REVIEWS

DAVID BURTON, POTTON & BURTON, P/B, $29.99

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I felt a bit guilty about enjoying this collection of reviews of hapless restaurants, where David Burton suffered their food fiascos so you didn’t have to. Should schadenfreude feel quite this gleeful? Burton has a deft turn of phrase that can turn a whinge into anything from a gentle dig to a no-holds-barred sucker punch, which made me laugh out loud and squirm with second-hand humiliation in equal parts. But once I got over the discomfort of chortling at others’ mistakes I dipped in and out with delight: Burton’s wry comment that “chefs come and go, and as good chefs go, he went,” nearly had me choking on my rosé. This is a collection of the best of the worst of Burton’s reviews in over four decades of restaurant reviewing and really, when you read “by the standards of a Cantonese petfood factory, the food here is actually rather good” or “dinner here is rather like smoko time on a hillside building site,” the man deserves our thanks that we only experience these disasters second-hand. TRACY WHITMEY