Dictator of Dining Out

By Michael Demarest

Restaurant Critic Mimi Sheraton is feared and followed

Finally someone hit back. When Mimi Sheraton, restaurant critic of the New York Times and the most influential commentator on dining out in America, was spotted at a table in a new Manhattan spot, the owner threw her out. Fumed Michael O'Keeffe, proprietor of the Water Club: "The public loves something, then a critic comes along and says it's not good." O'Keeffe's stand was brave but futile. Sheraton took to her Friday column last week and described the encounter in her usual remorseless detail, ending with some speculation on the rights of an orderly person who is ejected from a public restaurant. The rest of the column was devoted to a classic example of what O'Keeffe so greatly fears: a 750-word, clinical rundown on a Chinese restaurant, including the likeliest days to get a decent meal and a wrist-slap for the rest rooms.

To anyone paying New York restaurant bills, such advice is invaluable, and Sheraton's singular dedication to her work makes her tops in the field. She eats out 40 times or more a month. She goes to extreme lengths not to be identified, in the belief that anonymity will help her make sure that she receives the same treatment as any other patron. After six years on the bistro beat, she finds anonymity hard to come by. Sheraton is a familiar face at all the bigger and more fashionable eating places in Manhattan; the attention lavished on her at such establishments supports her case for camouflage. She never makes reservations in her own name; she often pays the bill with a credit card issued to a pseudonym, and varies her disguises. "I've thought seriously," she says, "of dressing as a nun or a Hasidic rabbi, or wearing a suit of armor."

Sheraton, 56, is a perfectionist with an exhaustive knowledge of foodstuffs and their preparation, and rigid, consistent standards. In a city that boasts 16,000 eating places, her review columns, usually covering at least two restaurants, enjoy a huge following. Thus, even before its official publication next week, a selection of 350 Sheraton reviews in book form has sold out its first printing of 25,000 copies. Awkwardly titled Mimi Sheraton's The New York Times Guide to New York Restaurants, the $9.95 paperback is as diverse as the city, ranging from minuscule Chinatown dim-sum joints to the midtown cathedrals of continental cuisine.

The publication was greeted glumly at some highly regarded restaurants that have been downgraded by the Times's critic. The most prestigious victim was La Caravelle, a formerly four-star (extraordinary) eminence reduced to two stars (very good). On the other hand, one of only four recipients of a four-star award was The Coach House, a venerable Greenwich Village establishment that many other critics consider unimpressive. (The other top-rated spots: La Grenouille, Lutece, Vienna '79.)

Before publishing her judgment, Sheraton pays an average of four to six visits to a restaurant, but as many as twelve on occasion. The Times picks up between $67,000 and $73,000 a year in tabs. Her assessment is based 85% on the food, "the primary and overwhelming factor." Service counts too; the inept captain and the rude waiter are always noted.

The rating that results is, of course, relative. Two stars for a small newcomer means overnight success. The same award for a proud and famous cuisinier is an embarrassment. An unfavorable notice can never close a restaurant with an established clientele. On the other hand, a rave can create problems for a smaller place. When the Times bestowed two stars on Lusardi's last month, 300 callers had tried to make reservations by midday at the nine-month-old Upper East Side Italian cafe. Sometimes a modest bistro geared to serve, say, 80 dinners will try to handle two or three times the volume, usually with disastrous results.

To prepare the unwitting, Sheraton notifies a restaurant well before a favorable review is scheduled to appear. Says she serenely: "I've heard you can get a bank loan with a two-or three-star review--from me in the New York Times."

Her professional credentials are in good order: she grew up in a food-loving Jewish family in Brooklyn and learned about cooking from her mother. For several years starting in 1957, she was a consultant to Manhattan's Restaurant Associates, and she has written a cookbook on German food. Most of all, she says, "you've got to love to eat. You've got to have a big problem trying to keep from eating." Another requirement, in her view, is "a great taste memory. You have to remember what something tasted like back in Hong Kong or Moscow 20 years ago." The third and most important factor, she feels, is that she is a New Yorker writing for a New York audience: "My taste matches the taste of most of my readers."

New Yorkers are lucky. In a 1980 study of restaurant reviewers across the nation, the Los Angeles Times concluded: "Most critics are ill-informed and ill-prepared to do the job." Many have no qualms about accepting free meals; some even guarantee free plugs. In the entire nation, there are fewer than a dozen restaurant arbiters who rate stars for integrity and expertise.

Sheraton's main competitor is New York magazine's Gael Greene, who tends to focus on trendy places and to describe them in a rich, sensual prose. Greene does manage to communicate the joy of a first-rate meal. Her spicy view of Sheraton: "I would trust her totally on cottage cheese." Some readers fault Sheraton for a chilly approach that may praise a restaurant's food but does not always convince the reader that it would be fun to eat there.

The 5-ft. 5-in. critic is concerned about calories. (In 1980, she took a five-month leave to shed 37 Ibs. and is now down to around 162 Ibs.) She is plainly stung by some of her detractors, particularly those who maintain that she is too hard on the young, so-called innovative chefs. She explains: "I think innovation is wonderful if you do it well, but I am not willing to applaud a bad dish because it was a brave effort." Despite her frequently moralistic tone, Sheraton allows, "It's a pretty silly way to spend your life. I have no illusions about making a contribution to society." There may even be signs that Mimi is mellowing. She is now working on a book with Comedian Alan King to be titled Is Salami and Egg Better Than Sex? Memoirs of a Happy Eater. That depends, she would doubtless answer, on the salami.

--By Michael Demarest Reported by Elizabeth Rudolph/New York

With reporting by Elizabeth Rudolph This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.