Teasers Can Be Tricky

For example, take the teaser that is on the front page of today's Food section in the Washington Post. It reads:

Westend Bistro
How does Eric Ripert's D.C. spot compare with his Le Bernardin in New York? It doesn't.

"How catty," was my first thought — the Post is dissing Ripert's newly opened Washington restaurant. I almost skipped past the article written by the Post's Tom Sietsema, assuming I already had the gist of it. As it turns out, however, the Post was not taking a shot at Ripert's Westend Bistro.

I doubt that I was the only reader who assumed that the Post was giving Westend Bistro the thumbs-down. That's bad news for Westend if those readers never get around to reading the actual article.

This same story appears in the Post's online version, but there is no teaser — only the headline, which is hard to misinterpret. The headline reads: It's Not Le Bernardin, and That's the Point.