Review Recap: SHO Shaun Hergatt
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 08:17AM I never thought that I would be quoting @OzerskyTV for review commentary, but today Josh nails it:
Sifton’s off. his. rocker. Two stars for Shaun Hergatt? Absurd. The obligatory middlebrow preening. When will this mummery end? The whole review is one big cheap shot. I’m sorry. This “fine dining is over” meme has now officially jumped the shark.”
Here’s another thing I never thought I’d say:
Come back, Frank Bruni! All is forgiven!
Bruni, lest we forget, made many of the same mistakes. But he was at least an original voice. Sifton is just lazy. The review is a mash-up of what Pete Wells wrote eight months ago.
Can we count all the ways the review is incoherent?
- He complains that SHO isn’t locally sourced. Marea isn’t locally sourced. It got three stars.
- He complains that SHO is old-fashioned. La Grenouille is old-fashioned. It got three stars.
- He complains that SHO looks like it “a good business hotel in Sydney or Zurich, Miami or Bonn.” Colicchio & Sons looks like Vegas. It got three stars.
Does Sifton have any plans to be relevant? If so, Right Now would be a good time to start.
Reader Comments (8)
I agree that Sifton is trying very hard to become irrelevant. And give him credit; he is succeeding. But calling for the return of Frank Bruni is beyond the pale. He became so irritating that I stopped reading his reviews during his last year.
The larger issue is the inability of the reviewer to separate his personal preference from an objective analysis of the food and service. Good wine writers are able to convey a rational description of the wine -- and their personal opinion. Apparently this is a lost skill among restaurant reviewers.
Sorry...I was using a bit of hyperbole there. I don’t actually want Frank Bruni back, and in any case, it would not happen.
But if it does, Marc, it's YOUR fault.
Sure, all those restaurants had those attributes and got three stars, but individually. SHO got ALL THREE at once. That doesn't mean anything to you?
Sure, all those restaurants had those attributes and got three stars, but individually. SHO got ALL THREE at once. That doesn't mean anything to you?
You would be right if each of those things were negatives. In that case, if you pile up enough drawbacks, then the restaurant deserves to be docked a star.
But none of these things are actually negatives—even assuming they are true (and in a couple of cases I have my doubts). It therefore doesn’t matter if there are THREE or a hundred of them.
The point about sourcing is the most blatant. Since when was it a demerit to be serving things that come from elsewhere?
If those things are nearly extinct or blatantly out of season, I think it's definitely worth a demerit.
"If those things are nearly extinct or blatantly out of season, I think it's definitely worth a demerit."
Out of season??? Give me a break. Next you'll be taking a census of the servers and docking a star if the gender balance isn't perfectly aligned. And what about the restaurant's electricity supplier? We want to be sure that they're buying from a "green" supplier and not a company that burns oil. And on and on. Once you start down the road to political correctness there's no turning back.
Sifton isn't writing for his readers. He is writing for whomever supervises him at the NYT. These people would all regard comments about the social utility of the restaurant as being most important.