Eating For A Living

Restaurant Critics Discuss Disguises And Fine Dining

(CBS) 
For her very first Times review, she shamed one of New York's most famous restaurants by writing about the difference between eating there as an unknown and as a favored patron.

Reichl's rules, standard among top critics: eat in a restaurant at least three times anonymously and never take freebies.

And there's the restaurant owners.

Drew Nieporent owns or co-owns a dozen highly-rated restaurants in New York, San Francisco, London, and Martha's Vineyard.

"It's an elaborate cat and mouse game," Nieporent admits of the duel between owners and critics.

Asked if a bad review could put a restaurant out of business, Nieporent was clear: "Yes. Absolutely."

Yet Nieporent adds that "I'm the last person to complain because there's a moment in time in my career, in essence, was created because of an unbelievable New York Times review 20 years ago."

For restaurants, if professional food critics aren't enough of a worry, there are the self-appointed ones. The Zagat's surveys rate restaurants based on the shared wisdom of something like a quarter of a million actual diners.

And now if you're really into food democracy, there are all kinds of Web sites and blogs. The biggest, a whopper called chowhound.com that's got 800,000 people a month trading their food enthusiasms online; people who need not subject themselves to the occupational hazards of the pro.

"I spend 40 hours a week at a table -- that doesn't count writing, but 40 hours a week at a table, just sitting, eating. It's odd," Sietsema says.

And that's not all. It's fattening.

Lifting weights and doing cardio workouts are a must for Sietsema.

"I can sort of gauge, 'Oh, I've run the equivalent of a glass of wine or a piece of pie," he says laughing.

But Sietsema also thinks of it another way, as any dedicated restaurant critic would: by the time he's through on the treadmill, he'll be all set for his next meal.