Star bright, star right?
A couple of weeks ago I got a well-argued e-mail from Michael Chmur complaining about my generosity toward restaurants he then didn't have good experiences at. As he put it,
My question is, if I can’t trust the professional food critic, who can I trust?...
Well, not up to tackling that question right now, but Michael also focused on the star question, saying this:
I’ve also noticed that Karen Nitkin is very generous with stars as well. How Gourmet Again’s little café gets 3 stars is beyond me. We went to Try’s Asian Fusion and it was a good Chinese restaurant, not a 3 star establishment.
Karen, The Sun's cheap eats reviewer in LIVE, weighed in on the star question with this:
I see his point. I’ve often thought the star system could use some work. To me, atmosphere and service can be redundant, and service often depends on the how busy the restaurant is that minute. Also, I might get perfect service at a snack bar, but that’s not the same as perfect service in a fancy restaurant. If the snack bar service was without flaw, I’d give it a high rating, but it doesn’t indicate the level of service sophistication.I’ll sometimes give a bar with a fun atmosphere three stars, but I can understand that some readers want to know if a restaurant is formal vs. casual. Even the food star system is flawed. A place with fabulous cheese steaks will get a high rating, but a much more inventive restaurant might get a lower one because the food is not as yummy.
If I had my way, I’d change the stars to: deliciousness of food, inventiveness of food, fanciness of setting, and attention to customers. For example, Gourmet Again was delicious, but very casual. So if it got three stars for deliciousness, one for inventiveness, one for fanciness and two for attention to customers, readers might get a clearer picture of what to expect. Dogwood, for example, might get more stars for inventiveness than deliciousness. The star system now is set up as a system of insult vs. compliment. Maybe there’s a way to make it more descriptive.
Comments
Elizabeth -
....I suppose that an argument could be made that [Karen Nitkin's] job is to hunt down the good places and then tell us about them (as the $25 and under column in the NY Times does), but then why stars at all?
-M
Posted by: Michael Craven | May 5, 2007 9:00 PM
I was thinking the same thing about the generosity of the star system used by the Sun critics. It seems like the current system is one that enables restaurants to not live up to their full potential because they all get 2-3 stars no matter what. A restaurant owner has nothing to fear because they know what is coming. Personally I would prefer to see a system along the same lines as Craig LeBan from the Philadelphia Inquirer. He has been known to make or break restaurants solely based on his reviews. I think that could be what Baltimore needs in an overwhelmingly mediocre restaurant scene.
Posted by: Bill | May 7, 2007 11:37 AM