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the pete wells thread


Diancecht

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Urbane Cafe in LA, seems like a fast-casual place. This is a highly technical publication aimed at chefs and restaurant owners (think pages upon pages of comparative analysis of sales data, portion sizes, trends, etc.) but their NY correspondent is the very lovely Akiko Katayama and it was a pleasure to host her. 

Anyway, the Pete Wells list - I can tell you it has a far broader reach than individual reviews. Like, my parents heard about it. 

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5 hours ago, Orik said:

I can tell you it has a far broader reach than individual reviews.  

seems to have broken the resy link

Edited by AaronS
Fucking autocorrect
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On 4/3/2024 at 9:31 PM, Wilfrid said:

Wrong guys. His editors are defending stars and rankings. Hence his entertaining guerilla war.

The thing is, I don't think Wells is engaging in a "guerilla war".  I think he's trying ;to be intellectually honest working within constraints he doesn't believe in (sort of like me living under Capitalism).

Other than Wells's first starred review, which concededly (albeit justifiably) engaged in point-making, what reviews and ratings do you think weren't good-faith efforts to be informative? Certainly this week's review is EXACTLY what he should be doing (by his and my lights, in any event).

Edited by Sneakeater
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Guerilla war in the sense that he is not publicly taking the stance that the constraints he is working under are wrong; that would mean resigning. He is cunningly trying to demonstrate that they are wrong.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2/22/2024 at 2:57 PM, Orik said:

Testing investor patience at the obvious place he hasn't covered yet?

I wonder how miffed they are that he mentions Acme in passing in this latest review but still hasn't covered them.

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1 hour ago, Simon said:

I wonder how miffed they are that he mentions Acme in passing in this latest review but still hasn't covered them.

Maybe he’s waiting for them to settle on a permanent menu format. I think it’s changed half a dozen times since they opened. 

Or if his initial visits were anything like ours, he could also be waiting to see if it actually gets interesting before revisiting  

i wonder, when he seems to just skip past a notable opening, if it’s simply a place he didn’t care for (message sent - it didn’t even show up in his top 100) but he has some fondness for the proprietor and doesn’t want to knock them down. See also: Le Trois Chevaux / B. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

offtopic although related/tangential:

”Anybody read the comments for NY Times Restaurant reviews? 

Holy crap they are insufferable. Filled with people complaining about the costs and wanting the reviewer fired for giving positive reviews to expensive restaurants. Omakase and tasting menus are not for everyone but I don’t understand the anger toward restaurants and people who enjoy them.”

“It’s even more strange when you factor in that Pete Wells was known as the guy at NYT that started reviewing more ethnic, low key places rather than the typical highbrow Michelin-bait.”

click - it’s a shadow world of food/restaurant criticism i never knew existed 

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