The Morality of Restaurant Criticism

Should chefs serve meat? Should critics write about it? Meanwhile beef prices are soaring and steakhouses are all the rage. Welcome to the new gilded age.

Eleven Madison Park, the extremely posh New York restaurant which removed meat from its menu in 2021, has decided to once again start serving animals. Reading about chef Daniel Humm’s struggle with the ethics of eating made me think about my own moral dilemma when I wrote about restaurants for a living.

Can you be a decent restaurant critic and not think about all the hungry people on the planet? I don’t believe so now - and I didn’t back then. And yet there I was, out every night spending hundreds of dollars on dinner. Then an editor at the New York Times urged me to reprise Craig Claiborne’s famous 1975 article by indulging in the most expensive meal on earth. I instantly refused: the idea repulsed me.

“What makes that so different from what you’re already doing?” he wanted to know.

This was my reply.

Reading the piece today I am haunted by two lines near the end of the article. “Yes there are still restaurants where rich people go to remind themselves that they are different from you and me. But there are fewer and fewer of them.”

From the vantage point of this new gilded age that sounds unbearably naive.

We are a nation of beef-eaters, and when Eleven Madison Park gives up its vegan ways, they will discover that beef prices have risen to record levels. There are many reasons for this, but the main one is that the number of beef cattle (27.8 million) is the lowest it's been since the 1960’s. This is due primarily to draught, increased grain prices and high interest rates. ICE raids on packing plants contribute to the problem, as do higher tariffs on imported meat.

I had dinner last night at La Tete d’Or (see below), Daniel Boulud’s first steakhouse, and I was genuinely startled by the prices. I went looking for a similar menu from the past and came up with this one.

The parallels on the menu are fairly startling - right down to that roast beef cart with its slow roasted meat. But the prime rib, which cost $17 at Hy’s in 1985, is $130 at La Cote d’Or in 2025.

Back then it was all about “affordable elegance.” In our new gilded age, unaffordable elegance is all the rage.

(I should note that while the Los Angeles Hy’s is no longer around, Hy’s continues to be one of Canada’s premier steak emporiums, with 5 outposts across the country. There is also a Honolulu Hy’s: the prime rib there costs $93.)

Speaking of gilded age luxury…

La Tete d’Or, Daniel Boulud’s steakhouse, is an homage to opulence: those who care to indulge can start with a lavish seafood plateau royale or caviar service, and then go on to a Porterhouse steak ($260) or the really wonderful prime rib in the photo above, which costs a mere $130. Care to embellish that? You can add a few truffles or perhaps some foie gras. With its grand room and wonderfully old-fashioned table-side service, La Tete d’Or is an instant trip to the past.

If you go, don’t miss the wonderful mussels gratineé, an inspired variation on oysters Rockefeller and clams casino.

This is is a virtual trip…

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to speak at the Sun Valley Writer’s Conference, a veritable feast of words and ideas. All the talks have just gone online, and I found them so inspiring that I spent an afternoon listening to the few that I missed.

They’re all impressive, but I especially recommend Doris Kearns Goodwin’s opening night talk, which brought me to tears a couple of time. Ocean Vuong was also very moving. (If you haven’t read Ocean’s tender new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, I highly recommend it. It’s gone onto my list of novels that explore food in surprising ways.)

Surely you know someone who longs to carry their plate on their arm? That’s a real plate, a real knife, a real fork. Certainly comes in handy.

The Dinner Bag is crafted out of fine leather and comes in different colors. An instant conversation-starter, I’ve found it a lot of fun to wear.