The rejection of restaurant critics points to the potential dangers of the job

Content of the article

Restaurant critics seem to have the best jobs in journalism, enjoying dining out several nights a week on other people’s money.

But New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells has painted a more complicated picture. In a recent column, Wells announced that he was quitting because his constant eating led to obesity and other health problems.

“Intellectually, it’s still stimulating, but my body is starting to rebel and say, ‘Enough,'” Wells told The Associated Press. “I just have to face the fact that I can’t metabolize food like I used to, I can’t metabolize alcohol like I used to and I don’t need to eat like I did even 10 years ago.”

Content of the article

To write a review, a food critic usually makes two or three visits to a restaurant and brings a few dining companions so that they can taste as many dishes as possible. If the restaurant has a special focus on wine or cocktails or desserts, they try that, too.

“You should sample the full range of the menu,” said Ligaya Figueras, senior food editor and lead dining critic for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “If I really feel like salad today, I can’t just have salad.”

Special features, such as a list of the best places to get pizza or hamburgers, may have critics who have eaten the same price for weeks. MacKenzie Chung Fegan, restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, samples Peking duck around the city for a story about restaurants that specialize in the dish.

“There was a two-week period where I ate more duck than my doctor recommended,” Fegan said.

All restaurant diners can take the toll. In a 2020 study published in the Journal of Nutrition, researchers at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University found that 50% of meals in US full-service restaurants – and 70% in fast food restaurants – are of poor nutritional quality, according to American Heart Association guidelines. Less than 1% is of good quality.

Content of the article

Content of the article

Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and Tufts professor who is one of the authors of the study, said that restaurant meals tend to be lower in whole grains and legumes, lower in fruits and vegetables, and lower in salt and saturated fat.

For the period studied, between 2003 and 2016, the nutritional quality of food in grocery stores improved, Mozaffarian said. But restaurants aren’t making the same changes, he said.

“I can’t tell you how many restaurants I’ve been to and everyone has fries on their plate,” Mozaffarian said. “There isn’t a wide variety of healthy and unhealthy menu options.”

To be fair, Fegan said, diners are looking for something tasty when they go out to eat, “and often that means there’s fat and sodium.”

“If I’m looking at the menu thinking, ‘What’s the most exciting thing on this menu?,’ It’s probably not the side of broccoli rabe,” she said.

Figueras handled the challenge in several ways. On nights he doesn’t eat out, he says he’s “hypervigilant” and mostly eats vegetables. He plays tennis and walks his dog to keep fit. And when he goes to a restaurant, he eats fruit or other healthy snacks so he won’t be hungry.

Content of the article

“Everything tastes good when you’re hungry,” he said.

Lyndsay Green, dining and restaurant critic for the Detroit Free Press, also tries to eat healthy during the day, getting food from local farmers markets. Green said he thinks the menu is getting healthier. Many chefs are offering gluten-free or vegan options, he said, and are getting more creative with non-alcoholic cocktail menus.

Green thinks restaurant critics can help their readers by opening up about their own needs. For example, a critic who is pregnant, can write a restaurant guide for other parents-to-be.

“Almost everyone has health concerns and dietary standards, so I think it’s our job to talk about it in our work,” he said.

Wells isn’t the only restaurant critic to make changes in recent years. Adam Platt quit covering restaurants for New York magazine in 2022, citing his health. Wyatt Williams quit covering restaurants for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2019, saying he lost his appetite.

Fegan and Wells both noted that women seem to be in the business longer. Mimi Sheraton, a former restaurant critic for The New York Times, died last year at age 97 after a six-decade career in food.

Content of the article

“I think if you’re socialized as a woman in America, you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about parts and weight and control,” Fegan said.

Wells will file several more reviews before resigning in early August. He will remain with the Times. Times food writers Melissa Clark and Priya Krishna will serve as restaurant critics on an interim basis, the paper said.

Wells said he would continue to go to the restaurant and would probably be happier if he wasn’t interrupted at work. He said he will be sorry to lose touch with the seemingly endless restaurant scene of New York, but he is happy to find more balance in his own life.

“Eating constantly, you lose your normal appetite,” he said. “I don’t know what normal is for me anymore.”

Content of the article