RESTAURANT FAVORITES
In a comment to a post below, Robin suggests I offer my selections for a promotion known as Readers' Choice awards. The suggestion sent me back 15, 16 years.
About a year and a half after I started writing The Dining Companion, I had what I thought was the bright idea of having a Best Restaurant competition. Readers would fill out a ballot and select their choices in a panoply of categories and we'd run a list of their picks as well as my picks. I figured we'd get maybe 200, 300 entries and I'd volunteered to count all the ballots in the dozen or so categories.
Well, after 1,600 entries were received and I'd done nothing for two weeks but count ballots, I asked for help with the remaining mountain of ballots. I learned, quickly, how restaurant mad y'all were.
But I also learned something else. My own picks in those 12 or so categories had legs you couldn't believe. Restaurants took out ads, hung banners, printed fliers proclaiming I'd deemed them the best restaurant. The problem, to my mind, was that some of those restaurants were ignoring their cooking in favor of their promoting, and foods I'd loved had taken quite a dive. A restaurant is an organic thing and it can change in a heartbeat. I was mortified seeing my name associated with a "best" I no longer felt was justified.
So I learned "best" lists aren't the smartest thing to do. Instead, at the end of every calendar year, I do a list of favorite dishes I've enjoyed that year. I write about the dishes that truly stood out during the course of that year, which is far more current and far more reliable than dubbing a restaurant "best." Too, a restaurant may not be across-the-board strong, but do one thing really, really well. I have no problem with saying that.
Thanks for the suggestion, Robin. It's one I myself would've pitched to a restaurant critic. I guess I feel, too, that it's pretty obvious from my reviews what restaurants I feel currently are operating at a really high level. And, as always, I welcome thoughts from all of you, whether you agree or strongly, adamantly disagree.
cheers,
Andy
7.28.07
posted by Andrea Clurfeld at 7:01 AM
3 Comments:
We enjoy your annual favorites.
Keep at it.
keep it the way it is - NJM goes way overboard and rewards subpar places here at shore based on volume of responses which is why i cancelled my subscription. long live the independent restaurants and down with chains!
I remember that readers v. critic best of list. I was working at a popular restaurant (I was in school at the time, so it was only part time) and the manager filled out dozens of those forms you printed in the paper and put the name of his restaurant in every category. When the awards were announced by you and the restaurant didn't win anything, he called you to complain and you called him on cheating! We all had a good laugh at that. (Not the manager though.) But I always figured others cheated also only not as stupidly as this guy. I agree you should keep things the way they are. Your annual favorite dishes list is fair and fun to read - a trip back over the year.
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