From the Los Angeles Review of Books:
The Midlife Crisis of the American Restaurant Review:
IN 2018, the American restaurant review officially entered its midlife crisis. A literary baby boomer, the modern review was born in 1957 when Craig Claiborne became editor of the New York Times Food Page (changing its name from the “Women’s Section”), inaugurating weekly columns, a four-star rating system, and a code of professional guidelines. Throughout the ’60s and ’70s, the rebellious teenage genre staked out a public reputation on the fire-breathing prose of Gael Greene and Mimi Sheraton. Over the ’90s, the review eased into middle age as a pillar of respectable bourgeois journalism. But in the new millennium, the dawn of foodie subculture added an element of hero worship to the profession’s public image. For the informed eater, Jonathan Gold and Ruth Reichl were less journalists than Associate Justices on the Culinary Supreme Court. However, settling into its seventh decade, the silver-haired restaurant review has stumbled into a tumultuous cultural climate — and its old-fashioned views are starting to wear thin.
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