The Splendid Table: Conversations & Recipes For Curious Cooks & Eaters · American Public Media

827: Life of a Restaurant Critic with Bill Addison and Wini Moranville

·49 min·4 clips

Bill Addison reveals how he now seeks restaurants that tell a story about a city's culture, not just serve delicious meals.

Francis Lam opens the episode by listing the three rules of restaurant criticism in reverse order: the third is that you’re there for the reader; the second is that if you’re not learning, you’re not doing it right; and the first is that no one ever wants to hear you complain, because everyone thinks it’s the best job in the world. Bill Addison and Winnie Moranville both embody this code in the conversation. Addison describes his process for the 101 California restaurants project: starting with extensive reading, reaching out to trusted sources in regions he knows less well, and looking for restaurants that do double duty, delivering delicious food while also telling a story about where they exist. He argues that California cuisine as a concept has been largely superseded by the reality of the state, which is too vast and too internally diverse to reduce to any single tradition. The Vietnamese communities in Orange County and San Jose, the Sichuan and hot pot restaurants of the San Gabriel Valley, and the influx of diaspora communities throughout the state all contribute to a dining landscape that reflects California’s actual demographics rather than the mythology of farm-to-table simplicity. Standout restaurants discussed include Mi Ranchito Cafe in Stockton, which serves a regional specialty called beef a la chicken alongside tortillas three times normal thickness that approach biscuit territory; Mal Al Sham in El Cajon, a Syrian-owned restaurant that on weekends cooks Iraqi specialties for the large local Iraqi refugee population; and Harbor House on the Mendocino coast, where chef Matthew Camerer wraps Dungeness crab in kelp and bakes it in mud for a dramatic but naturally flavored presentation. Addison reflects on how living in Los Angeles for seven years has sharpened his awareness of the tension between California’s mythology as a food paradise and the very real economic pressures, homelessness, and exclusion that coexist with it.

As heard by us

Restaurant criticism here is framed as a public craft, shaped by readers, cities, and the restaurants that anchor them.

This Splendid Table installment keeps its attention on restaurant criticism, with Francis Lam spelling out the job's rules before the discussion widens to the Los Angeles fires, the strain restaurants face after disaster, and the long-running question of whether a review should…

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Why you'd press play

If you like restaurant criticism that argues with the review itself, this one gives you the whole notebook with a dry smile.

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