Food Critics

I feel it’s harder than ever to find a trustful information about food today. I arrived in Paris with a list of must-go bistros from the NY Times, another list from Brazilian critics and one more from friends and family. Of course I didn´t have enough time and money to go to them all, so I had to choose. Besides my lists I check the places out on the internet before I went, where I read critics made from professional and ordinary people. As I was choosing and comparing my opinion to the critics I was getting more skeptical, then confused and finally stressed. For me it was frustrating to spend time and money on something I felt it was not worth it. My conclusion is that there are 3 problems: the lack of constancy in the kitchens, the lack of serious food critics and the abundance of unhelpful information.

Among my restaurants experiences I found inconstancy, often one of the dinners had an excellent dish and the other not, other times the appetizers were great, the main courses were just ok and the desserts didn´t work or vice-versa. Sometimes I’ve been twice to the same restaurant because I liked the first time but then found out the food was disappointing at the second visit. Because restaurants are not delivering the same quality every time the food critics should be even more meticulous. But what we see is people who don’t know what they are talking about, don’t go to the same restaurant at least 3 times, who care more about their egos and want to be famous. In Brazil a famous critic wrote a very positive review about a restaurant he went once (only once) where he ate a special meal the chef prepared just for him that didn’t exist in the menu, come on! What´s the point? That’s why food critics are losing their credibility (with some exceptions) and ordinary people who love food are trying to fill the void. It’s amazing the quantity of “reviews” you find on the internet when you google a restaurant´s name. I like the way we get our information today, I love to surf on the internet and to google things. I truly believe that everybody have the right to express their opinions and to be heard. But all that information that is being made from people that don’t know so much about food and just go to each restaurant once is not food criticism and can be very confusing for people searching for information and sometimes unfair for professionals that are being judged. It’s even worst when sometimes people that are unsure of their own opinion just take someone else’s and that little one person’s opinion gets bigger and looks like it means something. All that restaurant talk gets so annoying and tiring sometimes... But truth is: In the end no matter the information source I’ll keep searching and trying new places because I know sometimes I’ll find terrific food that will make me happy and inspired.