If there is one thing that can inspire fear in any chef or restaurant owner, it is knowing that a food critic has come to visit. Critics have no doubt influenced restaurant culture and the way in which we dine out reports Tamme McCauley.
Since the occupation’s inception, restaurant critics have been the authoritative source when it comes to where diners do and don’t eat. Over the years, restaurant critics have grown in popularity, and changed from anonymous journalists into minor celebrities, with the rise of social media allowing almost anyone to offer their opinion on the food, atmosphere, and staff.
The Origins of the Food Critic
The beginnings of food criticism started in France in the 1700s with the work of Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière, the author of the Almanach des Gourmands, which gave restaurant recommendations and food criticism in and around Paris.
However, it wasn’t until the 1960s that our modern understanding of restaurant critics came to fruition. The creation of the New York Times’s journalist Craig Claiborne’s star rating system saw food criticism becoming a legitimate enterprise.
Claiborne also introduced the idea of anonymity, meaning that he would be treated in exactly the same way as any other diner, and kept his column in the newspaper free of any advertisements or bias to be able to offer his honest critiques.
The Changing Face of Food Criticism:
Unmasking
While those like Claiborne were able to thrive back in the 1960s, the ability for food and restaurant critics to remain anonymous has become all but impossible in today’s digital age.
It is becoming much easier to scope out who they are, with smartphones, cameras, and social media helping to unmask them despite their best efforts to stay out of the public eye. As a result, many are forgoing anonymity altogether and choosing to embrace their status in the role.
Online Reviews
This is especially true when it comes to social media, especially those on platforms such as TikTok. Thanks to the pandemic and traditional dining being off-limits for over a year in some cases, many restaurants opted to provide food delivery services to stay afloat. Because of this anyone was able to become a food critic right from the comfort of their homes.
Not only that, but with the decline of people accessing traditional media such as newspapers, the views of conventional critics are becoming much less relevant to the diners of today. People are much more inclined to take a look at a Yelp or TripAdvisor reviews for the restaurant that they intend to visit rather than to read about it in a magazine.
This opens up a whole new dilemma for restaurants – meaning that they need to make sure that every single guest is treated with the utmost care and respect. Especially compared to critics of old, casual reviewers are more inclined to talk about their negative experiences rather than the positive ones, which can jeopardize a restaurant’s reputation massively.
