Welcome to food. I'm Kate Bitman, and we are so glad that you're here with us. If you want more,

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And as always, email us with do well

with talking about food critics. Who are these people? How many times do they need to go to a

restaurant in order to fairly critique it? How many dishes do they need to eat? Do they get sick of

always going out? And then, of course, there's the issue of anonymity or the

lack thereof. Is it disingenuous to disguise oneself or to use a fake name? I can say with all honesty

that I don't know how I feel about anonymity and being a food critic. Bill Addison at the L.A. Times

just, quote, unveiled himself. Julia Roberts, in my best friend's

wedding, didn't try to be anonymous. Ruth Reischel has written extensively on the subject. There was a

piece in The New Yorker in 2009 headlined why restaurant critics need anonymity. It feels like

for every person who thinks anonymity is important, there's someone

who disagrees. Then there are other critics who don't have a choice. When my dad was at the height of

his New York Times fame, we couldn't go out to eat without someone coming up to our table.

And yes, he actually was a restaurant critic for a bit, he reviewed Connecticut restaurants for the New York

Times. My very favorite commentary on the issue of being a food critic in anonymity, or lack of

anonymity, is an essay written by the food writer Lindsay Green for the Detroit Free Press in 2022.

It's called Accidentally Anonymous, and when my dad edited the 2023 edition of Best American

Food Writing, he included the piece in it.

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