No Such Thing As A Free Meal

I just got asked by wysgal ...

You may think this is a rude question so don't answer if you don't feel like it ... but when you cover restaurants for the newspaper do you pay your own way? Or does the publication pay for it? Or do you announce you're from XYZ publication so they give you a free meal (and A+ service)?

... and I think this deserves not just a reply but a post.

The job of a food critic is to say it as it is. However, if you call in ahead, then you get the best foot forward of the restaurant that you are tasked or have chosen to review. In which case, and especially with our overly hospitable culture, the inclination is to write sweet words about what could possibly have been a bitter experience.

Fortunately, our editor in chief, Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc, recognizes this situation and the Inquirer has devised a system so that the critic does not feel obliged or indebted to give a good review for a free meal.

For the Sunday Inquirer Magazine, I go to the restaurants unannounced. I pay for everything myself and when the story comes out then I get reimbursed. I also like to go to the restaurant under review around three times before I write the critique. Because then it cannot be said that I just happened to be around on a bad day or on an extremely good day. I can average out the service performances, the number of people visiting; I can re-order what I thought tasted bad and see if it is consistently a bleh item; and complete other items on my tick list. The restaurant only finds out that it will be written about when the photographer comes to take pictures or when we call in much later to ask if they have pictures that we might be able to use. Otherwise they only find out after the critique has seen print.

For other publications, however, that is not the case. For magazines, like F&B World, oftentimes because we are doing a story and not a critique, we call in first and set an appointment with our source (in this case, Le Bar) so that we get detailed explanations of everything. We do get pampered, but that's the only perk that compensates for the meager salary of a writer. (For Martinis, though, I actually paid my way throught the night. I did this because I wanted to get a true feel of the place, as opposed to feeling like a hired writer. I do that a lot actually because my training as a writer is in news so I find it harder to mince words than to just say it as it is.)

For other publications still, I sometimes lose out, i.e., I eat on my own and get paid only for the byline, no reimbursement for the food at all. That is, actually, quite an unfair practice, but that's how it goes sometimes.

For the daily, a lot of the time there are calls from the restaurant themselves when they have events or new items on the menu. I don't get these calls, the editors or publishers do. Sometimes it's not cool because I find out late in the game about a really good restaurant. But really it's much better than being bothered with PR follow ups of restaurants that I would rather not write about. I just have to the extra homework of finding out on my own, which is really much more fun anyway. The truth is, I can't stand junkets :-)

So I've actually been very lucky with Inquirer. LJM also notes that this was the system that Doreen Fernandez used. And I really must give Inquirer credit for making sure that the critic's credibility is not sacrificed.