In Praise of the Endangered Restaurant Critic
When news broke last week that Raymond Sokolov, the longtime restaurant critic of the Wall Street Journal, was out, the average foodie probably didn’t look up from his plate. Some middle-aged guy isn’t writing reviews for a newspaper whom few even knew had a restaurant critic. So what?
Real foodies should be concerned that critics like Sokolov are an endangered species. Their habitat — big-ticket, fine-dining restaurants — shrinks every year, encroached upon by gourmet hamburger joints, taco stands and various other chic, no-frills eateries. Their food supply — the expense accounts of large newspapers and magazines — has withered. And their most invaluable asset — their towering authority — has been leached away by blogs and review websites, leaving them without a place in the new ecosystem. All of which is too bad, because critics like Sokolov ought to be at the very center of it.
When you like a critic, you trust his judgment not because he has a doctorate in food letters, although such things do apparently exist. He’s proved himself over a long period. You know what he likes or dislikes. You get him. Maybe you don’t always agree; but when you’re looking at getting a babysitter and maybe dropping three bills on dinner, you need to minimize risk. For that, the user reviews on Citysearch or Yelp are beyond useless — they’re faceless and contradictory — and the same goes for blogs. (Blogs at least sometimes take pictures.) So there, in that whirlwind of trends and fad ingredients and hype and backlash, are a few immense ancient trees, with sturdy roots and massive trunks to hew to.
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