Until I started working as one, I always imagined food critics in caricature. These were pretentious, puffed-
up men in silk ascots or bony, stiff-lipped women in lopsided wigs.
Critics were the bad guys, culinary sharpshooters motivated by self-obsession and chef-bloodlust. They hated everything they ate and thrived on pointing out others’ faults.
Critics, I figured, were a) anti-restaurant, b) anti-chef, and most obviously, c) total food snobs.
Then I took a job as a food critic and joined the ranks of my imagined caricatures.
I wondered, since I was both ascot-less and wigless and actually really liked restaurants, whether I would fit in.
So, by luck and planning over the past few months, I’ve scored advice and wisdom from some of the top critics in the country, past and current reviewers from papers like the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, the Rocky Mountain News and Westword.
These are my heros, my rivals, my friends. To a person, they’ve impressed me with their deep knowledge and broad experience, and I’ve felt welcome among them.
But I’m a little disappointed in the group as a whole. I haven’t seen a single ascot.
Critics, I’ve learned, are not a) anti-restaurant. Just the opposite. Critics love restaurants, maybe more than anyone else. Most of us were consumed by restaurants long before we started writing about them. They dominate our minds and memories. We live to eat out.
We’d better. We’re out there five, six nights a week, looking for good food to write about. (And not for easy targets to shoot down.)
Critics are also not b) anti-chef. No one admires more the exhausting work, the extreme emotional and physical commitment, the consistent drive and the extraordinary attention to detail it takes to open and operate a successful restaurant. We revere those who cultivate the culture of cooking.
“I have enormous respect for the men and women who enrich our lives through cooking,” says Tom Sietsema, food critic for the Washington Post who came to Denver recently to check out the dining scene.
Besides, without cooks and restaurateurs, we critics would lose our greatest passion. Not to mention our jobs.
Finally, critics are not, as I’d anticipated, c) total food snobs. Critics respond to food much like anyone else does.
Contrary to what I’d once assumed, good food, to a critic, doesn’t just mean fancy food. Good food can be a spoonful of caviar with a flute of Krug, or it can be a gyro with a bottle of Fat Tire. It just has to be tasty, well-prepared, honest and soulful. And it has to speak clearly.
Yes, food speaks. Evocative flavors and aromas strike our emotions in ways that words can’t. Thoughtful eating, an emotional act in itself, requires listening up.
Critics engage in day after day of thoughtful eating, carefully listening to the food we seek out. When it speaks, our passion (and job) is to hear.
Of course, for all we have in common, critics are also markedly distinct. One may favor Asian cuisine, another, Italian. One may write for boomers, another for twentysomethings. One may be a lifelong foodie, another a new recruit.
These different personalities and points of view make each critic’s filter unique.
When you read a critic week after week, you start to see which preferences you share, and which bugaboos. Whether you agree or not, you recognize patterns and eventually begin to take a critic’s recommendation, or warning, in context.
That’s when reviews become what they should be in the first place: An opening word, not a final one. Reviews provide a single point of view.
And if you don’t agree with a review, that’s a good thing. Reviews exist to spark the conversation, not close it.
We critics want restaurants to succeed. We want more cooks to produce more good food, so we all eat better.
And we want our reviews, positive or negative, to inspire others to go out to dinner. Because dining out is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Whether you’re in an ascot or not.
Dining critic Tucker Shaw can be reached at 303-820-1958 or at dining@denverpost.com.
