Eating

The Art of the Restaurant Review By JONATHAN WOLFE Dig in. Celeste Sloman for The New York Times Good morning. Here in New York, everyone’s a critic. And Restaurant Week, kicking off today and running through Feb. 9, offers amateur food critics their biannual chance to evaluate three-course lunches ($29) or dinners ($42) at hundreds of restaurants across the city. But to be a professional restaurant reviewer, you need more than a reservation and a hot take on udon noodles. The job demands a hearty appetite, an iron stomach, and a touch of spycraft to avoid fawning treatment from staff and chefs. The New Yorker has a new food critic, Hannah Goldfield. We asked her and Pete Wells, The New York Times’s restaurant critic, for the inside scoop on writing about food for a living. Their responses are lightly condensed. How do you choose what to order? Mr. Wells resists the “cliché of foodie insiderism” to order the “craziest thing on the menu.” He lets his guests choose many of the plates: “I’m really interested in the item in the menu that’s written in a way that it sings out to people.” Ms. Goldfield: “When I go to a restaurant for the first time I will often start with what grabs my eye as being unusual. I also try to put myself in the head of any other diner: Is there something that’s just going to be a crowd-pleaser?” What’s it like going out to dinner with you? Mr. Wells: “It can be like a job. I tell you what to do, and I may end up eating at strange hours in weird corners of the city. It doesn’t work out that well to have people who think they’re just going out for fun.” Ms. Goldfield: “I really need to focus on the food and on my surroundings. Sometimes I’ll just check out of the conversation, which can drive people crazy.” You make reservations under different names. Does that matter, when anyone can Google you and see what you look like? Mr. Wells: “The real merit in anonymous reviewing is showing up as a regular civilian even if they recognize you at the door, so that you’re not telegraphing that you expect to be treated as a representative of the newspaper.” Ms. Goldfield: “I think the idea of special treatment for a critic is, to some degree, a thing of the past. Service has just gotten better across the board. Part of that is an emphasis on hospitality and part is also symptomatic of the Yelp era.” What makes a good meal? Mr. Wells: “The most satisfying meals that I have are the ones that the chef isn’t trying to make a huge impression but is just trying to make the food really good. You would think that making the food really good is the baseline, but beyond that a lot of ego and flag planting can creep in and it’s not always to the benefit of the diner.” Ms. Goldfield: “Really good, really unpretentious cooking. I’m averse to preciousness. I like to feel like what I’m eating looks like food and marries flavors in a thoughtful rather than showy way.” Current favorite food? Mr. Wells: “Things with crust, like tarts and savory pies.” Ms. Goldfield: “I love mapo tofu, but there’s almost nothing I find so satisfying as really good bread and butter.”