454: Dining in Disguise with Priya Kirshna, Interim New York Times Restaurant Critic

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. I bought myself some wigs and learned how to do some rudimentary stage makeup. And the next few times I went in disguise. I would make eye contact with the chef and he had no idea who I was.

0:50This is Taste. I'm your host, Eliza Barbanel.

0:59Pria Krishna is a reporter and video host for The New York Times, where she's currently acting as the co-interim restaurant critic. She's the host of the best-selling cookbooks Indianish and Pria's Kitchen Adventures, a cookbook for kids, and the host of the YouTube series On the Job. We're all admirers of Priya's work here at Taste, and it's so special to have her back onto the show to talk about stepping into the role as restaurant critic, her latest cookbook, and more.

1:33Priya Krishna, this is Taste. Thank you for coming back on the podcast. Thank you for having me. Third time's a charm, right? Yeah, I was supposed to say, this is like, I think you are the first person to have been on the podcast three times and you've been charming every time. I gotta get off this podcast. I know, you've been locked in the offices this whole time. We come back around, give you some food and ask if you want to record. But it's fun because this is my first time getting to speak with you on the podcast. And I have been such a fan of your writing as a former coworker of yours, as just someone on the internet.

2:06And I feel like it's really special to get to talk to you about it all today. Yeah, I'm excited. Well, right now you're at an interesting point in your career at The Times. You do video, you've been reporting, you are stepping in as one of the interim restaurant editors. And I want to talk about all of it. But I guess to start, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about like, do you see a core intersection of food and culture that you're working in? How do you kind of describe the stories that you like to tell? I like to tell food stories that look in the corners of the food world where others are not looking.

2:39Like I try to find food angles where others may not see one, explore phenomenons that, you know, people working in New York media may not have noticed. You know, for example, I noticed that in Texas there was this cookie that was taking the state by storm and they were called crumble cookies. And they had just opened one in New York. And I went and the line was out the door at crumble. And there was no line at Levain down the street, the original Levain. And I was like, holy cow, Crumble is like out out cookying Levain on its home turf. And so I basically found out this is like a billion dollar cookie business started in Salt Lake City.

3:26And I just love stories like that. But, you know, I feel like oftentimes in New York, like we can get stuck in our like coastal bubble. And I love stories that like break break us out of it or that find food in non-food places. Yeah, I think that is a big through line in your work. And I like that. And part of it might be that, you know, your family in Texas, you get to go there and see them. But how are you kind of putting yourself outside of the city that you do live in for most of the time? Like I read all of the local New York media, but I read a lot of local newspapers. I read all of the I read every single Texas newspaper.

4:08I'm on every like but I also read like newspapers in the Midwest, newspapers in the mountain region. I have a large Indian family who lives all across the country. So I have the privilege of getting to travel to see them. And I don't know. I feel like you just got to get out of the New York bubble because, like, you know, I write stories that are specific to New York, of course. But I feel like the stories that are the most exciting to me are usually the ones that take place outside of the city. Yeah, that makes sense. And I feel like also maybe another element is you are this person in your life that now all of your friends and family can text and say, hey, I just saw something kind of interesting going on.

4:48Maybe you should look into it. And like that is huge. You know, I feel like my best story ideas have actually come from like random aunties and uncles living in the Midwest, living in Denver, living in Minneapolis. Like they see something. They text me. they have an idea for a story angle that may not be quite right, but there's like a seed of something amazing in what they're talking about. And that has led me to so many good stories. Yeah. The Auntie Reporting Network is an underrated resource. It's huge. It's huge. I like discovered this. I profiled these guys who had started a Hawaiian restaurant in Salt Lake City and they didn't realize that basically Salt Lake City was filled with these Mormons, many of whom had done their mission trips in Hawaii and were really like homesick for Hawaiian food.

5:41And so they just like hit it big with Mormons in Salt Lake City and then they themselves became Mormons. I'm like, my dad gave me that story idea. Wow. Shout out to your dad and also the Mormons who played the long game with those guys. They're like, first, we're going to help you set up a restaurant empire and then you're going to see the light. So I want to talk to you about your video series on the job that you do for The Times where you follow these vital and often unseen food industry workers, cafeteria workers, bodega guys, dishwashers, the barista in Times Square, I believe. Grand Central.

6:18Grand Central, even more stressful. and I feel like you just get to have all these really interesting experiences. I'm curious what some of your most memorable times shadowing people on the job have been. I mean like every single character person sort of brings their own every single every single person on that show kind of inspires me in a different way. I learned something different from each one. I remember I walked away from the cafeteria episode which centered a cafeteria cook. Ruth learning about just like this quiet confidence she had. She wasn't like constantly yapping at her worker. She wasn't, you know, yelling out rules or giving instructions.

7:01But like they really clearly respected her. And she had just like built this like quiet brigade for herself in this middle school cafeteria in Queens. I was so impressed by the dishwasher at Gage and Tolner, Dre, who just like his ambition and his desire to just like constantly improve his circumstances was incredible. Like it was just incredibly inspiring. Like when I talked to him like six months before, he was a subway performer and now he was working at a dishwasher at like one of the more like venerated fine dining institutions in New York. And his goal was to run his own restaurant one day.

7:41And I have no doubt that he'll be able to do that. I guess like the thing that I always think about when I film on the job is like. I feel like I am so driven and I'm constantly thinking what's next, what's after this, like I climb a mountain, what comes after that? And every single I always ask the question of like, what do you want to do next? And every single time without fail, like very often they're just like, I have a really good job and I'm really happy and I can take care of my family. Like I'm not obsessed with what's next. Like they all have just like this deep gratitude that is just so inspiring.

8:21And I don't know, like, I feel like I can just be like a little bit of a of a brat. So I'm not in the Charlie XCX sense, but just like a bratty person about like, I have to move forward. I have to you know, I have to see what's next. And like, I get these reminders monthly to just like stop, look around and like be appreciative. Definitely. I'm really curious how you go about filming with people in the first place, because I mean, clearly you're so charming. and fun to talk to, but you're bringing in like a New York Times camera crew. You're in their workspace the whole day. I'm sure you guys are getting in the way a little bit.

8:58How do you kind of build the trust with your sources from the beginning? It starts with our team. We have a really amazing team headed by two women, Cece Allen and Gina Hernandez. And they, along with our producers, Manti Chow, Will Tymon, Amanda Choi, do just a phenomenal job of trust building before a camera even turns on. So we decide which episodes we want to do. And then we identify like three heroes, like three protagonists, basically. And we spend a lot of time talking to them. Then we narrow it down to one. And once we choose that person, there's basically like a month long process in which the head producer is just spending time with that person, talking to them, getting to know them, you know, following them along their day and just like making them very comfortable.

9:55and it is always very remarkable that by the time I show up on set and the cameras are rolling like they don't they don't really notice the cameras also our production team does an amazing job of just kind of making themselves as small and invisible as possible so it's not like there's this huge camera and in someone's face so like I wish I like of course like I have to be personable but most of that work is done by our amazing production team and they put in so much effort to do that i'm just i'm always amazed when i walk onto set and they're like already best friends with not only the subject but like their entire family yeah definitely so you're saying like for the dishwasher episode there were three different dishwashers at three different restaurants in consideration and then it was kind of narrowed down or maybe there were a couple dishwashers and you knew gage and holner was going to be the location i think there were a few dishwashers at Gage and Tolner that we were talking to.

10:51And then and I think all of them ended up getting featured. Yeah. In some way, because like the dynamic in the dish pit was so fun to watch. Yeah. Can I ask you about the kind of aftermath of that video specifically? I feel like there was an interesting discourse that ended up happening online about the main dishwasher saying that he didn't have access to family meal and then like a big kind of I don't know the right word for it kerfuffle in the comment section i mean i think what we showed in the video was was true which is that he did have access to family meal just like everyone else but he was just so in the weeds yeah in the dishes that he just like didn't feel like he could take family meal and i think like as reporters at times all we can do is just like turn the cameras on and then like present what we see You know, it's not like the restaurant intentionally withheld family meal from this person, but we just saw what it's like to be at the bottom of the hierarchy, which is that like you're doing the dishes of the rest of the staff in addition to the guests.

11:56And you don't always feel like you can you can duck out and have time for a meal. Yeah. Do you feel like there are any other moments you've captured in the video series that have been surprising to the general public when they get to see the reality of what this job is like? There was a moment in the bagel roller episode where he basically, Celestino, the subject, basically said he didn't take breaks and didn't take vacation because he just couldn't afford to, just because there was so much work to do. and I think it sort of goes to show you that like yes in theory you like look on paper like this person is allotted a 30 minute break every day but then you look at the reality of their work and it's like does the amount of work that they have to do in a day even allow them to take that break even though it is like legally uh their right to do so and I think those kinds of moments I think are so important because it just like shows you that like the law is one thing, but how the law plays out in practice is quite another.

13:08Yeah, the gap between like reality and the way that people expect things to be or would like things to be. What you say about vacation is interesting to me. It reminds me, I don't know if you heard about this, but there's a couple that does a skewer stand on the street on Canal Street and they're there every day. And I have a ton of friends that love to go and see them. And a couple of weeks ago, they were gone and nobody knew where they were. I had a couple of group chats my friends were in where they were trying to figure out where they were. And then one day they were back and my friend Diane walked up to them and started chatting with them and everything was fine.

13:38They had just decided to go on vacation for a week to visit their family. And they had just gone and done that. But nobody knew that that's what they were doing. And people see a street vendor that's not on the street anymore. And they just assume that something bad had happened. But it was in this case, actually, a good thing is that they just got to take a little summer break. So right now you're the interim restaurant critic at The Times with Melissa Clark. You've done so much writing over your career. How do you feel about like criticism specifically as a genre? How are you approaching it?

14:05It's really stressful, honestly. My first review came out yesterday and I was like, I was kind of like shitting my pants and losing sleep over it for weeks. When you're writing a review, you really can't hide behind other people's quotes. You can't hide behind reporting as much. I've always approached reporting is like, I don't want to center myself. I want to center the subjects. And when you're writing a review, in a way you are centering yourself and centering your perspective. And that's scary to me. Like really, really scary to me because I'm also just like, what do I know? You know, of course, I like I've eaten at a lot of restaurants, but I'm like, I don't know everything about everything.

14:51So all I can do is approach this job with just like a deep sense of curiosity and a desire to learn. That's what I'm trying to do. I wonder if in this world of restaurant TikTok and, you know, social media, like how criticism needs to evolve. But that's something I am thinking about. And I don't yet know what that looks like, but I do think criticism needs to evolve. Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about your first review? What's the restaurant? How did you approach the reporting process? And is it the same way that Pete Wells was kind of handling in terms of the amount of times you go to a restaurant, how you approach the menu?

15:30Like more or less, yes. It was an Indian restaurant in the East Village called Bungalow. And I think the first time I realized that like there was like this crazy hype around bungalows when my parents came into town from Texas and they had heard of this restaurant. Like my parents never hear about restaurants in New York living in Texas, but they had heard of this restaurant because the chef behind it, Vikas Kanna, is just this like wildly famous chef in India. And my parents had just heard, you know, through the auntie network that this is like the big opening and it's really good. Um, and so I went with them and like, you, I'm sure you know this experience when you get like spotted and suddenly like the treatment just told, there's like a vibe shift and like everything changes.

16:19And the chef started bringing out dishes himself. He brought out like a sample of lemon pickle for my mom to try. And I literally, all I could think of was like, how can you evaluate a restaurant when you're getting treated like this? And so I started thinking about Ruth Reichel, who would wear wigs and disguises and wrote about it in her amazing book, Garlic and Sapphires. And so I bought myself some wigs and learned how to do some like rudimentary stage makeup. And the next few times I went in disguise and I was not recognized. and it was really, really interesting. Like I would make eye contact with the chef and he like had no idea who I was.

17:03I love this. Because I feel like there's been a pendulum swing away from disguising yourself as a critic in some ways. I know like in Pete Wells' final articles, he was talking about how by the end he was being recognized. Obviously you and Melissa Clark, who's the other interim restaurant writer, are video personalities and people know you And our former co-worker at BA, Mackenzie Chung Fagan, who's the critic at The Chronicle, has written about how she was not trying to disguise herself. And I feel like that makes sense because social media, like especially of our generation, it's just hard for no one to know what you're like.

17:37But I do appreciate the idea that like in the moment on the restaurant floor, everyone's just trying to get their job done. And if they don't immediately clock you, like you're just someone eating in the restaurant maybe. And I like I don't think people appreciate how different it is when you're recognized versus not. Like it can feel like night and day service sometimes. I have like experienced places where like, yeah, the service was amazing because they clocked me. And then like a friend goes and we're like, we were totally ignored. And I'm like hypersensitive to this because when I started in the food industry, I was primarily going out to eat with women of color.

18:14And we were often like ignored, told the weight in the rain, forgotten about. And so it sucks feeling like the person ignored in the dining room. And I don't want to ever be reviewing from the perspective of like the like person getting the most privileged service in the dining room, if that makes sense. Yeah, I think it does make a lot of sense. Do you also feel like when you put on the wig or the disguise that you're kind of like going into critic mode as opposed to when you're just eating in a restaurant in a more casual context? It's more like I'm uncomfortable and constantly adjusting my wig cap and trying to convince the person across from me not to laugh.

18:57Yeah, I feel like that must be an interesting challenge for the situation. A quick anecdote, which is that when I went to Bungalow the second time, no, the third time in the wig, one of my aunties just happened to be in town from Texas. And she was sitting on the sidewalk waiting to get in. and I like approached her and she like waved her arms and was kind of like stranger dangering me. And I was like, Shalini, auntie, it's me. And she like looked like she was about to have like a miniature heart attack. If you were in like an early 2010s food journalist rom-com, this would definitely be a scene in the rom-com.

19:35Except for she would come in and be looking around the restaurant and you would be like hoping that she didn't recognize you and like Priya like run across the restaurant and blow the cover. Yeah. So are you the person who decides all of the restaurants that you're going to be reviewing? How do you handle that part of the process? I've been making those decisions. Obviously, the editors on the desk definitely weigh in. They have restaurants that they definitely want us to review. But for me, I'm looking at like a variety of styles, price points, cuisines, neighborhoods. You know, I don't just want to be reviewing fine dining restaurants.

20:14It's I mean, also because I'm just inherently not not as interested in fine dining restaurants as I am other kinds of restaurants. Yeah, it's a certain way of eating for sure. I wouldn't say it's something I especially gravitate towards, but it is what the majority of criticism of a certain style has been writing about for a long time. So it's always interesting to see how that gets kind of mixed up or dealt with differently as time goes on. Is that kind of what you mean about how you think criticism needs to evolve now that TikTok and so many other platforms have criticism as a part of it? I mean, I think Pete did a really amazing job reviewing different kinds of restaurants, you know, not just reviewing fine dining restaurants.

20:53I think he did actually did a really remarkably good job covering the city. He was going out to Staten Island, you know, deep in the Bronx. Like he found some amazing places. I guess what I more mean is just, is a 1 ,000-word review the best format? Like, should criticism be more multimedia? For this review, I also filmed like an accompanying explainer that's going to go on our TikTok and talk about my process, how many times I went, how many dishes I ate, what was the most expensive, what was the least expensive. and, you know, just like a little bit of insight into what my experiences were like that you couldn't get in the review.

21:35And I think that stuff is interesting, like treating it like there's gonna be a social component, a video component and like a written component of some sorts. I think that's really interesting to me. We also have this amazing newsletter called Where to Eat that's very servicey. I love reading beautiful words around food. I think there needs to be more service, honestly, which is the thing I didn't, I can't believe I'm saying in the year 2024. But I like just think I think it needs to be more. I think criticism needs to to offer more service. Well, I'm interested to see how that all plays out.

22:05And I want to talk to you about your latest book while you're here in the studio. Also, Priya's Kitchen Adventures, which is, I would say, like kind of a cookbook for kids, but also people of all ages. Is that how you bill it to people? Yeah, I guess like adults who don't love to chop would love this book. Yeah, that would be a great tagline for the book, actually. A cookbook for kids and adults who don't like to chop. And over the past year, you were kind of going on book tour and going all over the country. And I feel like a really cool element of that book tour that maybe is different than previous projects you've worked on is the amount of kids and young readers that were in the room.

22:41What kinds of conversations and activities did you get to do through this book tour? Oh, my God. It was like the best. It was the best book tour ever. Kids are the most fun guests. I did a chat making workshop in LA and of course like every LA kid I was like does anyone know what tamarind chutney is and they're like yeah we have some in our pantry right now you know there was one really amazing one where I taught the kids how to write a recipe and then all the kids wrote a recipe for their favorite food and then they all read them it was like a little spoken word performance, but of the recipes.

23:20And then some of the kids asked me to like read some headnotes. And so I started reading. I read like two headnotes and they're like, read more. And so this event just devolved into me reading like 15 headnotes. And I was like, this is so funny. Like, can you imagine like an adult cookbook event that's just like spoken word headnotes? There's like a cookbook editor listening to this podcast salivating right now at the idea that anyone is spending that much time with the head notes. I mean, they just love being read to probably as one element. That's something that kids are maybe more familiar with than adults in some ways.

23:53And also these kids must be really interested in food. Do you feel like being in touch with such a younger generation of people that are interested in food made you think differently about anything? It definitely was a hopeful reminder that today's kids, and granted this is like biased based off of who decided to come to my events. But they're growing up with much more diverse palates than I think even I did and that many kids I knew growing up did. I think the sense of what normal, simple, everyday food is, is certainly changing among kids ages 8 to 11. I also think that there seems to be this like narrative that like, oh, my kid, like kids don't want new to them.

24:38They don't want foods that feel too different. But I found that like the kids that I had 30 kids recipe testing for my book and then also all the kids at these events, they were surprisingly open to just like having a bite of a thing, just trying it. And especially when they had a hand in making it, it made them more invested and it made them want to try it. And so I am not a parent, but it was really it was very interesting to me to see, oh, like these kids are way more curious, I think, than we give them credit for. Yeah, I think the part of making something gives you a vested interest in trying it makes a lot of sense.

25:17How did you navigate getting feedback from 30 kid recipe testers? Oh, my God. It was humbling. So I did the same thing I did with Indianish, which is that I sent them their recipes and then I sent them a Google Doc and was like, fill out a Google form for each recipe or have an adult do it. And, yeah, these kids all knew how to use Google Forms. They're really savvy, these eight-year-olds. And so they filled out Google Forms that had, you know, things like were there steps that were hard to follow? Would you make this again? You know, how easy or hard did you find this recipe? You know, what did it taste like?

26:02And kids, like, don't mince words. You know how, like, when you get adult feedback, they'll be like, I liked this. Maybe you could improve this. Compliment sandwich, yeah. They compliment sandwich. Kids don't do that. Like I remember there was one noodle recipe that I ended up taking it out because three kids just hated it. And one person just said like it was yucky. Oh, my God. That was the only feedback. If kids don't like noodles, you know you're in a bad spot. Exactly. They just didn't like the broth. They were not rocking with the broth. And so I cut it. It was a lot of like really brutal feedback at times.

26:36Yeah, like would not eat again, didn't like too rich. And, you know, a lot of the feedback, too. Like we had some like budding food writers, you know, like someone ate like a pepper and cheese quesadilla and was like, the pepper danced in my mouth. That's so funny. Yeah. Besides the quesadilla, were there any kind of standout recipes in the book, either on the kid perspective or on your own end? The one that was by far the most popular among all the recipe testers, like every single kid who made this, I feel that it like changed them, was the profiteroles. My husband, Seth, developed a lot of the dessert recipes.