Who were some of the famous restaurant reviewers? Did they really keep their identity secret? Did their reviews have a significant effect on the restaurant’s performance?
If you want to read about restaurant reviews and restaurant reviewers – and how the process has changed over the years, check out Robert Sietsema’s, “Everyone Eats . . . but that doesn’t make you a restaurant critic,” the feature article in the January/February 2010 edition of the Columbia Journalism Review.
Sietsma, the restaurant critic for the Village Voice, talks about the different approaches of some famous reviewers and the effect the internet has had on restaurant reviewing through the proliferation of food blogs.
You can also read an interview with him in Gothamist where he also talks about his cover story for the Village Voice in which he calls Iron Chef America bogus after attending a taping of the show at the Food Network’s Chelsea studios.
