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In activity to the inquire into of whether or not accepting freebies compromises journalistic integrity, I rest assured de facto depends. In this essay, Adam is strikingly not giving Le Cirque a lambent review. To me, this legend appears uncompromising; Adam hackneyed the free lunch meal, yet placid told us what was on his mind.

Gary Winnick

If you are reviewing a restaurant I don't really think it right to take a free meal. In any other profession that would get you fired. Did you know that you were called a “a world-class mooch" by and article in the NY Mag?

Both your experiences just go to show what can be so frustrating for diners--those who are deemed "special" i.e. food bloggers, with their increasing power over the life and death of a restaurant, get special treatment. It doesn't matter that everyone in that restaurant is paying an exorbitant amount for their dinner, only those who are of interest are treated well. It just reinforces to me how much I want to avoid restaurants like that.

You raise a good point, csl. There are governance and transparency issues that need to be thought out carefully. For our site (http://nycnosh.com), we try to remain as anonymous as possible and to keep the photography quick and done in a way that disturbs nobody. That said, we've been asked a few times about who we were and whether or not we plan to write about the food we're eating, and of course the only ethical answer is 'yes.' So we try to return to a restaurant without the camera to determine if we can spot a difference in service or food. We'll also chat with people sitting near us sometimes, just for a bit of reference, and on the rare occasions when a chef has sent us something unusual just to impress us, it becomes apparent pretty quickly.

a couple of months ago when i dined at eleven madison park (the new chef is one of my faves), my dining companion tongue-in-cheekly blurted out "she's a food critic" to our waiter. even though i quickly said "no i'm not !" , and i had no camera and took no notes, halfway through our meal the chef daniel humm came out to our table to say hello.
3 months prior to that, when i dined there with another companion who had called ahead to pre-arrange a 13 course tasting menu to go with some special wines he had brought, the chef did not come out to say hello to us even though this was a much more expensive meal.
chefs and restauranteurs are aware of the power of public opinion to impact the success or failure of their restaurant, whether from a paid writer or an unpaid blogger, it's part marketing, self preservation and common sense. let's face it, most people with jobs treat their bosses who sign their paychecks with more respect than their co-workers , so the concept of "VIP's" exist everywhere in life, not just in a pricy restaurant.
go bloggers !!

But is this a good thing? You left Le Cirque this time with a better impression of the restaurant and the Maccioni family because they treated you like a celebrity, but they only did that because you embarassed them the first time and because they now know that people read your blog. If they really cared about anonymous customers, you would have been treated well to begin with.

The free meal demonstrates the power of blogging, but it doesn't get the Le Cirque staff off the hook for being jerks. I doubt they treated every customer so well that night, and someone will always have to take the loser table. We can either support these places or not. If I get an invitation to a free meal in response to a bad review, I just ignore it. Let the restaurant prove itself to new customers.

Interesting. I've been blogging about restaurant meals for about two years...and I've never received an email or letter from restaurant management about any article. And yes, I am a nobody. However, this past summer about two weeks after I wrote a positive post about a product that I'd purchased, I received an email from a VP in their corporate headquarters thanking me for the positive publicity and asking for my shipping address so that they might send me a thank you gift. It arrived about a week later...more products totaling about $50. I never mentioned THAT in my blog.... This also happened when I wrote a positive review of a shop that I had visited and liked. I received an email, and then later a gift card for that shop. Again, I didn't write more about it. So when is it a "thank you gift" and when is it a "bribe"?

Also - I use food bloggers' restaurant reviews almost exclusively before I travel to decide where to make reservations. I especially like it when there are photos. I much prefer a "real person's" (like me) honest review over a professional food critic. Before my last trip to New York, I read through Amateur Gourmet and Gotham Gal's blogs to select my restaurant choices (rather than reading the NY Times reviews).

Let's talk about the power food bloggers have now to direct the diner's dollar. I think that's what chefs and restaurateurs are beginning to recognize. It's all about business baby and we, increasingly, have the power to put people in restaurant seats. When you're looking for a restaurant, especially in a city as restaurant-rich as New York, do you pay closer attention to the recommendation of someone like Frank Bruni or to a food blogger? I listen the the food bloggers because they feel more like my peers than a Frank Bruni ever will.

After reading this I went back to the original "review" from September. Taken together, the two pieces suggest that (a) the author was originally upset about the fact that VIPs get special treatment at Le Cirque (b) the author is now happy to receive special treatment at Le Cirque as a VIP. A direct quote, "... we enjoyed the 'star treatment,' if you could call it that, and savored the evening for what it was."

The thing is, as your readership grows, you can't really call yourself a "nobody" or an amateur anymore. With increased readership and influence come increased responsibility. And, obviously, scrutiny.