Dishing With Ruth Reichl

Read what a top restaurant critic has to say about food and diet.

By PT Staff, published on November 01, 1998 - last reviewed on August 30, 2004

"I really want to like this place," says Ruth Reichl, breezing into a recently opened restaurant in lower Manhattan's Battery Park. "It's got a view of the water and that's so rare in this city, and they've spent a lot of money refurbishing what was a utility station. Unfortunately, they're clueless." The chief flaws on this day: inept, though friendly, service, and mediocre food--a limp Caesar salad, dry shrimp satay and oversalted grilled tuna sandwich. It's not like she hasn't given the place a chance: this is the sixth visit by the nation's most powerful restaurant reviewer.

Reichl doesn't make snap judgments about food--or life. In fact, for her the two are inextricably entwined. And her reviews reflect it. As chief restaurant critic for the New York Times since 1993, Reichl doesn't just judge meals, she critiques manners and mores. Do waiters automatically give the bill to the man at the table? Where are women diners seated? How are ordinary folk treated? In a memorable review of New York's tony Le Cirque, she noted that she got the bum's rush on a visit when she wasn't recognized (bad table, indifferent service) and was fawned over on another visit when she was identified (seating ahead of the King of Spain, special tastings from the chef).

"To say that the only thing that matters is what's on the plate is to miss the major role restaurants have in our lives today," says Reichl, who dines out eight to 12 times a week under various aliases and disguises (for the record, the 50-year-old Reichl is slender with dark curly locks). "So much of our culture's social life takes place in restaurants."

For Reichl, eating has always as much a psychological as a physical experience. As the daughter of a woman who was legendary for serving bizarre, undercooked and spoiled concoctions that routinely sickened guests (including attendees at her son's engagement party), Reichl learned early on to cook as a means of self-preservation. Gradually, she found that cooking was also a means of self-expression.

Ultimately, as she relates in her memoir, Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table (Random House), she discovered that: "food could be a way of making sense of the world...If you watched people as they ate, you could find out who they were." Reichl recently dished with PT Editor Anastasia Toufexis about how food unites and divides people, the difference between eating in restaurants and at home, the trend toward families celebrating holidays in restaurants--and why what's on the plate isn't as important as what's in one's heart.

PT: You've said food defines people. What do you mean?

RR: It's a way that we tell the world who we are, a way of setting boundaries. You can see it in young children. Food is a place where they say, "This is mine. I will not eat this." You know, it's virtually impossible to force someone to eat unless you stick a tube down the throat. So it's really an area where children can have their own way. Everybody tells about their parents warning, "You can't leave the table until you've eaten this or that." And the child will sit there, all day long and say, "You can't make me." What they mean is "I can tell you who I am through this."

PT: Does this continue as we get older?

RR: Yes, but we become more conscious about it. We define people in relation to food. We'll say, "Oh, yeah. He's a beer and burger guy," or "He's a caviar and champagne person." And you instantly know what that means.

When I first started doing restaurant reviews, I actually made my husband into "the reluctant gourmet," though he's never consciously thought of himself that way. He became Everyman--the guy who goes to the restaurant and says, "I'd rather be home eating a piece of pizza and watching the football game." Everybody instantly understood who this character was, and he was someone for me to use as an antipretension meter in assessing a restaurant. Here we are eating foie gras and drinking fancy wines. And here's a guy saying, "God, what would I give for a good steak!"

PT: Haven't we become more sophisticated about food?

RR: Yes, we have. On the other hand, McDonald's isn't hurting. There's a reason why politicians go on the food circuit. They go to a community and eat bagels in one place and fried chicken in another. The message is, "I am you. I eat your food."

PT: I remember Nelson Rockefeller going to Coney Island and eating hot dogs during his campaigns to show he was just a regular guy.

PR: Right. Right. And you know what was one of the most telling moments of a recent presidential campaign? The fact that George Bush didn't know anything about how supermarket checkouts had changed because he hadn't been in a grocery store in ages. That said volumes right there. It made him look out of touch with people and he couldn't take it back.

PT: Does food influence our choice of friends?

RR: Sometimes. In the most extreme example, somebody who's kosher could not really have a serious social relationship with someone who didn't keep a kosher kitchen because he wouldn't be able to eat in his friend's home. Similarly, someone who cares deeply about spending a lot of time in fancy restaurants isn't going to want to be really close friends with someone who never wants to be in a fancy restaurant. It's a real impediment.

PT: Do different cultures have different attitudes towards food? And what does that tell us?