best brand-new restaurants in all of America."
As for possible bloggers, former Grub Streeter, the astonishingly prolific Josh Ozersky at Citysearch is named. Foster Kamer at BlackBook looks at Adam Platt, Alan Richman, and Bloomberg’s Ryan Sutton. He thinks I’m too old school and suspects Steve Cuozzo’s chutzpah is perfect for the Post, not the Grey Lady. He really likes Robert Sietsema at the Village Voice but suspects he is too downtown for the Times and suggests bringing back former “$25 and under writer” Peter Meehan.
“Who do you like for Times restaurant critic,” I asked Esca chef David Pasternak at dinner last night when he stopped by our table.
“You” he said. How chivalrous.
“Well, I hope they don’t bring back Mimi,” David went on. “She really guillotined a few guys. She was really tough.”