Longtime 'NYT' food critic reflects on 12 years at the table

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Do you have a favorite restaurant review? I do. It was written way back in 2012, and it consists entirely of questions - questions like, when we hear the words donkey sauce, which part of the donkey are we supposed to think about? Pete Wells wrote that and hundreds of other restaurant reviews in his 12 years as New York Times food critic. And now he's stepping down, so he's here to talk with us about his tenure and the role of a critic. Welcome and thanks for the years of great reading.

PETE WELLS: Oh, thank you.

SHAPIRO: I imagine you're probably sick of talking about that review you wrote a dozen years ago, panning Guy Fieri's American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square. But I think it does point to something about your job that's unusual, which is the influence that it can have - arguably way more than blog or an Instagram or TikTok post. How did you think about your power as a critic, the way you used it and how it changed over time?

WELLS: Well, I mean, for one thing, I would save, you know, harsh reviews like that one. I mean, I think you have to admit that was a tough review. It was basically a laundry list of things that...

SHAPIRO: Oh, I call it, like, the uber example of a tough review. It's like the quintessential platonic ideal of...

WELLS: Right.

SHAPIRO: ...A pan.

WELLS: Although, you know, I would point out that I didn't make anything up. I mean, these were all things that actually happened in the restaurant. So it's a pretty fact-based review. But, you know, I would save those tough ones for places that had a certain prominence, a certain fame. I would never write anything like that about a place that, say, you had never heard of. My rule was always if I have to tell people what the restaurant is, then it's not worth panning.

SHAPIRO: As one of your loyal readers who has never lived in New York, I'm curious how much you wrote for people who might not visit the restaurant you were writing about.

WELLS: That was always in the back of my mind, and I think that put pressure on me - or, let's say, I put pressure on myself to make the writing interesting to somebody who wasn't even a potential customer, somebody who was never going to come but liked to read about food, was interested in restaurants and would come along for the ride if I could convince them that it was worth it.

SHAPIRO: How do you keep the writing interesting when you might be describing the texture of a steak or a burger or a pizza crust for the 8,000th time?

WELLS: Right. Well, you try to say it in a new way. Or if that is not possible, I would try to bring the dish to life in front of the reader's eyes. I often would rely on visual adjectives rather than taste descriptors. There's only so many times you can say, you know, the meat was meaty. You know...

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

WELLS: ...The lamb tasted lamby (ph). You just - you start to sound like a baby, right? So I would try to almost draw a picture. And then my feeling was that if you could evoke the picture, then the reader would taste it.

SHAPIRO: You wrote a fascinating piece just a few weeks ago about the growing sophistication of AI technology that could be used to review restaurants on Google or Yelp. So what did you learn about how emerging technology is changing and may yet change the role of a critic like yourself?

WELLS: I think it's changing every minute. And I'm almost - you know, maybe a good reason for me to step back now is that I'm, you know, too old to really see everything that's happening as it's happening. But I think, you know, so many people now get all their information about food from TikTok. They watch a video and put it on a list, and then they go to the place. And, you know, it's just like - it's a different way of consuming food information. And an awful lot of it is visual. It's not word-based at all. The words play a very, very small part in it. It's just - here's a picture or a quick reel and, wow, you got to do that.

SHAPIRO: And that must inevitably change the kind of food people gravitate towards and the kind of food that chefs make.

WELLS: Yes. I mean, sometimes I think there's all this food that's kind of waving its arms and jumping up and down, trying to get your attention. And you never really find out if it's supposed to be delicious or not.

SHAPIRO: A murky-looking soup might be the best thing you've ever eaten, but it doesn't do well on TikTok.

WELLS: It will not go anywhere.

SHAPIRO: Pete Wells, it's been such a pleasure talking to you. Thanks so much.

WELLS: Thank you, Ari.

(SOUNDBITE OF KEITH MANSFIELD'S "FUNKY FANFARE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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