The most brutal restaurant review ever

NYT review of Guy Fieri's Times Square restaurant is a talker.

November 15, 2012 at 4:58PM
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Photo from Food Network
Photo from Food Network (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Look out, Marilyn Hagerty. (You remember her, surely, the restaurant reviewer from the Grand Forks Herald who attracted national attention with her review of the Olive Garden?)

Her review is likely to be overtaken by another talker for best-read, this from Pete Wells, restaurant reviewer for the New York Times, who wrote a blistering commentary of Guy Fieri's Times Square eatery, Guy's American Kitchen & Bar -- and did so entirely in the form of questions.

"Has anyone ever told you that your high-wattage passion for no-collar American food makes you television's answer to Calvin Trillin, if Mr. Trillin bleached his hair, drove a Camaro and drank Boozy Creamsicles? When you cruise around the country for your show 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,' rasping out slangy odes to the unfancy places where Americans like to get down and greasy, do you really mean it? Or is it all an act? Is that why the kind of cooking you celebrate on television is treated with so little respect at Guy's American Kitchen & Bar?" Wells wrote.

Later, Wells asked, "Is this how you roll in Flavor Town?"

We will see. Will the tourists in Times Square notice?

UPDATE: Poynter (the journalism think-tank in Florida) interviews Pete Wells about the review.

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about the writer

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