photo: Marcqui Akins
NY Reviewer Comes to Australia
In the food
critiquing world, you don’t get much more illustrious than Ruth Reichl. Formerly a restaurant critic for The New York Times, she was known for
her ability to make or break the restaurants she reviewed. Such was her dedication to be the ‘eyes and
ears’ of the average diner, Reichl (pronounced Ry-chel) became famous for her disguises
whilst reviewing, carefully tailoring each ensemble to avoid detection and
retain her anonymity.
Next month, she
will be visiting the Crave Sydney International Food Festival to talk about her
often hilarious experiences as a food critic.
Ah, but does she miss it?
““I have to say, I
really miss the expense account,” she says with a chuckle down the line from
her home in New York.
“But I was a
critic for thirty years, so it’s really great to be able to go into a
restaurant and order what I want instead of the weird dish on the menu that
no-one else wants to order. And to be
able to go back again and again to favourite restaurants which, as a restaurant
critic, is something you never get to do because you’re always having to move
on to the next place. It feels like a
great treat. I have a group of women,
mostly chefs and writers, and we travel together and eat and that’s really
fun. Last year we went to Spain; this
year we went to London and Paris. We
just eat like crazy people. So that
gives me a little taste of remembering what it was like to do all that.”
Unlike many
foodies, Reichl’s interest in food didn’t stem from her mother, whose taste she
had diplomatically described in her various memoirs as being ‘extremely
limited’, and she began cooking for herself as a matter of self-preservation. In the 70s, she opened a restaurant called
Swallow with a group of like-minded friends.
“None of us were
trained cooks,” she says
“We were just
people who loved to cook. It was a very
different time in food back then in the US.
We baked our own bread, and people would come in and they couldn’t
believe we made our own vinaigrettes with olive oil. I would make twenty quiches every morning, and
people would come in and go ‘What’s a qwishay?’
They’d never even heard of them.”
Reichl has been to
Australia once, a couple of years ago.
“It was
wonderful,” she says.
“I really, really
loved it but just wish I’d been there longer.
I spent four days in Melbourne and four days in Sydney. I easily could have stayed four months in
each place. The food was great, the people were wonderful and it was so
interesting. I wasn’t working, just
eating and walking, which is my idea of a good time. I’d really love to come over to Perth at some
point, but this trip is just too short.
I’m just coming for the Festival this year, as when I get back we’ll
start shooting again for (US television show) Top Chef Masters.”
Ruth Reichl will be
giving talks on 6-7 October at the Crave Sydney International Food Festival,
which runs throughout October. For more
information, head to http://www.cravesydney.com/ .
