CALDER’S Last Stand
After 30 years of finding fault for a living, Herald on Sunday reviewer Peter Calder is retiring to eat, read, and watch movies as a civilian.
Aconventional rule of etiquette advises that if you don’t have anything nice to say you should say nothing at all.
It’s an imperative that, taken at face value, would put reviewers in any field out of business. And, as someone who has, for the better part of 30 years, found fault for a living, it is one I cannot afford to endorse.
For 30 years, in newspapers under the Herald banner, I have reviewed films, theatre, books, television programmes and latterly restaurants. I have done so at the request of a succession of editors who presumably thought I was making a fair fist of it, because none of them asked me to stop.
Now, I have saved them the trouble: my final review appears in today’s paper, and I will settle into a quiet retirement of eating as a civilian.
I suspect a few dishes will be sent back to the kitchen, which is something I have never done as a reviewer (I leave food uneaten, wait to see if the fact prompts staff concern, and make a note if it does not), but on the plus side, I will enjoy the chance to eat without having to consider how I might succinctly describe a dish or whether the parmesan is aged Italian or cheap local.
My editors’ unstinting support has sometimes been in the face of furious representations from members of the industries whose work was under review and sought my dismissal, often with a threat to pull their advertising.
It has been gratifying to have received such backing from people who must at times have had cold sweats at a particular turn of phrase.
Since I began writing restaurant reviews for the Herald on Sunday, in its first issue in October, 2004, restaurateurs stung by dismissive assessments have only occasionally written to complain.
They have usually done so bitterly, although commonly they have admitted their performance was sub-par; they were not upset I had had a bad experience, but that I had told readers about it.
The owner of one of the best restaurants in town howled with outrage about a three-star review that remarked on how good the food was, but criticised the fact we had not been told on booking that all but six tables would be occupied by guests at a wedding breakfast.
From a table in the corner, I listened to a bad speech by the best man of a bridegroom I had never met, while paying top dollar for the experience.
Some might say the circumstance was unusual and not relevant to normal diners’ expectations, but a review is and always will be a report on experience. It is idle, if not downright misleading, to write about what might have happened on another evening.
A stellar, and I think singular, exception among correspondents was the proprietor of a North Shore eatery who responded to a 1½ star review in April by thanking me for having “given us the incentive to push harder and get it right”.
“Most of your points were correct,” he wrote. “I wish they were not, but you’ve made me realise how off the mark we actually were … Thanks for the kick up the backside.”
His gracious email, it should be said, contrasted with that of a reader who described a review as “a vicious, vituperous, outpouring of invective” that “suggests most forcibly that you are a loathsome, vindictive bastard”. You can’t please everybody.
People have often said to me I must have the best job in the world, and it would be churlish of me to claim eating out at my employer’s expense is a tough life.
But without wishing to solicit sympathy, I always point out there are downsides.
When was the last time you went to a restaurant because you had been told it was dreadful?
I have, often, because I considered it my duty if I found I agreed to let readers know.
Likewise, I used to return to places that disappointed, a few months after castigating them in print, so I could report on the improvement, although I long ago gave that up: the “it must have been a bad night” explanation notwithstanding, a poor restaurant
usually remains a poor restaurant, unless there is a change of ownership.
The exigencies of deadlines and synchronising diaries have often meant eating out when I would rather not, because it was raining, or I felt like cooking, or the traffic was a nightmare.
Meanwhile, I have always felt a responsibility to try the more unusual menu offerings, rather than what I felt like eating — this is not a job for someone who always opens a menu and says, “I think I’ll have a steak” — and to try at least one dessert even when I don’t want one.
Restaurants are perfect exemplars of Sturgeon’s Law, which states 90 per cent of everything is crap. They are not alone, of course: movies, books and television probably stretch that number, and on the internet, the figure surely exceeds 99 per cent.
So it is hardly surprising I have had many more bad meals than truly great ones.
Those that give a reviewer a real headache are neither, of course: languishing somewhere in the mediocre middle, they test the writer’s capacity to come up with 600 words that say more than not much at all.
The latter-day prevalence of the hamburger has only exacerbated the problem: there is only so much you can write about something between two buns, no matter how good the fries are.
Since I have so often been asked about the mechanics of the job, it seems worth mentioning a few here.
I usually ate early in the week and early in the evening, when the kitchen was under less pressure.
I always arrived on time, because to do otherwise is rude and inconsiderate.
I always booked under my wife’s surname, left it to her to deal with the maitre d’ and sat with my back to the room, at least to start with, to avoid being recognised: it’s important to get the same treatment a regular punter gets. In fact, I have rarely had my cover blown, though it’s amusing when I’m recognised mid-meal and the service becomes notably more attentive.
I have never accepted a free meal, an offered discount, or a request to return for a reassessment “as our guest” from a restaurateur who realised too late I had come on one of those “bad nights”.
I never attended industry functions because hobnobbing with hospo folk would be a bad look.
I never reviewed a place where I dined alone, although it would have made for an interesting piece.
Typically, my wife, whom I call the Professor because she is one, was my sole, uncomplaining companion. In places designed for group eating, I often made up a group, though I tended to invigilate what was ordered: duplicate orders were banned and no one got to say, “I think I’ll have a steak.” I used to make furtive notes, though I gave that up as cumbersome, preferring to immerse myself in the experience, make notes on the way home and call up a few days later to ask about ingredients or techniques.
Chefs delight in being asked about their work, and if the meal was really bad, there’s no need to ask anyone, because expert advice is not required to conclude that a schnitzel appeared to be fashioned from a used retread.
Naming food trends is tricky without naming specific restaurants, which I have been at pains not to do here.
In any case, most will be obvious to readers who are regular diners: the explosion of meaty barbecue (just when eating less meat has become an environmental imperative); the profusion of excellent breads (although too few chefs make their own); the (sometimes gratuitous) Asian inflections on European standards (enough kimchi, already); the pleasing attention to cheaper cuts of meat and fish, and nose-to-tail eating; the extraordinary inventiveness of young chefs keen to challenge received wisdom have all been pleasing developments in recent years.
A posh take on meat and three veg doesn’t cut it any more.
But after all these years each new meal is exciting, even if it disappoints.
Contrary to appearances, the reviewer always arrives desperate to have a good experience to write about: a life of unremitting negativity can be corrosive to the soul.
I have more regrets about reviews that were too kind than ones that were too cruel. And although I have seen it as my duty to alert readers to bad meals — a reviewer’s job is in consumer protection, not industry audit — I hope I have drawn their attention to excellent places that they might otherwise have missed.
Discovering something wonderful and communicating the discovery to readers, seldom though it happens, has been the real joy of the gig. Eat well. Farewell.
See Calder’s last review: Sunday Travel magazine