There’s something that I love about a great bad review.
I don’t know if it’s the schadenfreude of watching a pretentious restaurant get taken down a notch or two, or maybe it helps me appreciate my favorite restaurants more, echoing my partner’s thoughts of “you have to see bad art to understand good art.”
Regardless of why, I was inspired by a couple of links that @attran99 and @NewTrial posted recently and I’ve been thinking about some of my favorites over the years:
There is of course Ruth Reichl’s amazing review of Le Cirque, which as far as I know is the holy grail (or at least one of the standard bearers) of bad reviews
When I first read Pete Wells’ review of Guy Fieri’s Time’s Square restaurant I was laughing so much it was hard to read it out loud
Another favorite of mine, although much more obscure, is Jonathan Gold’s review of the short lived Cortez
Who doesn’t enjoy a slow-moving train wreck…you can’t take your eyes off of it. @PorkyBelly’s review of Vespertine is a work of art…in more ways than one.
“It’s painted a shiny, distressed dung brown. The cramped tables are set with labially pink cloths, which give it a colonic appeal and the awkward sense that you might be a suppository”
It is decorated in various shades of taupe, biscuit and fuck you.
A dessert of frozen chocolate mousse cigars wrapped in tuile is fine, if you overlook the elastic flap of milk skin draped over it, like something that’s fallen off a burns victim.
