{"id":190434,"date":"2021-02-27T17:44:43","date_gmt":"2021-02-27T14:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/food-critics-who-rip-indoor-dining-are-sabotaging-their-industry\/"},"modified":"2021-02-27T17:44:43","modified_gmt":"2021-02-27T14:44:43","slug":"food-critics-who-rip-indoor-dining-are-sabotaging-their-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/food-critics-who-rip-indoor-dining-are-sabotaging-their-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"#Food critics who rip indoor dining are sabotaging their industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Food critics who rip indoor dining are sabotaging their industry<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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Among all the curious responses to the COVID-19 crisis, the weirdest might be the reaction of most New York City restaurant critics and reporters to the return of low-capacity indoor dining. They are opposed to it \u2014 fiercely. We\u2019re all going to die! Those who disagree are \u201c\u2014holes!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bizarrely, a whole class of journalists is now acting to destroy the very industry on which their livelihoods depend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During last autumn\u2019s short-lived restoration of indoor dining, through the winter months when only outdoor service was allowed and, most especially, since the indoor resumption app<\/a>roved by Gov. Cuomo began on Feb. 12, the drumbeat\u2019s been unrelenting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New York Times critic Pete Wells wrote<\/a> in September that Cuomo was risking \u201canother outbreak in New York so restaurants can have dining rooms that are three-quarters empty.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

His view has not mellowed since the original 25 percent capacity limit was upped to 35 percent. Maybe he\u2019s just weary of the reviewing grind after more than 10 years on the job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve covered restaurants for longer. I\u2019m confident in New York state\u2019s official data which found that a scant 1.43 percent<\/a> of new COVID infections \u2014 a figure taken from actual contact tracing, not based on vague CDC and academic pronouncements stemming from \u201cmodels\u201d \u2014 originated inside restaurants, compared with more than 70 percent that occurred in homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Never mind. Eater.com critic Ryan Sutton has howled against indoor dining time and again, most recently under the headline<\/a> \u201cCuomo\u2019s reckless return to indoor dining values NYC restaurants over lives.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sutton, who\u2019s astute in restaurant-industry economics, writes that back-of-house employees are disproportionately at risk of infection \u2014 but pays only lip service to the economic and psychic toll taken on jobless workers and their families.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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New Yorker staff writer Helen Rosner<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Perhaps the solution\u2019s to simply let \u201cgovernment\u201d pay all their salaries, which former members of President Biden\u2019s virus task force proposed in a recent New York Times op-ed column<\/a>. Or, as Grubstreet.com\u2019s Rachel Sugar blithely put it<\/a>, \u201cKeep everything closed and just pay people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The New Yorker staff writer Helen Rosner claimed<\/a> that the mortal danger of indoor dining was beyond debate and those who insist on enjoying it are selfish flaunters of settled science<\/a>. She used the \u201ca-word\u201d in a tweet to characterize those who disagreed, and cited findings from two universities, one of which (Stanford) deemed restaurants \u201csuperspreaders\u201d based on zero clinical evidence. In a tweet<\/a>, Rosner agreed with a friend who called indoor diners \u201ca\u2013holes \u2014 certainly a useful contribution to the discussion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Only New York magazine\u2019s Adam Platt allowed any wiggle room: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t condemn [indoor dining] for the record although I personally wouldn\u2019t do it in NYC,\u201d he told The Post by e-mail. \u201cCall me a member of the rigorous outdoor dining camp,\u201d he added, although he recently reviewed<\/a> Stone Barns in Westchester indoors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week, Hearth chef\/owner Marco Canora called out the critical hypocrisy. He posted on Instagram, \u201cTo all the remote working food journos who\u2019ve suffered no pain of lost income and who have strong opinions about restaurant operators who choose to open for indoor dining, you might consider employing some more empathy toward those you claim you want to protect \u2014 the cook, the server, the porter. These folks don\u2019t have the luxury of working from home. They are hungry and anxious and more than willing to take on some risk, don a mask and work indoors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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New York magazine\u2019s Adam Platt <\/figcaption>
Clint Spaulding\/PMc<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Why are critics so hostile to indoor dining? Remember that New York City, with all its restaurant restrictions and closures, has seen 27,000 COVID deaths to date while the whole state of Florida has suffered only about 3,000 more despite having nearly three times the Big Apple\u2019s population and looser dining regulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Journalists united against indoor dining might be genuinely motivated by health fears. But there\u2019s more than a whiff of woke about it. Remember, Mayor de Blasio declared last summer that indoor dining signifies \u201centitlement,\u201d even though most of the low-paid restaurant workers are anything but entitled, and \u201crestaurants\u201d include many more cheap pizza, burger and dumpling joints than fine-dining locations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maybe they\u2019re all taking their cues from Hizzoner, who last August characterized \u201cindoor dining\u201d \u2014 an activity that includes a day laborer sitting down for a $3.99 Egg McMuffin \u2014 \u201cas obviously a very optional activity, which some people do a lot who have the resources and others can\u2019t do at all because they don\u2019t have the resources.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Hearth
Hearth chef\/owner Marco Canora is sick of the hypocrisy of food journalists.<\/figcaption>
Annie Wermiel\/NY Post<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Other chefs and owners have yet to join Canora in his condemnation of critics, possibly because they fear retribution when normalcy is restored.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But they needn\u2019t worry: The journalists\u2019 own words suggest they\u2019ve lost interest in eating out entirely in favor of super-spreading woke baloney on stale bread.\n <\/p><\/div>\n