PrintKeith McNally Is Just Wrong
I have profound respect for Keith McNally's abilities as a restaurateur, but his open letter to Eater and the New York Times alleging that Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni is sexist is simply way off base.
McNally notes that Bruni has never given a female chef three stars and is therefore sexist, and furthermore that this alleged sexism is the reason Bruni gave McNally's latest restaurant, Morandi, and its chef, Jody Williams, a bad review.
On a zillion levels this is preposterous.
First, anyone who has ever dined with Bruni (I have had a couple of meals with him in the company of women) would tell you he adores women.
Second, can anyone point to a female chef in New York who has been reviewed by Bruni and given short shrift by him as a result of their gender? Sexism is still a fact of life in restaurant kitchens all over the country. I have written about this topic often while noting that other cities, such as San Francisco and New Orleans, seem more hospitable to women chef-restaurateurs. This doesn't mean, however, that McNally is barking up the right tree.
Third, it is clear that this is a thinly veiled broadside aimed at Bruni and the Times because Bruni had the audacity to give Morandi and Williams, a one-star review. I actually liked Morandi more than Bruni did. But Bruni's negative review had everything to do with the food and service there and nothing to do with sexism. And it seems irresponsible and disingenuous for McNally to suggest otherwise.
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3 Comments:
So is it true that he has never given a female chef in NY more than 1 star?
Bruni may "love" women, but that doesn't mean that he's not sexist.
tde at 7:34PM on 05/08/07
Keith McNally may be wrong in accusing Bruni of being sexist. He simply should have accused him of being an incompetent critic. A great writer, but a poor critic.
mikeyrad at 11:56AM on 05/09/07
I haven't been to Morandi. I assume that Bruni's review is accurate, because most of his reviews are accurate, and the critical consensus seems to agree with the review.
OTOH, Levine's argument that "Bruni adores women" is utter nonsense. There are plenty of men who adore women out there, and some of them have subtle sexist biases against women. If that's the best that Levine can do for his friend, I am going to assume that there is something to the criticism.
Its pretty obvious to me that Gabrielle Hamilton is deserving of at least two stars at Prune. If Bruni has time to rereview a Danny Meyer restaurant every six months, you would think he might take a moment to upgrade Prune. Moreover, everyone else in the world other than Bruni seems to think that April Bloomfield of Spotted Pig deserves two or more stars.
In short, (1) the review of Morandi may be fair, (2) Bruni seems to be developing a pattern of giving short shrift to women chefs, and (3) Levine doth protest too much.
Nice blog, by the way.
Fielding at 12:03PM on 05/15/07