Basically, It's Over
westchestermagazine.com, January 13, 2014
By Julia Sexton
My editor was a huge Ruth Reichl fan that fantasized about putting me in disguises. I successfully fought that off, sure that my wig would slip.
I wrote this weekly food blog for six years, from 2008-2014. In 2009, I won a prestigious CRMA (City and Regional Magazine Association) award for Best Blog, beating out runners up in all subjects from big city magazines—Boston Magazine, The Washingtonian, Chicago Magazine, etc. The judges wrote that my blog, "won us over with its big personality, breezy conversational tone and wonderful insider detail—the kind that makes the reader feel like an in-the-know foodie. Julia Sexton gave us a terrific behind-the-scenes look at restaurant kitchens and their complicated relationship with health codes ... And she served up a detailed, name-dropping review of a new restaurant. Thoroughly satisfying and fun." My editors were thrilled—this was a major win for WM.
Last week, the naked face of Adam Platt, the previously anonymous restaurant critic for New York Magazine, appeared on that magazine’s cover. And while Ruth Reichl and Frank Bruni, restaurant critics for the New York Times, both went to extreme lengths to protect their anonymity during their reigns, two successors to that position—Sam Sifton and Pete Wells—didn’t bother. Jay Rayner, the lusty restaurant critic for The Guardian is pretty much out and proud. He splashes his Oscar Wildean face all over his wonderful columns, books, and TV appearances. All of this begs the question: Why do I even bother trying to sneak into restaurants as an anonymous critic? Isn’t all the cloak and dagger business passé?
Actually, I don’t bother too much. Unlike Reichl, I don’t have alternate personae and wigs and wardrobes, but I do have multiple OpenTable accounts and I pay with special credit cards—it’s Anonymity Lite. Like Bruni, I don’t allow photos of myself to appear in print or on the web. Go ahead and Google me, scan my Facebook page and Twitter accounts, there’s nothing there. Also, I’ve managed to avoid submitting author photos for articles that I’ve written for other magazines, a feat in this hyper-visual age. Sadly, I’m a full-time writer and not a dilettante: I’ve had to make a living with my pen (or my laptop). To do this, I’ve been writing columns, features, blogs—and now a book—about restaurants for years. Inevitably, I’ve met some of my restaurant world subjects and a few have even become friends. C’est la vie. I have not been blessed with sufficient independent wealth to exist on writing reviews.
Anonymity can be a drag. Recently, I’ve declined writing two restaurant reviews that I knew would be fun because I suspected that I might be recognized in the dining rooms. Since Adam Platt’s Coming Out, this little qualm of mine is getting harder and harder to excuse. Plus, clinging to my anonymity leaves my name open to galling exploitations. Apparently, there is a person in Westchester who claims to be me while bilking local businesses of free food and special services. Reader, just to keep you in the loop, I’ve issued a restaurant world BOLO for The Impostor. If you see someone being loud about being me, Tweet me ASAP @JuliaSexton. There’s a bottle of Widow Jane whiskey in it for you—and probably some entertainment—if The Impostor and I are placed in the same room. Holla.
Happily, my reviews are not as high profile as those of S. Irene Verbila’s for the L.A. Times. That critic was famously photographed by restaurant staffers before being thrown out of the restaurant that she was reviewing. The photos were instantly leaked to the public through a variety of dining blogs—because, let’s face it, it was a great story. Adam Platt, pre-last week’s Coming Out, was also recognized and ousted from a restaurant that he was reviewing. Folks, I’m starting to fear getting pounced on, frog marched out, and photographed with cellphones. I keep praying, Please don’t let me go down like Verbila. I’ve taken to wearing camera-ready makeup whenever I’m reviewing—seriously, don’t make me laugh or it will crack. By the way, it’s hard to eat while sucking in your cheeks.
There are rewards to my anonymity, but those are mostly in bad meals. I know that when I am dining anonymously, my experience is closest to that of my readers. In my previous career, I actually worked in kitchens. When a VIP ticket came in, everyone immediately dropped what they were doing to make the VIP's dish as perfect and as speedily delivered as possible. There are distinct and sometimes profound qualitative differences between the meals that I eat as a known entity and those that I eat anonymously. Any critic who doesn’t admit this is completely full of crap.
More selfishly, when I am dining anonymously, I don’t have to be “on” in the dining room and potentially endure a squirmy conversation with the chef about a meal that I may or may not have just enjoyed. Gael Greene, the former New York Magazine critic, recently suggested that, even if recognized, I should just do the review and put my criticisms in a “less bitchy way.” I still might find it tough to be honest, and I think the reader is paying me for honesty. This can sometimes read as bitchy. I can’t help my gender.
So, where does this leave me? I’m not sure. Personally, I think anonymity is an important tool in restaurant criticism, but it’s not the only one—after all, any clown can buy a wig. Anonymity is not even the best tool in a critic’s armament. The element of surprise is far better, as is travel, dining experience, good taste, and the ability to write a well-argued and entertaining essay. Finally, as Jay Rayner recently noted on Twitter, “I’ve yet to find a bad restaurant that becomes a good one when I arrive.” There are only a few things that can be tweaked at the last moment; a restaurant's fundamental elements—concept, menu, decor—cannot be.
Do some people know me? Sure, some do—but you won’t find my face plastered all over my column like Jay Rayner’s, but mostly that’s because he has far better hair than I could ever manage. PS: how’s my makeup?
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