Open Letter to Michael Bauer, Restaurant Critic of the San Francisco Chronicle

Dear Mr. Bauer,

We've never met, so I have no right to ask a favor. Nevertheless, I'd like to make a carefully considered request:

Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, please stop writing about Los Angeles restaurants.

It's not like you don't have plenty to do. San Francisco and its environs have an amazing food and restaurant culture, one that, yes, outstrips our own. We know.

However, each time you write about Los Angeles restaurants it's like a glimpse inside a Bizarroworld, a place I don't recognize and makes me feel a little queasy. And there's no reason for that. Like I said, you're busy and you only get the chance to visit us every decade or so.

I know you got it in the ear after your LA review this summer and I won't belabor that point. But yesterday you blogged about the Los Angeles Times' review of Craft, which, you observe:

"detailed how the restaurant is not only good, but has already become the power lunch spot."

Jumpin' Jehosaphat, Mr. Bauer. While I might take issue with how good Craft is, you make it sound like that question lies at the heart of the restaurant's status. Or that its power lunchiness was ever in question.

I'm far from the first to notice this, but Craft's LA (re)creation as a power dining spot was done with laboratory precision. And while Tom Colicchio is an accomplished chef,  nothing short of salmonella could have stopped Craft's ascension. Colicchio and Craft were invited here by the partners at CAA (next door -- did you notice?). It's designed for their care and feeding. Its closest competitors are within a mall's food court. I won't even bother with the whole Top Chef thing.

You then go on to say that one S. Irene Virbila paragraph

"has been been gnawing at me ever since: 'The fact that Colicchio has landed here with such a serious restaurant means L.A. is finally coming of age as a restaurant scene. Until now, Las Vegas has lured the top chefs from around the country. Wouldn't it be sweet if Los Angeles siphoned off some of that talent and turned out to be the next place for chefs from everywhere to strut their stuff?' "

Yeah, that one gnaws at me, too -- the idea that Virbilia sees Craft as the beacon that indicates we're leaving culinary adolescence. ("Are You There, God? It's Me, Tom Colicchio.") I still have plenty of issues with LA's dining immaturity, but if you want beacons I'd point to the burgeoning local mini-empires of David and Michelle Myers, Suzanne Goin and David Lentz, Neal Fraser or Michael Cimarusti.

However, even after your recent visit to Los Angeles, you're willing to look toward the same beacon as Virbilia (and you haven't even eaten there!), which takes you to your next point:

"I'm not so sure luring chefs to Los Angeles (or in our case, San Francisco) is such a good thing. I love going to Las Vegas, but the problem I have with many of those restaurants is that they feel like clones of the originals. Las Vegas is such a blank canvas that the restaurants have no culture from which to draw, and therefore very little soul. Luring chefs from other cities doesn't feel like a coming of age. The best restaurants are like mirrors. They not only spotlight the chefs' talents but they also reflect and draw inspiration from what's around them. I don't think you get that when a chef opens bicoastal branches, no matter how wonderfully executed the food may be."

I agree that bicostal restaurants are tricky, although my colleague Phil Gallo, just back from the CMJ, described a meal at Per Se as evidence that it's the best restaurant in the country. (Thomas Keller may be the exception that proves the rule.) And I buy the restaurant-as-mirror metaphor.

But because we are not defined by Tom Colicchio (or, for that matter, Mario Batali), Los Angeles is not a hall of mirrors. And we're not the blank canvas that is Vegas. Any celebrity chef who comes to Los Angeles (or in your case, San Francisco) has the opportunity to create something exciting and significant because of what those cities have to offer. And as long as these itinerant chefs don't serve to define a city (as in Vegas), bring 'em on. More the merrier (as long as they don't want to open a restaurant-lounge, in which case I shoot to kill).

But please: Either commit to more frequent visits (without a local critic as translator -- really, the languages are almost identical) or leave us be. 

Your pal,

Dana Harris
The Knife

Comments

[ohiogirl]

You rock!

[Nick]

Um, yeah. Any place you put right outside the Death Star is going to be the de facto "power lunch" spot. If Colicchio had gotten cold feet, we'd probably be seeing multimillion dollar deals being made at Cheesecake Factory or CPK.

Also, is this not just further proof that for all the hatred SF throws at LA, they secretly want to be us?

[matt armendariz]

I fucking love you.

BRILLIANT.

[Aubrey]

You could not have put it any better. There's a proverb that says:
Better a foolish man stay silent and appear wise than to pen his mouth and remove all doubt.

All we can really say is "Man you don't know us...who do you think you are"?!

[dick in pacific heights]

We had a 3rd rate quarterback here in San Francisco about 15 years ago who said(when the 49er's were playing the Kansas City Chiefs), "The worst restaurant in San Francisco is better than the best restaurant in Kansas City."

He was so full of himself and San Francisco--I've lived here 30 years and am constantly amazed at the haze of self-congratulation which permeates our local restaurant scene. Good? Yes--some places--although you can't get Fried Chicken anywhere in Missouri as bad as they fix it in most of our local SF restaurants. Fact.