New York Times Restaurant Critics reveal secrets of their coveted jobs

As they say, “we save the best for last.” This was the fourth of four special conversations that formed part of the 7^th annual Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival presented by Food & Wine. This time, present and former restaurant critics of “The New York Times,” Frank Bruni, William Grimes, Ligaya Mishan, Sam Sifton and Pete Well, joined TimesTalks and New York Times media columnist David Carr at The TimesCenter to discuss their experiences on the feared and most wanted job in the culinary field.

Ms. Mishan and Mr. Wells were heard but not seen to maintain their anonymity.

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“How do I know you are not some kind of Google Algorithm,” asked Carr to the voices of Well and Mishan to start the conversation. After a few laughs, he continued with the rules of engagement and all those questions you always wanted to ask to a restaurant critic:

Carr: How many times do you go to restaurants, how many people do they bring with them, who pays for the meal and if they wear any kind of disguise like fake nose or glasses?

“We always dine anonymously, which doesn’t mean invisibly or in disguise, but we don’t use our names. The Times pays for it, but we don’t take any freebies or invitations that come our way from restaurants that want to be featured on the ‘New York Times;’ we say ‘thank you very much, we’ll keep you in mind,’” Well said.

Well added that they visit a restaurant three times if they are going to do a star rating, and “if we are not starring a place, we go about two times.”

“I usually go two times,” said Mishan.

“But the tradition forever has been three times,” added Well. “Generally, we bring a bunch of people to eat our way through the menu unless is a tasting menu.”

Carr: Do you guys remember what names you might have used in the past?

“For a long period I would use names from things on books within view, I went through my entire bookcase,” said Bruni.

“I like to be a newscaster, but one thing that would happen to me is forgetting the name!” exclaimed Sifton.

“I just wanted to be invisible, but one time I was late for a reservation and said my real name! But I would use names like Steve Riley that no one would remember,” Grimes said.

Is it all about the stars?

Carr: So what’s up with the stars in the reviews?

“The stars have been around forever, 50 years or so, and they get handed down from critic to critic and each critic has to figure out how to use, what to do with them, and if you go back to the archives you’ll see that each critic used them in different ways. But mainly we all have to figure out what a four stars restaurant is in 2014, which is different from a four stars restaurant in 1994,”said Well. “The four stars restaurant for me was Sushi Nakazawa.”

“I am really grateful that I don’t have to give them because I think that most of the places that I go to it wouldn’t make any sense. You might have a four stars dish but the setting is one star, so I don’t know how all that would even out,” stated Mishan.

I’d like to give no stars because the stars don’t speak as clearly of the restaurant as the review does. But the readers like it, and I think restaurateurs like it too,”Bruni said.

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I think one star restaurants are the ones you want to have in your neighborhood, they will make you happy every time you go to. Ruth didn’t like giving one star so I fought the fight to reinstall the one star as a valid category. And that was appreciated by a few restaurants that had no chance with two or three stars,” said Grimes.

When I go to a place and feel that what I would say would be truly negative or damaging I just don’t know if it’s worthy for these small places. Why would you crush a small place? I try to shine some light instead to do some good,” Ligaya said.

Favorite disguises

“I remember once I decided to disguise myself so I didn’t shave myself for a while and I used lot of gel to slick back more hair than what I have now. And I just sat there, the entire meal feeling like a demented second-rate seventies porn-star. I found it to be so distractive… After that, I bought several wigs,” stated Bruni.

For me big nose and glasses…,” said Sifton. “But I learned in all the research I did about wigs is that you have to make small changes, especially those that characterize you as who you are.”

“I gave it a try a couple of times and it was extraordinary successful. I deceive not only the wait staff but close friends that didn’t recognize me until I got very close to them. And it didn’t take much. I bought a pair of glasses, and inexpensive wigs—changing the hairline changes a lot and that was enough to change drastically the way you look,” stated Grimes.

Carr: I infrequently disagree with you…what your values are as critics and what you look for?

“The main thing is to pretend that you are a regular guest, that you went to that restaurant for the same reasons as any other person while doing your job—we have to observe, analyze, and perform all this mental work, but the key is to do it while feeling the restaurant the way any other person would,” Well said.

Mishan stated, “The restaurants I go to tend to be small…what matters to me is how true they are to the vision of their food.”

Carr: Who gained weight while being a critic?

Well said, “I think so. Right at the beginning, I lost weight. But now considering the passage of time, advanced age and all that probably caught up on me.”

“I don’t have a scale so I can’t say for sure but I’m fighting against it every day so I run, run, and run,” said Mishan.

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“I was in better shape when I was in the job than now. That was the best shape of my life,”Bruni said. “I think it is a fiction that eating out in restaurants the way a critic does it would put weight on you. You are not an eater; you are much of a taster. And you are with other people so you don’t eat everything. Believe me, what you don’t eat they will eat.”

“I like to eat so I like to clean my plates too. But I also felt the need to show up hungry, that’s the job,” stated Sifton.

“I cleaned the plates most times. I would usually showed up hungry, eat my food and everyone else’s food too and I didn’t exercise. I come from a thin family. I would also use the to-go bags for my cats. They gained weight, I didn’t,” added Grimes.