Jay Rayner, perhaps best known in the United States as the British critic on Top Chef Masters, recently spoke to EATS about his newest book, The Man Who Ate the World. Rayner traveled across the world in search of The Perfect Meal and ended up with a lot of disappointments, peppered with some phenomenal restaurant discoveries. The book is broken down by city, ranging from Moscow to Las Vegas, Dubai to Tokyo. Each city certainly marks a very different eating experience…for better or worse.

The Man Who Ate the World is perfect for a vicarious foodie experience—few people have the opportunity to travel and eat like Rayner did, so if you can’t quite make it to London or Paris, reading about it is almost the next best thing. And, after reading some of Rayner’s accounts, you might be happier not making the trip…

Read on for Rayner’s thoughts on restaurants, blogging, and if there is such thing as a perfect meal.

The Internet has given an open forum to anyone with an opinion. How do you think this web culture is affecting the restaurant business, if at all?
I think about this a lot. The critics versus the bloggers; the professionals versus the amateurs. The restaurant industry is becoming quite savvy and recognizing that the online world has the ability to reach a certain audience. That audience may be huge, but it’s also fanatical. They cannot ignore them anymore. For the professionals, the people getting paid for it rather than blogging about it, we have to think very, very carefully about what we offer. I think it comes down to regarding ourselves as, dare I say it, premium brands. It’s true, anybody can get online and start a blog; some of them are really good and need to be paid attentions to. Some of them are rubbish.

So, then what is the role of a professional food critic in society?
We have to make the argument as to why we’re worth reading week in and week out. I often say that my job is not to sell restaurants; it’s to sell newspapers. I was hired to do this particular job after many years of general journalism by the Observer, not because of what I know about food, though I know a lot because I’m a greedy man, but because they reckoned I could write an entertaining column on a weekly basis that people would keep coming back to. I hope that I proved, by sticking with the job for 10 years, that this is true. The market keeps changing, and the professional print media needs to think very seriously about the challenges of the blogosphere.

Do you think that amateur criticism will eventually filter out, from high quantity to high quality? 
I think it’s a bit like the whole pop-up restaurants scenario, where people get into it, think its fun, and then realize it’s a lot of hard work and give up. The important thing about blog readers is they can spot bullshit from a mile away. If they think you’re phony, or you’re overly commercial, they can spot it. Like Chez Pim, who suddenly just discovered the joys of Rachel’s Organic Yogurt. I’ve known Pim for a long time; I look at that and my jaw went slack. You can’t be both things at the same time.

There will be a convergence between professionals paid for media and the online media. The two will come a lot closer together. If I were really good on this stuff I would be rich, and I’m not. I’ve known Nick Denton from Gawker since I was 16 and I’m still baffled when I‘m in his SoHo loft, and I’m thinking “how come you’re worth x tens of millions of dollars?”  I don’t see how to tap the wellspring of dotcom wealth.

A lot of restaurant critics purposely don’t read restaurant blogs, whereas you more or less embrace it. Why do you think that so many of your colleagues are averse to this new media trend?
They’re scared. Most of the people who rise to a level of prominence in the food writing business have been print journalists for a very long time. They’re still baffled by what’s going on. I met Adam Platt for dinner in London and he asked if I was another one of those over-productive British hacks. I took that as a compliment. Certain American print journalists take themselves very, very seriously.

I think there’s something precious and honest, though not in terms of literature, about what they’re doing. I’ve written novels, I can have a long discussion with you about literature, but I know that I’m a journalist. I am producing the essentially disposable. I can write on whatever platform I like and I can read whatever stuff I like. I’m sitting in my office in South London thinking, “what can I do before I actually write this next review?” The rest of them are much more serious individuals who have the great American novel in their desk drawer, they just haven’t quite gotten around to finishing it. The bottom line, the reason I read food websites, is because I’m obsessed. Whenever I’m mentally writing I much prefer reading eGullet, or sneering at Chowhound for being so malcentric, or finding out what Steve Plotnicki’s been up to, or even reading Josh Ozersky being rude about me and then sending me nice emails.

You allude to the fact that the power of the Michelin guide is waning. Where do you think it will be five years from now?
I don’t think it’s worth underestimating. When they brought in Jean Luc Naret to head the whole thing up, he did recognize that the world had changed, that they could no longer be the princely conclave that handed down their opinions from on high. They started introducing bigger descriptions of the restaurants, and then brought the guides into other territories. Basically, what he understands is that he has a brand and the value is falling. It will all depend on how seriously they get taken in those new territories. They’re on the wane, as far as I can tell, in Europe. There are people buying the red guide, like tourists going to Japan who want some way to interpret Tokyo. They need to produce the guides for tourists going places rather than for people who live there. That’s where their market is going to lie.
 
The economy won't be in a slump forever, do you think restaurateurs will take anything they have learned from this experience, in terms of how they’re changing menus and courting diners, or are they just going to start the same cycle over again?
The good ones are supple, and the restaurant business can be quite supple. You can actually reduce your overhead costs quite quickly if you change your offerings. The ones who are holding up in this recession are the ones who are doing just that. They’re starting to invest in cheaper ingredients, mackerel over sea bass, pork belly over loin.They’re basically buckling things down and seeing if they can get through the recession; however, there will always be a market for stupid luxury. I have a sort of love/hate relationship with the restaurants I wrote about in my book. There will always be a hardcore set that manages to survive, that just need to work out how to get through the recession.
 
You didn’t seem to have so much of a love/hate relationship with Moscow. You really seemed to dislike it.
As an old fashioned reporter, a guy who used to cover murders, hardcore crime and politics, it was fantastic. I came back with so many full notebooks. Do you remember when Mrs. Putin walked into a restaurant that I wan dining in?  When I went to interview the guy who used to be the chef at the Kremlin I thought “this is a real find.”  But the food?  Not so much. Don’t go to Moscow for dinner; come to think of it, don’t go to Moscow ever. It’s a town on the edge of a nervous breakdown. It’s bitter and twisted and mean and dark and somber. I’m glad I did it. As a reporter, it was brilliant material, but in terms of place? How can so many million people be so completely furious about everything?  Don’t even start me on trying to get a cab.

Sometimes dining out is more about being seen than being well-fed. As the chapters went on, you appeared to tire of all of these tasting menus, especially in Paris. Now that we don't have so much money to throw around anymore on a $500 tasting menu, do you think that this luxury template will continue? Will tasting menus be a part of the industry’s future?
Yes they will.There will always be the appetite for those kinds of restaurants.There will be a number of people willing to do it. They’re going to have to tailor themselves, and its going to go in trends. Today, it’s 16 or 18 courses. El Bulli will continue to serve 25 tiny little dishes. There will also be a need to come up with cheaper, less intimidating menus. I think we’ll get both at the same time actually. It’s not more of one or less of another; all of these things will flourish at the same time

You acknowledge that many high-end restaurants leave huge carbon footprints behind them when airlifting precious ingredients, especially in places like Vegas and Dubai. Is going green even possible in a world that prizes the unique, or the exotic as the epitome of gustatory pleasure? 
I don’t know if it’s entirely possible, but I do know that there are things you can do. I’ve tried very hard to get the Gordon Ramsay organization to green their restaurants and to change their lines of supply. It has to be doable, in fact, I know it’s doable because there are operations in London who have done it. Acorn House is one. Now, that’s not a grand luxury restaurant, but of the methods and techniques they are using are completely transferable to a higher scale restaurant. It’s going to take consumers to force them to do it, like the blue fin tuna outrage at Nobu. They still haven’t changed their plan, but I suspect that they will. That sort of thing gives me further cause for optimism.
 
What is next for you?  Do you have another book in the works?
I do have another book, though I would have to kill you if I told you what it was. The main thing at the moment is that whatever my next book is, it’s tied to television. It’s a good way to sell books, though books are my first love. The next book will be travel, food and history related as well. I love trying to place the mundane and the everyday in a big social context, to pull all of those levers, and press all of those buttons without being pompous and, hopefully, while entertaining people.

If you were to go anywhere in the pursuit of great food, at this instant, where would it be?
The one restaurant that always makes me happy is Jean Georges. There is something about that room. The huge windows make you feel like you are eating at altitude and he engineers a very specific palate. You could recognize a dish from Jean Georges with a blindfold on. I didn’t think that I was going to enjoy it because I used to think that he was a bit of a song and dance man. But I was blown away the first time, and I was the second time too.
 

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About the Author:

Carey Polis
i like to write about food.