827: Life of a Restaurant Critic with Bill Addison and Wini Moranville

The Splendid Table: Conversations & Recipes For Curious Cooks & Eaters

American Public Media

Arts, Food

4.2 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, we talk to two longtime restaurant critics from different parts of the country about what makes their work so interesting and what they're excited to eat. First, Bill Addison, restaurant critic for The Los Angeles Times, talks about his approach to critical writing, his favorite restaurant experiences, and the evolution of California cuisine. He just wrapped up one of the most ambitious projects of his career, the list of the One Hundred and One Best Restaurants in California for The Los Angeles Times. Then, we turn to the Midwest to join Wini Moranville, a restaurant critic based in Des Moines, Iowa. She tells us about her first job as a restaurant server and how that influenced her current work reviewing restaurants, and how restaurant criticism in smaller cities often have very different considerations. Wini is the author of the memoir "Love is My Favorite Flavor: A Midwestern Dining Critic Tells All," and you can check out her Substack, Dining Well in DSM.

Broadcast dates for this episode:

June 13, 2025 (originally aired)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Think of a breakfast muffin with sausage and egg. Yep, that's the one. You can see it, can't you? Deep in your mind.
0:09.1	Sausage, egg, cheese, muffin. I don't even need to say its name, do I? Breakfast, done properly.
0:18.6	Served until 11am.
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0:59.3	I'm Frances Lamb, and this is The Splendid Table from APM. The third rule of restaurant criticism is,
1:15.3	you're there for the reader, not the restaurant.
1:17.9	The second rule of restaurant criticism is,
1:20.4	if you're not learning, you're not doing it right.
1:22.9	And the first rule of restaurant criticism is,
1:26.6	no one ever wants to hear you complain because everyone thinks
1:29.9	it's got to be the best job in the world right and most critics will say yes it is but it's not all
1:35.8	fun in games there's hard work there's a lot of thought that goes into what makes writing about
1:40.6	something your readers haven't experienced exciting, there's a lot of pressure
1:44.7	knowing that you've got people's reputations, and sometimes there are livelihoods in your hands.
1:49.8	And sometimes, it's just too much food.
1:53.6	Now, I've said all this, but today's guests, two longtime restaurant critics Bill Addison
	...

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