A Restaurant Critic (Ours) On the Year That Changed Him Forever

[0] section.

[1] I'm like audio professionals.

[2] Hi.

[3] How are you?

[4] Nice to see you, Pete.

[5] How have you been?

[6] I'm...

[7] Well, you know, it lasts four years.

[8] You know.

[9] Yeah, well, it's right out.

[10] Okay, Pete, so we're going to put this on what's...

[11] All right.

[12] Let's see.

[13] Let me find, like a...

[14] Maybe like a lapel here.

[15] That's fine.

[16] So, Pete, I just want to explain to people what's happening here.

[17] All right.

[18] So it is around 6 .45 on a Friday night.

[19] Pete Wells just arrived.

[20] The famed New York Times Restaurant Credit.

[21] He's now opening his shirt in the middle of a public park in Chinatown so that a microphone can be affixed to his shirt so that we might surreptitiously dine with you and experience firsthand what it's like to review a restaurant for the August New York Times.

[22] And it's quite a sight to behold, this open -shirted mic application.

[23] We will see how surreptitious we really are.

[24] I think, so I really think this is going to work because these laugh mics are really subtle, right?

[25] Yeah.

[26] Yeah, I don't think we're going to get discovered.

[27] Very John LeCurray.

[28] From New York Times, I'm Michael Bobaro.

[29] This is the Daily.

[30] Throughout his time as the restaurant critic for The Times, Pete Wells, has become the single most revered and feared voice in the world of fine dining, crowning its newest stars, and dethroning those whose time has passed.

[31] Then, everything changed, most of all, Wells himself.

[32] Today, a conversation over dinner with Pete Wells.

[33] It's Friday.

[34] 23rd.

[35] Pete, I want to start by asking you about your relationship to food.

[36] I mean, what is it outside of your job?

[37] What is your earliest relationship to dining?

[38] Well, I never went to nice restaurants as a kid.

[39] I mean, the fanciest restaurant I remember going to as a kid was in Providence was this place called the Rusty Scupper and the menu was like printed on an oar.

[40] I'm laughing because I know that place, and it is very basic.

[41] But, you know, baked stuffed shrimp, to me at 12, was, like, mind -blowing.

[42] How they got the menu on the side of the oar, I will never figure out, you know.

[43] There might have been tablecloths.

[44] There probably was, like, a breadbasket that came around.

[45] There's definitely lobster bibs.

[46] And there were definitely lobster bibs.

[47] So, you know, that was kind of my world growing up.

[48] And it didn't get fancier when I was like a young writer starting out in New York City.

[49] I was, I mean, I ate burritos three times a week.

[50] You know, I ate tons of pierogis in the East Village.

[51] The very first restaurant assignment I ever got was to write about cheap restaurants in the East Village.

[52] Right, this was your world.

[53] Yes, right.

[54] So this is back in the 90s.

[55] So this was kind of how it started, but I didn't think of myself as a restaurant person that all.

[56] And I mostly cooked at home, and that was my whole frame of reference, home cooking, and how much cheaper it was to, you know, have your friends over to a bill that you cooked yourself than to go out to some place that somebody else picked.

[57] I was always shocked by the bill, you know?

[58] Well, given Pete, your love for the prerogies and the burritos of the world and your passion as a home cook.

[59] I'm curious how you saw your mission once you were crowned New York Times restaurant critic, and you became this exceptionally influential writer whose job is very much focused on high -end dining in New York.

[60] Yeah, I mean, no one hands you a list of the rules of restaurant criticism.

[61] Right.

[62] But I thought the job was to help readers figure out what was worth the money.

[63] So in other words, there are a lot of expensive restaurants you can run through buckets and buckets and buckets of money just keeping up with all the expensive restaurants that open in New York.

[64] And I was very aware that the normal person cannot run to every new restaurant that opens.

[65] So I thought an important part of the job was sorting through all this really expensive stuff until.

[66] telling people, okay, this is worth your money, this is a splurge, this I wouldn't bother with, because, you know, I had that experience that we've all had of walking into something that you think is going to be great and then, you know, just really feeling like a sucker when you're signing the check, you know, like, wow, I really got taken.

[67] Or maybe there's something wrong with me. Maybe I didn't appreciate it.

[68] Maybe I ordered the wrong thing.

[69] things, you know.

[70] Right.

[71] But whatever it is, it's an unpleasant experience.

[72] Awful feeling.

[73] Yeah.

[74] Yeah.

[75] And the way, of course, that you tell people that they're not going to get fleeced is through a system of assigning stars to restaurants.

[76] So can you just walk us through that?

[77] Right.

[78] Well, the stars are supposed to be kind of summing up of the review.

[79] I think for some readers, they're the entire review.

[80] They just look at the star and they say, oh, well, never going to go there.

[81] Or we'll put that the list but what they're supposed to signify and we used to run a little explainer every week that decoded them that said stars reflect the reviewers reaction to service atmosphere and food with price taken into account so one star is good two is very good three I believe is excellent and four is extraordinary whatever that means to you or to I guess whatever it means to me is the relevant concept and well what does extraordinary mean Pete to you you start with the idea that there can only be a small handful of extraordinary restaurants in the city at any one time I think it's only meaningful if extraordinary, is very, very hard to get.

[82] In my mind, it was a striving for perfection or as close to it as, you know, one could come.

[83] And restaurants are unbelievably complex organisms with all these moving parts, and they're based on humans who screw up all the time.

[84] Right.

[85] So you have to understand that it's not going to be perfect, But when it seems like it maybe almost is, you realize how much went into creating that.

[86] To me, that's really impressive.

[87] Okay, well, with that in mind, I want to talk through a couple of your reviews.

[88] And I want to start, since we're on the subject of extraordinary restaurants with a restaurant that you designated thusly, which is Le Bernardin, the French restaurant in Midtown, that you reviewed back in 2012.

[89] So could I ask you to read from your review?

[90] of that restaurant.

[91] Sure.

[92] Some of the thrills are the hushed kind, like the way black garlic, pomegranate, and lime support the crisp skin and white flesh of sauteed black bass.

[93] Others are scene -stealers as when a white slab of steamed halibet is slowly surrounded by a crimson pool of beet sauce that with crem -fresh Durdan will turn the delirious pink of summer borsh.

[94] That last dish sounds like a restaurant striving for perfection.

[95] It's great.

[96] I mean, it's still great.

[97] It's still great.

[98] It is a version of what extraordinary can be.

[99] We should say, and I've been searching around as we've been talking, that this is no inexpensive meal.

[100] LeBernodan is a nearly $200 four -course dinner and a $120 three -course lunch.

[101] So, real money.

[102] Yes, you're definitely, you're paying for it.

[103] Right, but you're saying with four stars, you're paying for it, and it's actually worth it.

[104] Yes, that's right.

[105] That's right.

[106] But, of course, the reviews of yours that I've especially loved, and that I know many others have loved as well, are when you have not always found the trade to be fair.

[107] And that's because sometimes you've eviscerated restaurants for not fulfilling the pledge to be worth their price.

[108] And I think the one that is best known is your review of per se, which is Thomas Keller.

[109] temple to Hote Cuisine atop the Time Water Center in Columbus Circle in Manhattan.

[110] I wonder if you can read a few lines from that review.

[111] Sure.

[112] Dinner or lunch at this grand hermetic, self -regarding, ungenerous restaurant brings a protracted march of many dishes.

[113] And then I go into some examples.

[114] I don't know what could have saved limp dispiriting yam dumplings but it definitely wasn't a lukewarm Matsutaki mushroom bouillon as murky and appealing as bong water when my server asked would you like the foie gras $40 more or the salad the question had an air of menace when the salad turned out to be a pale uncrisp fried eggplant raviolo next to droopy strips of red pepper and carrot.

[115] It felt like extortion.

[116] And I go through a few more things like that, and then I conclude, per se, is among the worst food deals in New York.

[117] It's just a terrible value for the money you're spending.

[118] Well, can you just explain the value?

[119] Because I don't think everybody necessarily knows the price.

[120] Well, so at the time, there was a tasting menu that was at dinner.

[121] I didn't are $325, and you got nine courses.

[122] But then I just mentioned that would you like the foie gras for $40 more?

[123] There were a lot of upsells like that.

[124] And if you got all of them, we'd find yourself spending quite a bit more money than $325.

[125] You know, I ended up in one of those meals spending $3 ,000 or close to it for four people.

[126] Wow.

[127] I know it still feels, I mean, I feel, something in my stomach right now when I'm saying it, which is like, oh, my goodness.

[128] Wow.

[129] How can that be?

[130] Right.

[131] For Bongwater.

[132] Right.

[133] I mean, can you remind us how many stars you gave, per se?

[134] Yes, this one was two, because it was such a move down from the four that it had previously carried.

[135] I settled on two because I thought, boy, I mean, can you take all four stars away at the same time?

[136] Is that even how it works?

[137] I remember feeling kind of sick because I was going to have to drop this bomb.

[138] And it did kind of go off like a bomb.

[139] I recall this review really well, Pete, and in my memory, it wasn't that you gave it two stars.

[140] It was that you took away two stars.

[141] Well, that's how it's perceived for sure.

[142] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[143] One of New York City's best -rated restaurants just got eviscerated by New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells.

[144] Pete Wells knocked half of first.

[145] per se stars off of its marquee.

[146] It was last reviewed in 2011 by the Times, then critic, Sam Sifton.

[147] But in his latest review, out today, Wells downgraded the eatery to two stars.

[148] Two of the restaurant was dull at best, disappointing and flat -footed among the worst food deals in New York.

[149] You're the food sheriff.

[150] You're on the bead.

[151] You're warning people, that's a crime scene down there, don't go.

[152] Yeah.

[153] The soup probably wasn't like that bad.

[154] I'm just wondering, like, how would he know what that kind of water tastes like?

[155] Is that a weird question to ask?

[156] But if somebody who maybe doesn't have $300 to waste gets the message and goes and spends it somewhere else, you know, it's worth it, I guess.

[157] Boy, people can be pretty mean, can't they?

[158] But Pete, as much as you might have been administering a certain kind of food justice here, these two reviews, we're talking about.

[159] La Benadden, per se.

[160] In a lot of ways, they uphold a certain system and vision of dining that is very high end, right?

[161] And I've read almost all your reviews.

[162] You know, by and large, you spend a lot of time at expensive restaurants that are striving for greatness.

[163] And as much as you might be taking away two stars from a restaurant that's a rip -off, in some ways the very active reviewing it says to the world that this is where it's at and this is where your food focus should be.

[164] Yeah.

[165] I don't think there's a way out of it.

[166] I would try to mix it up.

[167] And if I'd gone to too many places where I was sitting on a cushy padding where my butt was kind of floating three inches off the chair, if I did that too many nights in a row and they were always refilling my water glass, I would think, oh, you're going to get real for a minute here and go somewhere else right right right but you'd always end up with your your butt hanging in the air yeah yeah yeah that's the yeah so i'll wake up on a monday morning and before the end of the week i will have you know signed off on some check that's shocking six or seven or eight hundred or it off to the New York Times, and that's just how it's going to be.

[168] And then it stopped being that way.

[169] I mean, once the pandemic came, you couldn't even spend that kind of money on a restaurant.

[170] First of all, there were no restaurants.

[171] Right.

[172] I mean, and that lasted for months and months and months.

[173] And then when restaurants opened again with outdoor dining only, ah, I was so relieved.

[174] I per se wasn't doing outdoor dining.

[175] Leprata Dan wasn't doing outdoor dining.

[176] No. Any of the places that had four stars or aspired to four stars, they didn't have a little sidewalk patio.

[177] They didn't have a plywood hut.

[178] Right, right.

[179] So very quickly, the upper crust that is very central to your job is literally gone away.

[180] It's gone.

[181] It's not there.

[182] And the first day that outdoor dining came back, I went out for the first meal, was lunch and rode my bike around until I could find a place.

[183] And then that was kind of life for a while.

[184] It was me on my bike, sitting out of the sidewalk, and there was just no fanciness left at all.

[185] Trucks and carts and places that were you just, you sat on the sidewalk at this table that was about to fall over.

[186] Right.

[187] And there's not a piece of halibut with beet sauce in sight.

[188] No, no. Nobody who was surviving the pandemic was trying to create the perfect meal.

[189] They were just trying to create a meal.

[190] A meal, right, a meal.

[191] So I started going to them, and they were just completely different from my usual diet.

[192] You know, this was like a bar in Midtown by the Empire State Building.

[193] There was a chapley kebab truck way, way out in Queens, almost not even a chef who had been doing this pop -up out of somebody else's restaurants.

[194] This was like a wild creative leap just based.

[195] You know, the first time I went, I like ordered and sat on the hood of my car, you know.

[196] So I wanted to write about them, right?

[197] But it didn't make sense to review them the way I used to review.

[198] And it definitely didn't make sense to you of stars.

[199] That was just like, how could you?

[200] you compare a restaurant that was doing outdoor dining only during the pandemic with maybe one cook and one waiter, or sometimes the cook is the waiter, how could you compare that to like what restaurants used to do and what my whole notion of like what one, two, three, four stars meant, didn't make any sense to go in and say, you know, they have the ugliest assortment of chairs and tables I've ever seen.

[201] You just, people were working under the most extenuating circumstances you can imagine.

[202] There was, you know, it would have just seemed gratuitous.

[203] Stupid.

[204] Not just gratuitous, but just, like, don't you see what's going on here, my man?

[205] Don't you see that these people are, like, one step away from bankruptcy?

[206] Like, can you feel that, like, if they could do a better, job they would, but this is what they can do right now.

[207] Right.

[208] Well, what did you see your role in this moment?

[209] Because from everything you're saying, you're suddenly a food critic who is rooting for all these restaurants who are so desperate just to survive.

[210] Well, the part of the job that used to be about saying, this is good, this is acceptable, this is not very good, that all seemed irrelevant.

[211] And what was more interesting was saying, this is interesting over here, this is interesting over there, there's something happening here you might want to know about.

[212] And that started to seem like something I could really run with.

[213] So rather than just sorting, extraordinary, excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor, satisfactory, the point would be connecting, connecting readers to things that they could get excited about that they might not have known about.

[214] And of course, this is not a new thing in food writing.

[215] It's not a new thing in New York City.

[216] It was just, it hadn't really been a major part of my job before.

[217] So it just started to seem like, well, you know, why have I been so narrow -minded?

[218] Why am I trying to impose my ideas of what a restaurant should be on what's really out there.

[219] We'll be right back.

[220] So, Pete, how does the world and how do your bosses at the Times respond to this new version of yourself as critic, one who doesn't use the stars and one who sees the role as this connector rather than a sorter?

[221] Well, there were some people who didn't get it, and I saw that in reader comments.

[222] Occasionally, I got letters about it.

[223] You know, there were always these reminders that whatever people think of your words, it's really the stars that they want.

[224] So, you know, that was always kind of nipping at my heels.

[225] Right.

[226] And I started hearing from people higher up at the times, or I had some discussions with my editor the first time it was mentioned, I thought it was just way too soon.

[227] I said, you know, this isn't even a conversation.

[228] it just seemed like a step back.

[229] Like I'd be going back to something that I didn't necessarily believe in anymore, and I wanted to keep doing it the new way.

[230] It was so much more interesting to me. But then there comes a day when my editor says, it's time.

[231] And at this point, it's not a question, it's a statement.

[232] It's an order.

[233] It's a command.

[234] Well, you know.

[235] I read it that way.

[236] And what was the rationale for this commandment, that the stars must come back?

[237] I mean, as best you understand it.

[238] Because obviously, you developed a really nice way of thinking about this.

[239] Obviously, they don't share it, your bosses, but they must have their own thoughts about why the stars matter.

[240] Well, they're so strongly identified with the New York Times.

[241] Right.

[242] Like certain things, I think, have been a part of the Times for so long, and it's almost unimaginable without them.

[243] And, you know, like, to me, the most obvious would be the crossword, you know.

[244] And I don't necessarily know if the restaurant review is one of those, but the stars are one of those, you know?

[245] So how did you, because no doubt you resent this?

[246] I don't, well, I mean, as a writer, I'm always jealous of the stars.

[247] I mean, the stars are like, you know, it's like an actor being upstaged by a dog, you know.

[248] Right, those stars didn't stay up till 4 in the morning writing 700 words, did they?

[249] You understand.

[250] You understand.

[251] So as these stars are reimposed on you, how did that work?

[252] I mean, as I remember it, you had been reviewing without stars for more than a year, right?

[253] So tell us about your first starred review after all this time without the stars.

[254] Well, I wanted to do something that much.

[255] signal that maybe things had changed a little bit and that the game wasn't the same anymore.

[256] I started thinking, why didn't I think about the stars in a new way where the stars could be a little more flexible.

[257] And I had a few places in mind and would go around, try them out, imagine what the review would be like.

[258] But I kept coming back to a place I had going.

[259] on to right before they shut down.

[260] A Puerto Rican pork trailer.

[261] It's not even a truck.

[262] It's, they can't even move.

[263] But it's a trailer up on blocks in the South Bronx.

[264] There are all these people milling around the trailer.

[265] People waning in line.

[266] There are people, you know, with flasks.

[267] There are people with bottles.

[268] There's music playing almost always, like older classic salsa, 60s, 70s.

[269] And the proprietor Angel Jimenez, who goes by Piranha, is absolutely in command of this show, runs the whole thing, takes the money, cooks everything to order except the pork, which is, like, roasted overnight.

[270] And if you want pork, which almost everybody wants pork, he hacks it up with this huge machete which just comes whacking down, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack.

[271] And pork goes flying everywhere every time he does this, right?

[272] If you're standing too close, you were just going to be covered with gore, you know?

[273] So, you know, I think the ultimate way to eat at La Piranha is to get the pork and then have it sort of incorporated into the Mofongo, which is an indescribable mash of plantins and pork and pork fat and whatever else goes in there.

[274] And then on top of that there's some garlic sauce.

[275] And then you just get the pork, the garlic, the oregano, the fat, the starch, the salt.

[276] Very, very elemental flavors, basic, forceful flavors.

[277] And, you know, you feel like a god.

[278] You know, you feel like, you just feel like this is the food I was meant to eat.

[279] I mean, it's not kind of citified, it's certainly not chefy in any sense.

[280] It's very old school.

[281] So basically, this trailer is the perfect distillation of the new Pete Wells, the new Times restaurant critic.

[282] You know, it embodies the joy.

[283] It sounds like of discovery, of out -of -the -wayness, and unfussiness.

[284] Well, it's very much the old Pete Wells as a civilian.

[285] Right.

[286] It's me with a day off.

[287] It's the rusty scupper.

[288] Or the clamsack or right.

[289] But it's not what I've been writing about.

[290] And it's a kind of place that I think told myself just didn't fit the column.

[291] How many stars did you give it?

[292] Well, I gave it three.

[293] I thought, why not?

[294] Three stars.

[295] Yeah, I just thought this place is really exceptional.

[296] There's nothing like it in the city.

[297] There is like all the dedication that you could hope for.

[298] You know, it's one of the things that I look for in a restaurant is that, you know, how dedicated are they?

[299] How much do they care?

[300] How hard are they trying?

[301] You know, this guy, I think, you know, his entire weekend is about this trailer, getting up in the middle of the night to roast things.

[302] the pigs and they're not whacking them up all day long.

[303] And then there's a sense of community there that's really unique, really, really unique.

[304] And not something that the star system has normally has taken account of, but I start to think it should.

[305] Like maybe this is a, you know, a kind of atmosphere, a kind of service that I should find a way to account for.

[306] So let's talk about the reaction to this review.

[307] Because as we know, when you remove a couple of stars from a high -end restaurant like a per se, it's a hair -on -fire moment in that food world.

[308] So when you turn the system upside down, and you pretty much did in this case, three stars for a trailer.

[309] I mean, three stars in the pre -days were assigned to places like Gramercy Tavern, 11 Madison Park, some of the finest restaurants in the world.

[310] What is the reaction when you give three stars to this pork trailer?

[311] It was a lot more positive than I would have expected, and at the same time, there were people who just, you know, were shocked and appalled and, you know, the end of Western civilization people, a little bit in social media and the comments on our website.

[312] Well, can I make a confession here, Pete?

[313] Oh, yeah, go ahead.

[314] I mean, when I read that review, I had a somewhat similar reaction.

[315] I thought it was.

[316] was a strange, unexpected use of your platform when it came to assigning three stars, right?

[317] And maybe even, and I'll be honest, I mean, maybe my first reaction wasn't generous.

[318] And there's some ugliness in my heart.

[319] I thought it was perhaps a little performative.

[320] Is that why you've invited me on here?

[321] Are we going to hash this out right now?

[322] No, no, no. But then, and this is really an important turn in the story, you took us to a race.

[323] restaurant.

[324] We got all miced up and went to a restaurant very much in the new mold of a Pete Wells review -worthy restaurant.

[325] And we had a really remarkable experience.

[326] So walk us through that evening.

[327] Well, just if you can recollect.

[328] Sure.

[329] We have a reservation.

[330] How many people?

[331] Six.

[332] So this is North Vietnamese food, which is not super common in New York City, and what they're doing is a bunch of stuff that I've never seen before.

[333] This is a tiny, tiny place, and I think maybe three people are working there.

[334] I think there's a theme of, like, mild chaos that we're seeing.

[335] So one of the three people came out and said, we're ready to see you, and we said, well, can we sit outside?

[336] Because it was a nice night, and a lot of people were sitting outside.

[337] Yeah, if we could do it.

[338] And he kind of scratched his head and said, yeah, but you have to help me with the chairs and tables.

[339] Right.

[340] What's going to happen now?

[341] Mike's been listening Mike to me. Mike Benoit is being recruited to, I think, like, build the table.

[342] This is great.

[343] And what he did was went inside, picked up a table.

[344] Handed it to our colleague, Mike Benoit.

[345] Yes, handed it to our colleague.

[346] Walk across Forsyth Street, put it down in the street, on the far side.

[347] In the bike lane.

[348] Right, in the bike lane.

[349] put chairs around it, and then, you know, drop down some menus, and there we were.

[350] Bicycles are going around us in scooters and pedestrians, and...

[351] I'll take it.

[352] Thank you.

[353] Of course, we had to go on and get beer, so we went across the street.

[354] Right, B -Y -O -B.

[355] The Daily.

[356] It's a delicious beer.

[357] And then the food itself arrives.

[358] Yeah.

[359] These are our stuff snows.

[360] I mean, one of the first things that shows up are these big snail shells.

[361] And the snail shells have these lemongrass stalk sticking out of them that sort of look like their antenna, right?

[362] They're just like, you know, if you saw a snail this size in your garden, you would scream, you know?

[363] And then they're stuffed with this pork sausage that has a bunch of herbs and aromatics in it.

[364] Is that hitting you where you wanted to hit you?

[365] I think it's great.

[366] I'm not so much tasting.

[367] Snail.

[368] I mean, I believe that it's in there, but it doesn't taste like a pork sausage either.

[369] I mean, it's really funny if you've never tasted it before, like ever, like not even remotely.

[370] Delicious.

[371] Delicious and fragrant and amazing.

[372] I could have more of those.

[373] Many more of those.

[374] But then again, we have to pace ourselves.

[375] And then there are these chicken feet.

[376] Ah.

[377] So, brine chicken feet with the spicy.

[378] Definitely looked like they were just pulled off a chicken.

[379] Yeah, well, no, then they were cooked, but yeah, basically, right.

[380] So far, I haven't seen you take any notes of any kind.

[381] No, but I also forgot to take pictures.

[382] I, you know, I'm very easily distracted.

[383] I don't need a picture of the chicken feet.

[384] Right?

[385] Chicken feet look like chicken feet.

[386] And then the main event.

[387] This is actually the dish.

[388] This dish called I'm going to butcher the point.

[389] pronunciation of this, but I'll forge on, anyway, Bundao Mam Tom, which is a bunch of somewhat bland tasting things to dip into a sauce that is, whoa, that's intense.

[390] The farthest thing from bland in the world.

[391] This is basically the reason we're hearing this little three tablespoons, two tablespoons of purple gray goo, yeah.

[392] It starts with this shrimp paste that tastes like, you know, a hundred.

[393] Shrimp died a week ago and have been, you know, just lying there.

[394] And then it's a little lime juices added to it.

[395] I think some fish sauce, I think some fresh chilies.

[396] I think the sauce is wonderful.

[397] It's really good with the rice.

[398] Like you taste it, you think you're never going to taste anything else.

[399] Like, yeah.

[400] Like, you'll never get this flavor out of your mouth.

[401] When I pause to eat, it's like this little flame comes up.

[402] Could I get another beer?

[403] And for me, just in the course of, like, of a few minutes, it goes from being a very challenging flavor to integrate into a meal.

[404] You know, like, challenging in terms of, like, it's like the loudest guest at the party, you know, and you're like, oh, my gosh, it's this guy ever going to, like, you know.

[405] And then within minutes, I just thought it was completely delicious.

[406] Right.

[407] and kind of oddly addictive.

[408] That's a fun, funky.

[409] It's not that fun.

[410] Right, I had this change of perspective on it, you know, and I sort of got it, which was an amazing experience.

[411] Like, I got the appeal of the whole thing.

[412] How was everything?

[413] How was everything?

[414] We liked it.

[415] Yeah?

[416] I love being, I love being on the street.

[417] Oh, yeah.

[418] Thank you, guys, so much.

[419] Thank you.

[420] Thank you.

[421] Thank you.

[422] Yeah, we really did enjoy it.

[423] We had a great night.

[424] I mean, we're sitting here in a bike lane with, you know, buses and skateboards whizzing by and eating this unbelievably delicious food that I had never laid eyes on before.

[425] And I was feeling quite abashed because, yes, I'd had those thoughts about that three -star review you gave to the trailer, and suddenly this experience very much validated, to me, your new approach.

[426] I mean, I will remember that meal for all kinds of reasons, with greater warmth and vividness, than perhaps almost any meal I've had at some of, you know, what are quote -unquote fine restaurants in New York City.

[427] So you win.

[428] Oh, I'm so glad to hear that.

[429] Well, it's not a competition.

[430] We can all win.

[431] I mean, I hope we'll, I mean, I hope.

[432] I realize this sounds ridiculous, but I hope when people find out about a great eating experience that there are no losers.

[433] So having admitted I'm a convert, I do want to speak for just a moment about what this metamorphosis you've been through means for food criticism, I guess even more broadly, though, for the idea of criticism in general, right?

[434] I mean, the question is, does something get lost in this revolution when you stop seeing yourself as somebody who sorts, right?

[435] And the reason I ask that, I don't want to get too philosophical about it, is that every industry is defined by its top performers, right?

[436] I mean, The Times doesn't review Little League games where we cover the Mets, we cover the Yankees, we don't review amateur dance troops, we review the American ballet theater or whatever is performing at Lincoln Center, and that, the thinking goes, sets the standard for everyone else in that world to strive for or towards.

[437] So what does it mean for the food world if Pete Wells is not policing the way he used to the very top of the industry.

[438] Does everything start to slip?

[439] And does that even matter?

[440] Well, for one thing, I'm still reviewing those restaurants, and I'll keep reviewing some of those very high -end restaurants.

[441] I just did an Omicasse sushi place where it's $650 to walk in the door.

[442] So those reviews are still getting written.

[443] But the other question you have to ask is, which is the top of the industry or the art form?

[444] Is it the French -derived restaurant or the actually French restaurant with all of those amenities that we've learned to associate with fine dining?

[445] I mean, the French are brilliant at many things, and one of the things they're brilliant at is marketing themselves as the authorities on dining.

[446] wine.

[447] They've just, they've done an amazing job at it.

[448] And that's not to take away from their accomplishments, but we don't necessarily have to accept their view that they have, that they have taken restaurant dining to its pinnacle.

[449] We could also ask, you know, well, what is the best version of Puerto Rican food that you can get in New York City?

[450] Who's coming the closest to recreating a certain kind of Vietnamese outdoor dining experience.

[451] Those are pinnacles in their own way.

[452] Right.

[453] I see what you're doing.

[454] You're not buying it.

[455] No, I think.

[456] Are we going to stay here all night until I convince you?

[457] I mean, if you take the movie critics, our movie critics, I think, have tried historically to review every movie that plays.

[458] in a theater in New York City.

[459] So they don't get into these questions of, you know, what's a reviewable film?

[460] But if they did, you can't imagine that there would be a rule that said, you know, well, every film we review has to be made by a major Hollywood studio and has to have at least one actor you've heard of, you know, and there has to be a wardrobe budget of X number of dollars.

[461] Like, you know, it wouldn't make any sense.

[462] And somehow, you know, these questions don't come up.

[463] It's very easy to accept that a low -budget movie can be the best movie of the year.

[464] So why can't I'm a low -budget restaurant be the best restaurant of the year?

[465] Right.

[466] You're saying you have to step outside the system, especially the system of criticism, in your case, to see its essential limitations.

[467] I guess I am saying that.

[468] I guess I am saying that, or I'm saying, you know, Maybe we don't need to accept the limitations that we thought the system had.

[469] Maybe they don't exist.

[470] Right.

[471] Maybe they're just a habit.

[472] And you've broken it.

[473] For now.

[474] And while you're the critic.

[475] Yeah, I mean, let's be humble about this.

[476] You know, I can't do this forever.

[477] And the next person is going to come sweeping in with a whole new set of ideas, priorities, experiences, and that'll be very healthy.

[478] Right.

[479] Well, Pete, thank you very much for everything, including a really lovely dinner.

[480] Oh, you're welcome.

[481] Thank you for letting me change your mind.

[482] Pete has yet to review the restaurant where we joined him for dinner.

[483] Shortly after our meal there, the restaurant's owners went on vacation, temporarily closed shop and have yet to reopen.

[484] We'll be right back.

[485] Here's what else you need to Notre Day.

[486] Two former top executives of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX have pleaded guilty to federal crimes and are now cooperating in the prosecution of the company's founder, Sam Bankman Freed.

[487] Their guilty pleas on charges of fraud are an ominous sign for Bankman who has been extradited from the Bahamas to the U .S. to face multiple criminal charges of his own.

[488] The U .S. government has accused Bankman Freed of orchestrating a sweeping years -long fraud that cost investors billions of dollars.

[489] Today's episode was produced by Rob Zibko and Claire Tennisketter with help from Jessica Chung and Rochelle Bonja.

[490] It was edited by M .J. Davis -Linn and Michael Benoit, with help from Lisa Chow.

[491] Contains original music by Alicia E. Tube, Marian Lazzano, and Daniel Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood.

[492] Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansfirk of Wonderly.

[493] That's it for the daily.

[494] I'm Michael Babarro.

[495] See you on Monday.