controversy

I posted a while back on BAR's savaging of Esquire Grill, which garnered a lot of local attention. They now have a silly correction at the start of the review. It's a review, not a deposition. He didn't enumerate the differences between the visits exactly because the reader wouldn't care.

And then the Bee caved to pressure and let Paragary respond.

The whole first part is immaterial, here's the meat of it:

Now back to Robertson and his visits to the Esquire Grill. To put it mildly, he was not nice to my restaurant in his review "Esquire Grill in need of … most everything" (Living Here, May 16).

I defend the right of Robertson (or anyone) to write negatively about his dining experience. My restaurants have been reviewed countless times, good and bad.

I have accepted this opportunity not because I want to refute the review. To argue with a critic is pointless.

The point I would like to make is a reminder to readers. Whether a critic is reviewing restaurants, movies or an opera, the reader should separate fact from folly and understand everybody is different, with different tastes.

A review may be filled with entertaining sentences that have no relationship with the restaurant's goals and concept. The critic may arrive with unreasonable expectations.

The intelligent reader and the intelligent restaurant customer are the same person.

They know the difference between the steak and the sizzle.

To remind readers that everyone is different, with different tastes is asinine. That's what reviewing is: one person's subjective opinion. It's not the reviewer's fault if people think reviews are handed down from God. I don't even think there's anything wrong with reviewing a restaurant after you've only been there once, not that that's what BAR did. No restaurant owner would complain about that if it's positive, but they expect you to give it another chance if it's negative. A review is a snapshot. Everyone has a different experience on every single visit to every restaurant. It's the luck of the draw for the business owner.

Ok, "the critic may arrive with unreasonable expectations"? What is a "reasonable" expectation for a 30 dollar steak or a 20 dollar chicken breast entree? It better be damn good. It better be damn good if it's ten bucks if you want a positive review.

Also the sentence "The intelligent reader and the intelligent restaurant customer are the same person." makes no damn sense to me at all and seems to insult BAR's intelligence.

Then that last sentence. Well, a review pretty much talks about both the steak AND the "sizzle" (ambiance, service, etc.) and he found both to be lacking in his review and is clear about that.

I like Cafe Bernardo, although I've pretty much stopped going there since Magpie opened, so I don't have an ax to grind against Paragary. I think he should pay attention to that review, and even more to the fact that the Bee's commenters mostly agreed with it and do a little soul-searching about his restaurant. Or to the fact that his restaurant only has 3 out of 5 stars on yelp, which is a pretty low rating.

Or he can just continue on the path and forget about it if Esquire is successful.