The New York Times food critic Pete Wells released his top 100 restaurant list. The thing about Pete is, he has the world’s best job. He’s the most well-known food critic in New York, working for the most famous newspaper in the world. His job is going to restaurants and writing reviews, something some of us do as a hobby.
I play football as a hobby too, but I don’t begrudge NFL players their paychecks. Why? Because they are demonstrably amazing at their craft. Other than some idiots in bars pulling the “nah he ain’t that good” routine before launching into how they “coulda gone d1,” everyone understands this. With Pete, he’s demonstrably just wrong. And not just wrong in that he has an unrefined palate, or wrong in that he has different tastes to me. Wrong as in, led astray in a more spiritual sense.
Pete started out okay. Back before he was the guy for NYC food, he wrote short, stubby articles, mostly about alcohol and bartending. His most interesting article in his first couple years is about a party thrown for the staff of the Spotted Pig (RIP) at del Posto, featuring Mario Batali decapitating a hog and ruminating about flying in “finches” (the conspiracy theorist in me thinks maybe be meant ortolan, even though they’re technically not finches). You might notice that the Spotted Pig and Mario Batali both were later in the news for rather unsavory reasons. I’m not judging Pete for hanging around them, but I think it ended up being formative of his style ten years later. This was back when New York’s good food actually tasted good—all anyone really ever ordered at the Spotted Pig were amazing burgers, fries, and delicious cocktails, and we were okay with that. Back when Ladner was the chef at Del Posto. Before things like the financial crisis and the pandemic, when Donald Trump was some real estate guy.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
And if you go back, you can tell New York showed Pete that good food tastes good, too. He was amazed that tacos under $50 can be fantastic. He wrote about how he wasn’t sure the gourmet, upscale burger was any better than the classic burger. He wrote about EMP, but he wasn’t above covering the new Nolita Shake Shack either.
In late 2011, Pete became the restaurant critic for the Times. And you can see his style start to turn. He liked Parm—clearly he is still on good terms with the Major Food Group team, more on that later—but lamented its lack of a a classy atmosphere for dinner. Pete, you were getting a delicious meatball sub for $8 (now $12). Do you like food, or do you like atmosphere? There’s nothing wrong with wanting a couple candles. But it was the beginning of the end—or at least the end of the beginning.
Pete has since written three articles that attracted national attention. The first, which put him on the map, was a caustic takedown of Guy Fieri’s Times Square American Kitchen and Bar. Why would a food critic set food in a massive restaurant run by a TV chef? The New York Times doesn’t review Olive Garden, and the FT doesn’t review Jamie’s Italian (celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s chain of low-end Italian restaurants). And not only that, a restaurant in Times Square of all places? I am almost certain it’s the only Times Square restaurant Pete has reviewed. So yeah, when you order chai tea (not joking, he actually did this) at a place with a “Welcome to Flavortown” sign, that is clearly a monstrous tourist trap, it’s probably not going to be great. I’m sure the restaurant was bad. But it’s a vicious punch down.
The problem is, America loved it. It was his most viewed article by far, and a top five most-viewed article in the entire New York Times in 2012. And this was the next block in building the flimsy elitism that came to characterize his reviews. He wrote articles titled “The Bean Curd of Desire,” and “An Exultation of Lentils.” He deemed Calliope’s rabbit kidneys in cognac sauce as the natural heir to the holy simplicity of the Spotted Pig. He kindled a love affair with Empellon Cocina, which lasts on to this day, a “Mexican inspired” restaurant which is now a chain, created by some ex-Alinea chef who is not remotely Mexican—the dead opposite of the Williamsburg BYOB tacos he once loved. He’d come full circle. Sorry, but no one really likes lentils, bean curd, and a plate of organic farm-to-table shit masquerading as Mexican food; they like food that actually tastes good.
By then, nothing could stop Pete. His second famous article was a 2016 review downgrading Per Se from 4 to 2 stars, in which he manages to out-snob perhaps the snobbiest restaurant in New York. His article opens with a customer “hurling” her napkin onto the floor in a “fit of disillusionment” over “missed cues and mediocrity.” In a reaction that would leave, I think, most 2023 readers aghast, he sides with this demi-Karen as justified in throwing things like a child because she’s not loving her $325 meal.
Finally, as another three years passed and Pete felt like he had to get in the news again, he published another aggressive article about how downhill Peter Luger had supposedly fallen. This fits with his earlier MO of punching down—he was following a long history of hatred for Peter Luger among the food community. For those who haven’t been, it’s crazy hard to get a reservation. They don’t take credit cards, for whatever reason. The servers are almost all gruff middle aged men who sometimes mock you in an all-in-good-fun sort of way. And, of course, it’s expensive (like all good steakhouses in New York are). So when Pete tried to put Luger’s out to pasture, the commentariat ate it up.
To me, this article is his worst. He argues that Luger’s has changed from what he once loved, but misses the obvious: it’s him that has changed. He orders a Caesar salad and the sole. At the most famous steakhouse in New York. He bitches and moans about the burger. I can’t believe I have to say this, but when most people go to a steakhouse, it’s for the steak. His only complain there is that it’s “just another steak,” but it’s not. It’s aged between two sheets of pork, which you can also order as the divine thick-cut bacon. It has a unique, amazing flavor, and anyone who’s been can vouch for this. It’s not for people who want anything but a large amount of amazing meat, followed by an optional massive dessert. That might’ve been Pete in 2008, but it’s not Pete by 2019.
And that brings us to today. He published his top 100 restaurants in the city, and that was a sad state of affairs indeed. It’s all about what looks good, what feels trendy, what makes a good impression. Absent is what food people actually want to eat.
He kicks off his list with Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi (kind of funny that he gave it 3/4 stars in his earlier review). That’s fine, I haven’t been there but have heard it’s amazing. But what does he like about Tatiana? The first sentences of the review read:
We needed Tatiana. We needed a kitchen that puts Caribbean and African and Black American cooking, too often kept in the city’s margins, right at center stage.
Before he even mentions the food, Pete is hyper-focused on the political/race side, which is meant to signal that he’s one of the good guys. It’s also the only Creole restaurant on his list of 100, which makes his desperate ploy for political sanitization even more transparent—odd that your top restaurant in the city is of a variety you otherwise never eat. Never mind that Pete used to hobnob with the Spotted Pig and Batali boys. It’s disrespectful to Tatiana. Just write about the food! If it’s the best restaurant in New York City, that should be 100% of the content.
In the same spirit of being politically palatable, he goes out of his way to get in a couple restaurants from the Bronx and Staten Island. But he also has to make sure his friends are represented. Recall that he goes way back with Rich Torrisi and the Major Food Group boys. Torrisi, their latest incarnation, is one of the hardest bookings to get in the city. Unless you use an app that lets you pay hundreds of dollars for a booking. And it’s located in one of the city’s most expensive zip codes, and services a star-studded very-rich audience. I highly doubt the food is This is really better than I Sodi, better than Babbo, better than Lupa? According to Pete the Progressive, yes. I take the opposite view, as echoed by this Eater review: “I think for the people who are the target customers of Major Food Group at this point, none of the intricacies of the food matter as much.”
The worst sin of all on this list of 100 is surely Empellon. He must be friends with the chef, there’s no other explanation. Empellon is notable for being an easy-to-get same-day reservation if you’re an investment banker taking out clients after work. If not for the midtown work crowd, I am not sure it would even stay in business. Check it out yourself: reservations as far as the eye can see, for prime seating, whatever day you want. The laws of supply and demand contradict Pete’s ranking. To be fair, Pete agrees it’s not really Mexican food, but it’s the highest ranked sit-down Mexican place on the list. What a departure from the days of BYOB tacos in Williamsburg.
In a sense, Pete’s fall from 2008 to 2023 is emblematic of the country’s. We lost the magic, the fun, the love of the thing-in-itself of food, and replaced it with lip service to progressive ideals and political cronyism. Pete stared into the abyss of the food scene so long he lost sight of the food, and there was only the scene left.