FOOD REVIEWING AT BITE

This is an article I have wanted to write for some time but it is a tricky one. Perhaps if I actually commit it to print I will not have to deal with it again. I can just refer people to my blog post. So here goes.

The most common question that as a reviewer for Bite I am asked is “Do they know you are coming?” This also translates as “do you get freebies or better service and if you do how can I believe what you write?”

The honest, un-fudged answer to this question is ‘sometimes yes and sometimes no’. For example, in our September issue which has just gone to print, 50% of the reviews were ‘comped’ and 50% were totally anonymous and paid for out of the reviewers own pocket (there is no expense account at BitE). Out of the 50% that were complimentary half of those customers have at some point advertised with Bite and half have not and probably never will. So, we are talking about the possibility of there being some level of ‘bias’ in the first 25% due to the receipt of a free meal and in the second 25% due to a possible link to advertising revenue. Let’s deal with the first, first.

“How can I believe what you write if you are busy living it up at the restaurant‘s expense?” Well, and this may shock you, just because you are receiving a free meal this does not necessarily mean that you lose all your critical faculties. You are not so awash in champagne and oysters whilst having your feet massaged like a slab of Wagyu by the KP that you lose your ability to tell whether the restaurant is actually able to cook a steak or not. OK you may get an extra canapé but one little puffy gaugere is not going to ‘buy’ a good review and you are just going to have to trust me on that one.

Ah but I hear you exclaim, It all adds up, the canapés, the smiling staff, the convivial landlord who is of course at all other times behaving to his other ‘paying’ customers like Rachman on a bad day. Well yes to an extent but the word count we work to at Bite is extremely limited. We don’t actually have room to waffle about those delightful cheesy bites, about the waiter’s charming dimples or even how wonderful the service is. It’s actually straight down to business; the menu, the execution, the wine list, price and the ambience. The restaurant can do little to change four of these factors whether a reviewer is there or not and it is worth noting that complimentary write-ups usually take place on quiet nights when the ambience is unlikely to be best. Execution they can influence. Maybe they don’t know how to cook a steak rare, medium or well done on another night and they have drafted in a special chef for the ‘occasion’ of the all important visit from the local free listings magazine; I don’t think so. The service may be more attentive but it is rare that we talk about it. Reviewers are instructed to concentrate on the facts, again word count restrictions come into play. If we are going to talk about service it would be in fairly general terms i.e. is it in line with ‘fine-dining’ or ‘friendly bistro’ expectations or is the waiter beating the other customers about the head with a stale baguette?

So what about the link to advertising revenue then? 25% of the reviews are on customers that have at sometime in the past or may in the future advertise. Are we going to write a bad review and therefore forfeit advertising revenue, will we bite the hand that feeds us?

I have been publishing Bite for nearly eight years now and at the risk of sounding like Carol Vorderman, that’s almost ninety-six issues with at least four reviews in each issue, so, in the region of four hundred-ish but probably more. I can honestly count on two hands the amount of reviews that were either absolute stonkers or a kitchen nightmare. Most of our reviews, written about advertisers, potential advertisers or ‘wouldn’t want to be in it if you paid me’, are geared to give you a pretty general idea of what to expect from a particular restaurant. The aim is to give the reader a general guide when making a restaurant choice. We are not AA Gill or The New York Times. We are here to give you information should you wish to pick up our little magazine.

So to sum up, do we accept freebies? Sometimes. And by the way so do most reviewers some times. Everyone knows everyone and unless you are going to the lengths of Ruth Reichl, the New York Times reviewer who took to wearing disguises, you are going to be recognised or known or maybe you even baby sit the chef’s pooch whilst he is on holiday. There may be some reviewers who hand on heart have never accepted so much as a glass of tap from anyone but they are few and far between. Does this affect what we write? No or to such a limited extent that it makes no discernible difference. Do we need to be anonymous to write the truth? No, but we often are. Does advertising revenue affect what we write? On some occasions it may affect our choice of where we review but not what we write.

Do we live in the real world where like in many other industries people know each other or do we live in an ivory tower from which we waft pearls of gastro wisdom? We live in the real world where we try to do our best and we believe that you the reader are both intelligent enough to understand that, to judge how accurate we get it and to stop picking up the magazine if we truly fuck up.