American and British restaurant reviews could hardly be more different in tone: on one hand respectful and august, on the other savage and irreverent
In October last year, a Japanese-Peruvian restaurant called Yapa opened in the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles. Three months later, having visited three times, Patricia Escárcega, the restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times, published a thoughtful, positive review. While short on laughs, it contained some delightfully lyrical descriptions of the food; of the “creamy slips of uni” and the “fragrant lake of oil spiked with the voluptuous heat of rocoto chilies”. There was no picture byline.
That same week, after just one visit to a restaurant that had been open at full price for only a matter of days, the Observer published my extremely negative review of The Yard by Robin Gill in London. In it, I compared the gnocchi to dental swabs, and described one dish as tasting of “laziness and gross profit margin”. My picture byline was slapped all over it, so you could be stared down by me as you read.
Related: Jay Rayner: my 20 years as a restaurant critic
Jay Rayner’s Last Supper: One Meal, a Lifetime in the Making is published on 3 March in the US by Guardian Faber. His live show of the same name is at the SoHo Playhouse in New York on the same day. For more information visit jayrayner.co.uk
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