New York owners and chefs are out to get even with critics who write critically. Like Agua Dulce’s Ulrich A. Sterling, more of them than ever seem not thin-skinned, but no-skinned. They never heard Mike Tyson’s admonition to be quiet and “Take your beating like a man.”
Whining never helped a restaurant that felt wronged, but owners occasionally blundered into a personal attack — like the infamous case of Dish of Salt, a Chinese place that took out an ad falsely claiming that the Times’ Mimi Sheraton, who’d panned it, had never even been there.
Thanks partly to food blogs that record a chef’s every burp, the counterattacks have become a lot more common in the past few years. Here are some. — Steve Cuozzo
* DANIEL BOULUD: He recently called New York magazine’s Adam Platt a “bitch” and “miserable” for his under-appreciative review of DBGB.
Justification: Sure, Boulud is steamed that Platt gave his new place just one star out of five. But shouldn’t this great chef remain above it, especially since every other critic loved DBGB and the house is full? (And isn’t the point of having critics to come up with different views, rather than the same one?)
* JEFFREY CHODOROW: Ridiculously blasted former Times critic Frank Bruni in an ad and on a “Chodo-blog” for trashing his now-closed Kobe Club.
Justification: None, since every reviewer in town hated Kobe Club, which was overpriced, ugly and out of touch. Chodorow was just feeding his own ego by feigning a grudge match.
* ALAIN DUCASSE: Blasted New York “journalists” in general last year for supposedly not “understanding” French bistro food in their early pans of his new Benoit.
Justification: None — as Ducasse tacitly acknowledged when he later fired Benoit’s original chef. The place is a lot better now, but we’ve yet to hear Ducasse thanking “journalists” for it.
* GABRIEL KREUTHER: The chef of Danny Meyer’s The Modern told a Web site this year, “With someone like Steve Cuozzo . . . you have to wonder where he comes from sometimes.”
Justification: Unfathomable — unless Kreuther plans to give back the 31/2 stars I gave to his work at Atelier and my praise of him at The Modern as a “truly great French chef” despite its rocky start. Today’s chefs sure are tough to please!