The Fangs of a Restaurant Critic

This is the kind of writing that makes The New Yorker such a pleasure to read. In the magazine's April 5 issue, there is a review of Le Caprice, a restaurant in the Pierre Hotel. The magazine's critic, Lila Byock, calls Le Caprice "a stuffy take on a sceney London institution." She continues:

As on "Made Men," however, meticulous appearances mask trouble; Lutece this is not.

While you're waiting to be seated, you may be tempted by one of those nostalgic cocktails. Don't be: they're as cloying as the Disney ballads tinkling out of the piano.

... On recent visits, [service] ranged from hostile to bumbling to non-existent. After checking in with the host, a diner was chased down by a suspicious employee who seemed to feel she didn't belong. A bartender recited, unmprompted, the ingredients of every cocktail on the menu, as if to prove he knew them.

A waiter, preoccupied with a former "Saved by the Bell" star at a nearby table, briefly materialized only to sweep away a third-full bottle of wine. When asked to leave it, he froze. "It's not a scam!" he protested. At these prices, one might beg to disagree.

Giving Wine the Common Touch

A quirky wine critic by the name of Gary Vaynerchuk is presenting wine-drinking in a very no-nonsense, almost comical manner. And he has become quite a hit. As this N.Y. Times article reports:

[Vaynerchuk] has broken through class barriers in a way that no other critic has been able to, making wine a part of popular culture.

How has he done it? Read the article and find out the bizarre advice he gave late night TV host Conan O'Brien. Or the "bubble gum" analogy he used to explain how a wine tasted.

One thing's for sure. He's an unconventional character.

Times' Critic: I Was a "Toddler Bulimic"

In this article, New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni has a confession to make:

. . . I was a baby bulimic. Maybe not baby -- maybe toddler bulimic is more like it, though I didn't so much toddle as woddle, given the roundness of my expanding form.

I was a plump infant and was on my way to becoming an even plumber child, a ravenous machine determined to devour anything in its sights.

It's an interesting article. Bruni is very forthcoming about it.