748: New York Magazine Restaurant Reviewing with Matthew Schneier

27:31But I am very, I would say I'm never regretful when I order from them and it shows up at the house. And you've got like a great big folded sort of semi-Neapolitan, semi-New York Reyes slice, you know, with all the good stuff. And you might have their Sicilian slice in that box too. And God, you're lucky if you get that. Exactly right. Well, let's stick with Italian cuisine. And I really want to talk about your assessment of Babo. I mean, how did you go into that review? I was talking with some of the Times critics about it. And you really had to consider the history of that place when you made your assessment.

28:13And you were pretty, my reading is you're pretty lukewarm on it for that review. I had more success there during my two visits. But Matthew, it's kind of one of those issues with critics. You're not just writing about the food. I mean, this is like the classic example here. I think that's right. I think Babo lives in its own context. And that doesn't mean that I think it needs to be punished forever for the sins of its founder and its former owner or co-owner. And it is never my ambition to go to a new place and dislike it. I just wouldn't bother. It's not worth my time. It's not worth the reader's time.

28:55I had really high hopes for Babo because I had some truly wonderful meals at Babo in the old days. You know, I did not know then what we all know now about what some of the working conditions were like there, and I regret that. But it was a place that was really exciting, at least from a diner's perspective and from my personal perspective. And I was really hoping that they would be able to keep some of that spirit but taken into a new direction. And my problem with it, and I did really have a problem with it, was that I think they were too locked in to what it once was. Not even simply because of the politics of it, but just the food of it.

29:40So much has happened in cooking, in Italian food, in New York food in the 20 or so years since that restaurant first came on the scene. And so many great chefs were inspired by it and took it further that to see it kind of chained to some of its old recipes and some of its old techniques. It's old chef. I mean, do you feel in hindsight it's a mistake to have Mark Ladner there from given his past experience with the group? You know, I can't speak to what his experience was like as an executive within that group and as a workplace leader. He's an unbelievable Italian chef. And I think if he had been able to really go into it and bring something totally new to the table, it could have been great.

30:29It would have been great. It's a menu of a lot of sort of Babbo classics. it's hard for me to say now you know did I think they were executed less well this time or is that you know the cloudiness of that's the challenge of the job distance but I just thought it was too beholden to what it had been when it had the opportunity to make it into a new version of what it was and it's still it's a beautiful space it's a great room it's it's I don't think you need to throw the baby out with the bath water but I also don't think they elevated it past what it was. Where it should be in 2020. Where it needed to be to be the Italian restaurant that you want to go to and you want to pay Babo prices for.

31:13There's too many other places that are doing surprising and delicious and boundary breaking and innovative things. Yeah. To fall back on that. How do you then think about Babo moving forward? I mean, do you have time to go back? Or is it one of those things, and I think this kind of freaks out chefs, is like it's a kind of one shot with the critic. I think it is and it isn't. I don't know that it would get another full review. Sure. For me, at least not in the immediate future. But I think one of the nice parts about all of our sort of increased workload and also doing guides and off-week posts and shorter things and newsletters and everything else is that there is an opportunity.

31:56There is space as there didn't used to be, you know, column inches in print to keep thinking about things and to have the dialogue evolve. And I hope it does. I will absolutely go back, you know, probably not for a couple weeks or a couple months, but I would love to see it improve to the restaurant that I think it can and should be. I just don't think it's necessarily there this minute. I mean, it's the beauty of what New York Magazine represents and, you know, David Haskell, all the way on down, like, you know, you envision there could be a box somewhere in a summer or fall issue. It's like, Bobo's actually good.

32:28So I feel like your publication unlike some of the more rigid ones, you have an open mind. I think so. And we are trying on all platforms and in all formats to keep engaging with our readers and with our materials. I mean, Alan Sitzman, my editors, has done an incredible job with the Grub Street newsletter that he essentially wrote a whole cloth. I love reading his weekly. I love that. I love what he's doing. You know, it is really offensive for editors to also be great writers. and put us out of business. I sort of thought the one thing I had to offer was, you know, the word part of it. And, you know, he would do something else.

33:08But, you know, it's terrific. And it's a great way to sort of meet people where they are, both readers and restaurants. Not everything is going to get, you know, a multiple meal, full consideration review, because I can ultimately only do, you know, 25, 26 of those a year. But there's a newsletter, you know, every week. sometimes dispatches every day. You know, there's a lot of space, a lot of time. And this town deserves it fully. Your Cove Saga review was part of a long, critical tradition of tasting menu skepticism. You know, Pete Wells famously wrote about it, Corby Coomer even going further back, and of course your predecessor, Adam Platt.

33:46This line really resonated with me and likely some of our listeners. Quote, I did want more and less, more food with more bite and less ceremony. What were you talking about there? It's certainly true that many of my predecessors have also taken exception to tasting menus. Maybe it's a mantle all of us must take up in our time. And I wrote that piece in part because these menus are still out there and they still represent, I think, in many ways, the pinnacle of ambition in a way that I think does a disservice to both diners and chefs. A lot of these menus, and I'm not speaking here specifically to Cove and Saga, although I don't think they're exempt from it either, feel like star grabs to me.

34:36feel specifically architected to be pyrotechnic displays of duration and technique that are meant to communicate to, you know, these shadowy judges. This is worthy of a place on X list, Y list, X guide, Y guide, whatever. And I understand that. I understand that those lists and those guides are very helpful in keeping people coming through the door in perpetuity in many cases. You know, if you go to some of the older restaurants in New York that are still on the Michelin guide or the 50 best or whatever, you know, you see these often international Michelin tourists, you know, with their cameras, with their posses, you know, having the experience they've been promised they would have.

35:22Yeah. Yeah. Per se isn't really fun these days. I'm just going to say. Yeah. But I think I don't always think that this kind of banquet is the best way for a chef or a diner to experience the best they can do to do the best they can and to have the best experience. You know, at Cove and at Saga, I had some delicious dishes that were tiny necessarily. And I had some that felt like they were overly polite or overly complicated in order to try to position themselves the best way possible for what seems to me an increasingly arbitrary goal. And I think both Flynn McGarry and Charlie Mitchell, the chefs respectively at those places, have unbelievable palettes and unbelievable talents and can do so much more than that.

36:14I didn't necessarily want to personally be locked into, you know, the roller coaster of this audition. It's very, very well said. And I think the critics have always been drawn to this topic because they're representing what people are saying. And like the general diner who maybe wants to splash out and have a celebration is maybe confused by these tasting menus and then let down eventually. Do you think the chefs are listening? Flynn was on actually after you wrote that. And he told me in our interview, in our chat, that he's changing his menu. He's actually reformatting it a little bit. But, you know, I am not so self-important to think that, you know, my writing alone is going to convince anybody to do anything different.

36:59Certainly not a chef who has the prerogative to run his or her restaurant however they like. I think it's nice to hear that chefs are open to good faith feedback, which is what I hope to do. I never want to be shitty for the sake of being shitty or shitty for the sake of clicks or dunk on anyone for the sake of doing it. I think that's bad faith and it's bad practice. The people that I have given occasionally harsher critical feedback to are people I think can take it and can improve by it. And, you know, we will all be the better for it. you know, ultimately I think my job is to serve as not the chefs and not the restaurants, but the readers.

37:48Yeah. And that is the only reason I ever write anything, you know, negative at all, because people have a limited amount of time and a limited amount of capital to put into, you know, probably for most people who are not going out like me five nights a week, you know, one special meal at the end of the week or one special meal for their birthday or for Christmas or for their proposal or whatever. And my job is to help them understand where they would most like to do that and what the experience they're going to have there when they do it. It is service journalism for a reason. Back to the negative criticism.

38:21Do you think a negative review is a gift or a wound? And really, like, let's get into the craft. This is a food writer show. Like, when do you know you're going to write a negative review? Is it sometimes literally like the first 10 minutes in the restaurant? I hope it's not the first 10 minutes in a restaurant because I think that would be premature. Yeah, sure. Good answer. I always want to leave room for an experience to evolve, for my perceptions of it to evolve. You know, ultimately, the deadline is the deadline. And by a certain point, you've got to find what you have to say at that time and understand that you may revise yourself later or you may come to feel differently.

39:03You may evolve. The restaurant may evolve.

39:08But I think it's a cumulative thing. It's the reason why we insist on going at least twice, not just me, but I think all of the critics who I really esteem and who are worth their salt. Because you could have, you know, a restaurant has an off night. A chef has an off night. A chef isn't there. You know, there's a personnel issue. There's a delivery issue. The dishwasher is broken. You know, there are a million things that it is the restaurant's job to conceal from their diners, but that nevertheless make this, you know, obstacle course ballet of making and serving food even more difficult than it ordinarily is.

39:45And to be clear, it ordinarily, I think, is just short of a nightmare. So I always want to leave space for revising my opinion and trying again and sampling broadly and also trying things a second and third time. You know, it is certainly my feeling that it is never worth writing a real negative review about a little startup, about a place that does not have a lot of expectation or interest or support behind it. Which is an inherent challenge of your job because you are going to so many places that fall into that middle ground where it's not quite right for a positive, but you're certainly not going to trash it.

40:32So that's like a lot of stuff. You go to many meals that you don't even write about. Exactly right. And I think there's a real – editing by ambition is a real thing. There are many meals I go to that are just fine. I think the barrier to entry for opening a restaurant and running a restaurant in New York is so high. It's very rare that you go to a restaurant like I'm going to or you're going to that is truly terrible. You know, that just – there are too many hurdles to get over for people to be getting away with making really bad food. But there are places that haven't hit their stride or are stumbling or the menu doesn't feel right or the cooking isn't quite up to par or the vibes are kind of off in a way that's hard to put, you know, pin down in a sort of ineffable way.

41:20And in those cases, I say, thank you very much. And I pay my check and I tip generously. And I say, I'm going to try that again in a month or a quarter or a year or whatever. I read your Max and Helen's piece. And I think many of us loved the eight-hour line headline. Really, you know, that's New York Magazine classic. And I went last week and I loved it. I thought it was, I mean, I had a few dishes. It wasn't like I tried the whole menu. And I just like to love the energy in that room is kind of my takeaway. way, like when you were out there, like how did that how did that review kind of transpire?

41:54Did you have a planned trip or was it something that you were sent to do? And like, where else did you eat in L.A.? I went out to L.A. I had a planned trip that had nothing to do with work. And I said to my editor, you know, I'm going out there. Is there anything you're curious about in L.A.? There are a couple of places I'm interested in and, you know, might might poke my head into. But if there's anything there's anything you want from me, you you let me know. I am at your service. And he said, well, I keep reading about this eight-hour waffle. I said, what the hell is an eight-hour waffle? You know, he said, you know, Phil Rosenthal, the Somebody Feed Phil guy, opened a diner that's sort of a diner and sort of a West Coast coffee shop.

42:35And those aren't quite the same thing. But, you know, be that it's amazing. I call it a diner. I think you nailed it in the first go. It is. I think it is a diner. West Coast diner. Because I am interested in the kind of food ways and the local anthropology of everywhere I go, I was interested to, you know, I spoke not only to Phil, but to Nancy Silverton, who developed the whole menu. And she said, I'm a Southern California girl. Like, we don't have Jewish diners. We have coffee shops and donut shops. And, you know, the expectations are different. You know, they had a big back and forth about whether they would have a burger, a cheeseburger like a diner would have or a patty melt like a coffee shop would have.

43:16And I think they ended up both. Yeah, yeah. You know, that's a nice compromise. But I was very legitimately curious what that experience would be like. And so I reached out to them and they graciously and probably unfairly allowed me to cut the eight-hour line. and I just talked to them really about the experience of making it and what went into it and it really was, you know, so far as there can be a Proustian waffle, I think this was a Proustian waffle. This was a real tribute and a love letter to Phil's parents and to a certain kind of East Coast Jewish diner culture that I also grew up in.

43:54And the generous application of honey butter. Generous, to put it mildly. It's kind of insane. That was a fist-sized ball of butter that was on top of mine. And it kind of perfectly covered the thing. You weren't really holding back with that thing. No, that's, you know, people, food writers, like, lean on the cliche of, you know, this is blanketed and such and such. I think that was duveted. Like, that is just a real, a heavy helping. That's great. And did you put maple on it or not? Maple syrup? A little. You know, you got to. Yeah, I see. But where else did you dine in L.A.? anywhere good where did we go in la uh it was a very short trip yeah so we didn't have um a ton of opportunity to to go as widely as i would have liked uh i'm trying to remember now what's some of the standouts where we just missed squirrel which everybody was uh excited about and also inflamed about so i get to sidestep having having a first person that dispatch yeah um went to little doms you know one of these classics middle-aged restaurants that is sort of both forgotten and not forgotten had a nice meal there I love that you say middle-aged I feel like you mentioned it earlier and I talk about this show a lot it's like we need to respect and represent and go to these middle-aged restaurants because they don't get to the geriatric age many of them without that support and it seems like just looking at your list and what you were interested in you're focused on this I wouldn't say it's a specific focus because I do obviously think of myself as someone who is beholden to news and to the life cycle of what's coming down the pike.

45:39But I do absolutely take very seriously the responsibility to remind people that if you want great restaurants to endure, if you want them to make it to, you know, the sort of grand old age that some of our great historic New York restaurants attain, you got to keep going to that. And there's every reason to. In many cases, as I said earlier, they get better and better sometimes after, you know, the Klieg light of early attention has moved along. And so I am a big believer in that. Maybe it's just that I am middle-aged now, and so I've taken on the responsibility of speaking for my cohort. But, you know, you have to keep going to places.

46:26It's so unfair, I think, otherwise. It's an interest. It's not your primary interest, but it's an interest, and I appreciate it. Do you want to talk about some food writing? Sure. Let's do it. First story is How to Invite Someone Over for Dinner by Antara Sinha at Best Food Blog. Are you familiar with this publication? Have you ever checked them out? This one is new to me. I will start reading. Yeah, check it out. They're doing great work. So this is not a story about etiquette or fancy envelopes. It's about partyful. Do you know about partyful? I do know about partyful. Partyful seems to keep catching...

47:00Catching strays? Catching strays. You know, to me, it's a classic definition of if there is a human need, there will be an app for that. And so it is. It's honestly not an app that I use on myself. I sympathize to some extent with the writer's gripe that Partyful has made us all bad party guests and bad party hosts. Yeah. I would say that I've only really been invited to partyful parties where the guest list is so unwieldy as to be impossible via email. I kind of can't imagine using one for a dinner party. This was my question too, and I think it reminded me of Evite back in the day. I don't know if you're looking at me like, what's Evite?

47:53No, no, no. You knew Evite? Or better or worse, I remember Evite. You better. Well, I think Antara writes, Partyful's interface is making us god-awful guests. We scroll through everyone else on the invite list to scan for familiar names before deciding whether we want to attend. We respond with a maybe, like the thinking man emoji. I think, like, the point here is that there's, like, this anonymity of hitting a button in an app to say you're not coming to the party. There's something like there's a detachment there. and I guess to end this is, you know, what are the alternatives to partyful? If this is what the culture is using to invite people to parties, I personally get partyful invites mostly for industry events, not like, but it seems this piece, it's clear that people are using them for all sorts of parties.

48:42I mean, how do you invite someone to a party? I mean, I wonder if I'm just not getting invited to a lot of parties that many of my peers are. You know, when I read this piece, it seemed to be very specifically talking about dinner parties. And to me, a dinner party, I mean, maybe I just reveal the size of my apartment, but, you know, six or eight people max is all my poor table can accommodate. And so at that level, I just send an email. I think a text is like a little easier to lose in the shuffle. But I'm not a big believer in BCC. I think it's fine for people to know who else may be coming.

49:22I think we've all gotten a little hesitant to be in any situation where we can't pre-vet every detail. And I would encourage people, if they're doing this, to be a little brave about going to a party where you may not, you know, intimately know every single person. But, you know, she's convinced me I will not be using Partiful for my dinner parties going forward. It's a really fun piece in the spirit of the best food blog. And I think I like the open email, no BCC, where there can be some group replies and you get a thread going and then you see everybody a week later. Next story, Eleven Madison Park hits$1 ,000 for two by Ryan Sutton in the Low Times.

50:07Ryan's a previous guest on the show and really terrific critic like yourself. He's now at the New York Times. He's writing one of the four full-time critics there. And Ryan's writing about, you know, changes in menu pricing. And I think that Eleven Madison Park, the big caveat is they haven't raised prices in four years. So while this price increase was$20, making a single meal$385, it wasn't like an overnight decision. They definitely have been sitting on the same pricing. But it also leads to some other questions about the current kind of the inflation of fine dining. You know, Aska recently bumped up their menu by$50 and now it's at$3.75.

50:50You know, regular price increases are common in any restaurant, you know, given cost of goods and labor and all the requirements needed to run a restaurant. You have to increase those prices quarterly or even more. And I guess my question is, is like, is do people are people paying attention to these increases? I know this is a bit of Ryan's bag with some of his reporting. Do you hear about price increases at this highest level in your work? And really, is it unfair that restaurants that are like lower price points get a lot of heat for adding$1 to their price to their menu or even slices? If it's up 25 cents, you can get heat while these restaurants can increase their prices by$30,$40 and don't really get much blowback.

51:35I think it all comes down to who the restaurant's audience is. I think as with so many other parts of our culture and our economy, you know, the top is getting higher. But the people who are patronizing, you know, whether it's luxury food, luxury clothing, luxury cars, luxury whatever, you know, the price sensitivity is not there as much as I think it is for people, you know, more in the middle and working classes. And so I don't hear a lot of price sensitivity from the people who make a real habit of going to 11 Madison Park and the omakase places and whatever else. It doesn't mean I'm not paying attention to them and not attuned to them because I think it's so important, especially in my line of work where I have the privilege of going out and, you know, on a corporate card, having meals that many people don't have the opportunity and don't have the resources to have.

52:30I don't ever want to become so, you know, inured to what these things actually cost and who can afford them and what the value proposition is. I always think value is a better metric than price because you can have an incredible meal for 50 bucks and you can have an incredible meal for 300 bucks or 400 bucks. And you can also have the opposite. You know, you can have a – you know, you can overpay for something and not worth it and you can underpay for something and it's not worth it. A great point. I feel Michelin absolutely does not value value. I feel like just looking at their lists, that's not something they think about.

53:07I think it's very easy to have your hair kind of blown back by the sort of boldness of the high ticket price. And you sort of feel like, well, if I am paying, you know,$4.25 ahead for such and such omakase or whatever, then it is good because of it rather than, you know, it is good so I will pay. Well, you think about the vodka wars of the 90s when, like, you know, Grey Goose rolls in and decides, we're just going to charge$50 for a bottle of vodka. It's like no color, no flavor of this liquid. But it's like, well, of course it's better because it's$50. Exactly. You know, and I think sticker shock is real.

53:45And I love and respect that Ryan really keeps a beady eye on this stuff. He does. And is quite loud about it in a way that I think is very welcome. You know, I think costs of everything are going up. Costs of labor are going up. Costs of real estate are going up. Costs of ingredients are going up. We may be staring down the barrel of a recession. We'll see. So, you know, I think it's only going to become a more challenging environment. Does that mean that we can all sort of blithely accept, you know, whatever percentage point increase on both our tasting menus and our pizzas? No. We all have to sort of find a way to meet in the middle.

54:24And that's why I think my focus is always on value. I want people to know if you have X number of dollars and it may be a very high dollar amount, I personally think it is worth it to spend it here because this is the kind of experience you are going to get for that. And if you want a great experience at a much lower rate, that is why I include – whether it's Coppelia or La Frige DNA or one of a million places, Taqueria Ramirez. You know, there are places that so wildly over deliver at 20 bucks a head. You're having a different experience than you would if you're having a three or four hour tasting menu at 11 Madison Park or Oscar or wherever else.

55:05But to me, finding greatness all up and down the spectrum is part of the fun and the joy and the responsibility of this particular gig. Fascinating piece, Ryan. Great talking through this. Well, let's get to our Graydon Carter question. And I think this is a good one for you because you started your career at Condé Nast. You didn't work under Graydon Carter in 1997. But as the question goes, if you were to write a story for Graydon Carter in 1997, famously, he had large budgets for his freelancers and would offer, you know,$100 ,000,$200 ,000 contracts for a few stories. Matthew, what would that story be?

55:46You know, it's a great question. and I wish I had 10 pitches ready to go on the off chance that someone listening to this would actually go ahead and assign one. The one that came first to me is this, is, you know, I think what magazine writers could do in those days, and magazine editors, commissioning editors could do in those days, is allow people to really follow some of their odder passions. I think there was less, you know, immediate focus on how is this going to extend to the TV adaptation or, you know, the book proposal or whatever else. You could really have a sort of bugbear or a little, you know, fixation of your own and pursue it to the ends of the earth.

56:32And so I often say, or I have often said to friends, at least, maybe I don't say this that much publicly, but my last meal would be Vitello Tonato. And I have to apologize to the the animal rights people and the veal people, it's not a kind meal, but if someone's executing me, I'm sorry to say I'm thinking about myself in that moment. And I think Vitello Tonato is such a perfect composition of food. It is such a strange, unusual, unexpectedly perfect pairing of cold roasted veal, thinly sliced, and tuna sauce, I mean, tuna mayonnaise, essentially, And, you know, if they're doing it right, you've got some capers, some caper berries.

57:18It's just I discovered it when I used to travel to Milan frequently when I was still covering fashion. It's a I don't know if it's a properly Milanese dish, but it's certainly a northern Italian dish. And I associate it very much with Milan. And it's one of those things that people who know me know if it's on a menu, I'm going to order it. I'm going to try it. I've got to know how everybody does it. In fact, I believe have one at Beth. Oh, yeah. They used to, Gabrielle Hamilton used to do a pork one at Prune, if I remember correctly. They're all over there. It's sort of having a sort of mini moment again or maybe a durable moment.

57:52And because this is my particular kink, I would pitch Graydon, allow me, I want$100 ,000 of budget to go on the Vitello Tonato pilgrimage. I want to hike the Vitello Tonato Trail. I want to go through northern Italy. You know, we can start in Trentino or Alto Adige or, you know, wherever the sort of meatier, more Germanic-influenced cuisines of the sort of alpine and mountainous north. You know, go through Milan, go through the cities, wind through Alto Piemonte and Barolo and Barbaresco. So, you know, let me just be this lunatic traveler with my Bindalyn staff picking my way through, you know, the history and the what and why and where of this one dish that I can't imagine anybody else on Earth thinks about as much as I do.

58:46I mean, what a brilliant answer. I feel like you could 100K for a book deal. Perhaps. If anyone at Penguin Random House here in this building is listening, I'm available. We've got some editors listening. Brilliant answer. I love that dish too. And I feel there's so many ways you could go with it. Thank you for doing that. That was really fun. We all have that dream trip we've been wishing we could go on. But too often, life, or usually price, gets in the way. That's why Priceline is here to help you turn your dream trip into reality. With up to 60 % off hotels and up to 50 % off flights, you can book everything you need for your next adventure.

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1:00:28Are you ready? I'm hydrated. I'm ready. Good to go. What is the first thing you read in the morning and where do you read it? Unfortunately, it is my emails on my phone in bed. In bed. So phone by bed, pick it up, emails. I am trying so hard to move my phone to another room, and I have not succeeded yet. I'm only one decent alarm clock away, but I have been now for many years. And so, yes, unfortunately, my hand, as if of its own accord, just gropes toward the nightstand and then immediately starts blasting blue light into my eyes. Blue light emails. You know, what everybody has been screaming about overnight.

1:01:09What about journalism? Are you reading any – are you going to any – are you reading any newsletters or anything? I guess that is an email, but. I do. I try to save actual substantive reading for after my first cup of coffee, which comes pretty quickly after that. So I'm mostly scanning headlines in the morning. You know, I mean, I get everybody's newsletters. I get ours. I get the Times. Do I get the journal? I should get the journal. I don't. You know, I'm now subscribed to six billion Substack newsletters, some of which I remember, some of which I don't. And I try to start that process, but usually by, you know, the fifth or sixth headline with my eyes glazing.

1:01:50It's time to like pause and caffeinate before we continue. What do you read on actual paper, if anything? I read New York Magazine on paper. Great. Not exclusively, but I think New York Magazine is the rare outlet, the rare product that is excellent and meaningfully different in print and online. We have, in my estimation, the best page designers and art directors and photo and illustration staff in the game. And it is such a pleasure to page through New York Magazine and see how these lunatic geniuses put it all together. Doesn't mean I'm not constantly clicking New York Magazine stories in real time on the website.

1:02:30But New York Magazine in print is really, if I may say so, worth the investment. I often read The New Yorker in print. because if you're reading, you know, a 20 or 30 ,000 word story about whatever it is, the brick layers of Patagonia or something similarly. But tell us an auto, perhaps, in the future. David, are you listening? Yeah, David, yeah. I think, you know, there is a kind of word count limit. I try to not go above on screens just to save my poor eyes. So I like that in print. And then the third one is I always read Cook's Illustrated in print as soon as it arrives. I love Cook's Illustrated.

1:03:12That's amazing that you've had that subscription. And Cook's Illustrated is terrific. And it's a different format, too, from a lot of, if you haven't picked up a Cook's Illustrated in a while. Different format. My sister was actually at my apartment yesterday, and she picked up a Cook's Illustrated, and she knows it's one of my particular things. And she was like, oh, my God, there are photos in this now? I know, I know. They've modernized a little bit. They've modernized. And, you know, I do miss the, you know, the wall paintings version, the cave art Cooks Illustrated. But it's still, it is a great publication.

1:03:45And they are, you know, talk about an outlet that is like obsessive and, you know, to the microscopically minute about what they do. I just think it's fabulous. And I read it as soon as it arrives. I love that. Did you have a favorite food publication growing up? did i have a favorite food paper yeah sure and i mean the one that that springs to mind is is hardly an unheard of one but i uh i was radicalized by gourmet relatively early i discovered gourmet um in college uh and i was so blown away by how beautiful and journalistic it was beyond just recipes and i did i i actually i think i i started to learn to cook from gourmet recipes which was a little bit like starting in the deep end.

1:04:33But that was a great magazine under Ruth Reichel and her whole team. And one of my great regrets is that in one of my many moves in my early adulthood, I got rid of my archive of Gourmet's, which was in no way complete. But I had my own life archive of Gourmet. And if I could go back and look through them now, I have a feeling they would all sort of smell like my first crappy apartment. Oh, man. I wish you had those. We all have our own relationship with PBS food programming. Was there a PBS show that you grew up with? I loved Lydia. Yeah. You know, everybody to Andiamo Atavala Manjari. Yeah, yeah.

1:05:18Lydia was great. You know, I had some PBS and some, they were Yann Can Cook, right? Yeah, sure. But just because of what age I happened to be, I really – the Food Network and I grew up sort of hand in hand. The Food Network was launched when I was probably in elementary school and just when I was just beginning to program my own sort of media diet. And so Emeril in the early days, you know, Molto Mario, if I knew then, but I didn't. And Ina, I mean, I'm an old school Ina stan. I profiled Ina for the cut in 2020. Oh, great. And it was a bizarre and wonderful experience to make an icebox cake with her on Zoom.

1:06:10Oh, that's fun. That's a good moment. I mean, we had to do it on Zoom, but to have that one-on-one with her, she's a one-of-one. I mean, going back to this TV programming and Lydia, did you go to her restaurant, Beko, or Lydia when you were young? No. You know, I wouldn't really have been in control of those decisions when I was that young. I mean, I think we're talking about like 9, 10 years old. And I guess of all those. You're a city guy though, right? Yeah. No, absolutely. And now I'm sort of thinking like, why didn't I ever bother my parents to take me? But it was one of those things I think she did mention on the show that she had these restaurants.

1:06:49But to me, you know, especially on PBS where you also saw, you know, Sesame Street, it would almost have no more made sense for me to ask to go to Lydia to see Lydia's restaurants in person than it would to go to Sesame Street. That's so funny. You know, she was she was just she was a character and a fabulous character. I loved watching her, but it never occurred to me that she and I shared the same airspace. My first trip to New York, I wanted to go to Beko. Yeah, from watching that show, I was like a Midwestern kid. And did you? Yeah, yeah. We went. It was cool. It was a cool, yeah, it was like family style.

1:07:25It was like right on 47th Street, I think, like Restaurant Row. I think it might still be open. I don't know if Beko is one of them. One of them is still open. I think Philidia might still be open. Philidia might still be open. I love how you and I are straining to realize if it's open. I mean, I guess I owe her a visit. A lot of restaurants. I think it's Tutia Tavala Amanjari, not Andiamo. Mi dispiace, Lydia. You corrected it. All right. Let's talk about YouTube, TikTok, Reels. Where are you at with it? Do you have a diet? Are you plugged in? Are you putting in some minutes, hours on the screen?

1:08:00I don't have a TikTok. I don't know how much longer I can hold out, but I would like to hold out as long as I can, just for my own sanity. I my understanding is that that people are doing great and interesting stuff on it. But I just have not been able to crack it or, you know, to work it in a way that that makes a lot of sense to me. I definitely am on Instagram and reels and I see it. But what I try not to do is to not to get, you know, the lion's share of my information from there, because I think you can really warp your own perspective. And I get so much more out of walking the streets and being around and talking to people, whether the people I know or people I don't.

1:08:44I mean, everybody I come into contact with, everybody who ever asks me, where should I eat? I'm happy to oblige. You're not annoying. That's a totally reasonable question. This is what I signed up for. But I think some of them are surprised by how often I ask it back of them because people, you know, I can only be so many places at once. And I want to know where you are going and what your neighborhood restaurant is and what your special occasion restaurant is. And what do you know that I don't know? The best critics, all of them say that. All of them do that. You have to just like find out what the streets are talking, what they're saying.

1:09:15Yeah, yeah. So, you know, all of these social platforms are great, but they are no substitute for shoe leather reporting. Last one. Matthew, where do you want to be in five years of your career? Sitting right here, baby. Yeah. No, I think I have the best job in the city. I said that earlier. I really mean it. That is not bullshit. I love what I do. I think it is such a pleasure and a privilege to get to run around and eat my face off and sample the wines and the drinks and the desserts. And I hope to do it healthfully enough that I can continue to do it for many years to come because I also think the best critics are the ones that have the long view and the perspective and the context.

1:10:01And that builds up like plaque in your arteries, for better or worse. But it also, there's no comparison to, you know, when I talk to Adam Platt, my predecessor, or anybody who's been doing this, you know, a thousand years, the things he knows, the context he has, the references he has, you know, the file cabinet, as it were, is so deep that I just, I aspire to get to that kind of place. Yeah. And you love writing too. That's the other thing. I do. That's the thing. Like you say you love the food and the food is cool, but like you, like the journalism is the job and you clearly love writing. I love writing except when I have to do it.

1:10:44Of course. But as soon as it's done, it's my favorite thing I ever suffered through. That's great. Matthew Schneier, this has been really a terrific conversation. I hope you come back in five years, but also sooner. Thank you so much for joining This is Taste. Thanks so much for having me. It's really fun.

1:11:05Eliza, we're back with three things. How are you? I'm good, Matt. How are you doing? Good. Do you want to start? Yeah. Well, I'm going to continue on my sharing of places from my Mexico City trip that I was at recently. Right. You were snowed in. You had four or five extra days. You had a lot of eating ahead of you. Yes. I mean, I would have tried to eat as much as I could have either way, but I was lucky to have the time. And the first place that I want to shout out is something that listeners of the podcast definitely have heard about before is Masalia Maís. I went to their new location in Santro, which was new to me, although I believe it's been open for about a year.

1:11:37And I just think this is a restaurant that's doing everything right. The way that they treat their staff, the way that the staff interacts with each other, the playlist, the drinks, the food is also special. I think listeners or people who have seen their Chef's Table episode on Netflix probably know about this style of food that they're doing. It's the chefs Norma Lissman and Saqib Keval, and they're exploring the migration of people and culinary techniques from South Asia, East Africa, and Mexico, which is such a delicious intersection of places to be pulling from. I got to have some kind of classic staples of the menu that I'd had previously.

1:12:09Like there are grilled prawns with vanilla ghee that you dip into that almost has this caramel-like flavor going on. And the boiled peanuts that come in this really delicious kind of spiced sauce that you kind of suck out of the peanut, which every table gets to start. And they're suadero samosas. But I also had some new things that I really liked, including they call it cucuposan. So it's a whole small young chicken that they deep fry that comes served over this like punchy coconut sweet potato puree, essentially. I was just delirious. I was so happy to be in this restaurant eating all of this food.

1:12:45and I think to see the restaurant continue to evolve is a really special thing. So I think certainly if anyone is going to Mexico City and they can plan in advance and get one or two reservations, this would be one to seek out. I love that you brought that back and you visited again. I loved their chef's table episode. It was quite good and they have a cookbook coming out, I believe. Yeah, the cookbook I'm really excited for. We can link to their episode in the show notes. I had a really fun conversation with them, I believe last year when they came in. I think they're chefs that are really grounded in what they want to be accomplishing And I think that clarity of vision in everything that they do really comes across in the food.

1:13:17What's your first thing? My first thing is I'm continuing on my L.A. journey. I have one more visit from I was there a couple weeks ago. I went to the new location of Genghis Cohen. Did you ever go to the original? No, but I know of the name at least. Yeah. It's a perfect name. It's a great. It's a perfect name. And their new location is right on Fairfax, kind of by John and Vinny's and Cantor's. It doesn't have a performance venue like the previous space. So that's kind of like, I think, a few doors down. They're doing still live music at night on some nights, which is kind of cool. But what a great vibe in there.

1:13:51I mean, it's really fun to walk in off the street to Fairfax, and you're kind of entered through Velvet, and you've got this very intimate space where it's a great place to catch up with a friend at the bar or have a meal with a bunch of friends. And really, I sampled, I had like an N.A. cocktail, which was described as flirty, sassy, and tart, which had pomegranate and lime. Yeah, totally. That's me. That's my L.A. persona. No, it was it was pretty nice. But but really, I had a couple of things. I had their their steamed turkey minis, which is kind of their one of their trademarks, which are turkey wontons.

1:14:27So kind of avoiding pork with the wontons. And it's been a favorite. And it has a kind of a spicy soy sauce base to it. We tried some crab rangoons as well, which were beautifully hand rolled. I met the chef. She's wonderful. And really, she'd been there for many years. And I think the cooking there and the food is really, really great. I know a lot of people probably go there for vibes or just hanging out and going to a place literally called Genghis Cohen is fun enough. Yeah. But I really can attest the food is quite good there. So that's one of my thoughts. Okay, I love that. Yeah, what's your next spot?

1:14:55My next spot is I went to La Casa de Toño, which is a legendary Mexico City, mostly like pozole, other staple food chain. They have a couple locations. Some of them are 24-7. Damn. And I've just heard this is the best pozole. this is the best place to go to on many previous trips. And I finally got to go and it was everything I hoped it would be. It's incredibly popular and they are moving tables. And when we showed up, we went to like a location in Sandro that's essentially in a mall. And there were multiple families that had parties of 16 or like 12 ahead of us. And I was a little daunted because I was hungry.

1:15:31I was like, how are they going to fit like a table of 16? Well, they split them up, but the woman who runs the door is like a drill sergeant. I'm obsessed with her. She had everyone on their business. She got everyone in. The food comes out incredibly fast. It's super delicious and very affordable. Like one of the most inexpensive sit-down meals. I think the most inexpensive sit-down meal that I had in Mexico City. And just, I totally get why it's a popular hit. I get why you would bring 16 family or friends to go. I like one day aspire to do the same. And there's a bunch of locations in the city.

1:16:01So I think no matter where you're staying, if you are close to a Casa de Toño, I especially liked the red pozole and the potato flautas that I got, but they have, you know, quesadillas. Oh, their flan also, abuela's flan, delicious. And also like$1.50, just totally quality, cost everything. So pozole with, it has hominy in it, right? Yes. That's like the staple thing that would be in it. These kind of big, delicious kernels, chicken also. And they also offer like chicharron and guacamole, like for the table when you sit down. So not that you would put that in the pozole, but just so you have a full understanding of what is on offer.

1:16:37I still think about the pozzoli we had in Orange County when we were down in... Oh, that was so great. What was that market called? Northgate Market. The pozzoli we had at Northgate Market. Yeah, that reminded me. Similar, I would say, in that it's a very traditional, hearty, lime-forward pozzoli that's going on. I love that there's a chain of pozzolis that are open 24-7. I would love it. I love that kind of savory breakfast sometimes, like 7, 8 a.m. Totally, or if you're coming back from a night out, go get some pozzoli. that's a pro tip. I mean, absolutely. What's your next thing? My next thing is I went to the Fancy Food Show.

1:17:12Dan Frommer and I had a great episode a few weeks back and talked about many products. But I was looking at my big haul that came back. I came back with literally a big bag full of snacks, which is I'm not complaining. It was pretty great. And there was one that I did not talk about in the episode that I want to talk about. It's called A Little Nutty. It is a grain-free, sea-free, almond cracker. obsessed really really good i mean it is it's all almond yeah so it's it's grain free it's it's like perfect texture like i like a deeply cheddary cracker and they really nail it there i like the story too it's a woman named melissa melcher she's based in chicago she was formerly an attorney but was kind of not into that job and decided to go pro with with a with a consumer product she tested in her kitchen and now is selling a little nutty.

1:18:04And I attest these are delicious crackers. You can buy them online. I think in the Chicago area, they're in some natural food stores there and she's looking for national distribution. I just love like walking and meeting founders at this stage in their journey, not yet with national distribution, but doing a great product. I just pull for them. So it's called a little nutty. You know, I think you always have the best snack CPG recommendation. So I'm excited about this one. She had that, Liza. What's your next thing? My next thing is I had just a quick bite at a very popular barbacoa place that's called Barbacoa Gonzalitos that I think is maybe the best barbacoa I've had in my life.

1:18:40Definitely up there. Oh, damn. Barbacoa de Res, so Cal Barbacoa that's in kind of Roma Norte area. And I got it to go, just ate it on the sidewalk because it's very small and very busy. They just got a Michelin nod. So I think there's even more attention because of that. Very simple because it's so perfect. as it is. This super pliable, soft white flour tortilla, this beef barbacoa inside that's so fatty and tender and almost like bound together like a Newtonian solid because of the fat with the barbacoa. We're on fire with this one. It's so good. I'm obsessed with it. It was like we ordered two and then we immediately ordered two more because it was just so good exactly how it was.

1:19:22Is flour the tortilla of choice at this vendor? Yeah. So I think that's pretty common with barbacoa in general. I know that like this was a style of taco that's kind of from northern Mexico, which is also where the flour tortilla originates from and is most popular. They have a full menu of other things that also seemed like absolute bangers, but they just didn't have space for us in that moment. What's the salsa set up for you with barbacoa? They had three different salsas on offer. One of them was like a verde. I think one of them maybe was chile de arbol. It had more of that kind of punchy flavor.

1:19:51And I'm not sure about the third. I tried a little bit of this kind of orange chile de arbol one, which was really good. But honestly, it didn't even need it. It was just like a little sprinkle of lime. Perfect. Oh, sounds amazing. And I have one more quick Mexico City rec. But if you want to go for a second. No, no. Close out the Mexico City rec. OK, I just have to briefly talk about I was in Mexico City during Lunar New Year. And so my girlfriend Shirley and I wanted to get Chinese food to celebrate the Lunar New Year. And we had a whole saga of trying to walk into like different like trendy Chinese restaurants, things like that.

1:20:25Then we went to comida china gourmet jin feng, which is not trendy, but is the best Chinese food I've ever had in Mexico, like would be a great Chinese meal here in New York. We obviously have a super huge active Chinatown. They were just executing on such a high level. We walked in. It was completely empty, but the kitchen was firing on all cylinders, like lights off, completely empty. The person who runs it comes out and it turns out that they have a private dining room upstairs where they're doing like a Lunar New Year banquet for people. So that's why it was empty. But they were very nice.

1:20:57They accommodated us. We just got a little snack. So we got really good boiled pork dumplings and bok choy with garlic. That was the best bok choy with garlic I've ever had in my life. They called it Shanghai vegetable. And at first we were like, what is Shanghai vegetable? And then they showed us on their phone and we were like, oh, yeah, we would love some like, you know, beautiful steamed bok choy. But just such a delicious meal. Also the first time in my life that I've attempted to speak Spandarin, which is Chinese and Spanish at the same time, which was a brain frying activity, but really fun as somebody who's been trying to learn both of those languages to get to use them at once.

1:21:34And I just think there's a nice story in here that like no matter where you go, you can find delicious, authentic Chinese food. That's really cool that you dug deep for that one. When you were being turned away, was it because at the fancy places, was it because they were booked out? They were super booked out. I honestly, I think some of them were doing events for Lunar New Year, but also some of them are very popular. There's a restaurant called Mexicali that does this kind of Mexican-Chinese food that's very popular in Mexicali in Mexico, where there's just a ton of these Chinese restaurants.

1:22:01And so they do like, you know, Mexican fried rice that has avocado in it or something like that. And Mexicali, this restaurant, is a very trendy restaurant. So I think even if it wasn't Lunar New Year we tried to walk in, they probably wouldn't have had room for us. but it didn't really help matters. They had like a whole lion dance troupe rolling up as we were trying to get in. But, you know, I'll try to go there next time. But honestly, comida, china, gourmet, jingfeng, they really know what's up. It's a testament to just like digging deep and finding the right spots and like, you know, not being discouraged and going, you know, to the pozole place instead of sticking to your guns and wanting to have Chinese food in Mexico City.

1:22:36And you know what? Like there's so many good tacos to be had. I think if you take a meal off and you have some good dumplings, it makes you even more excited to have that taco again. You got to have that reset moment sometimes when in country and you know you're having a lot of the foods that you love, but a lot of the same flavor profiles. Yeah, it's funny because when I spend time in Asia, I really crave Mexican food. For sure. And then when I'm in Mexico now, I really crave dumplings. I mean, I recognize that for sure. We can have it all. Yeah. What's your last thing? My last thing, speaking of grocery, is just a shout out to our friend Claire Saffitz.

1:23:08She had a really fun signing at my local grocery store in the Hudson Valley, Adams Fairacre Farms. And I just wanted to shout out Adams because I think if listeners live in the Hudson Valley, they know it. But if you're heading upstate and want to buy some groceries on the way more north, definitely stop by in Adams Fairacre. I love what they're doing. I think they have five locations throughout the Hudson Valley. And just really, really great eye for products and great cheese counter, great prepared foods. nice sandwiches too. I had never had a sandwich there. But yeah, Claire was sweet. They had a lot of fans, a lot of maybe 75 people waiting in line.

1:23:45And Claire, you know, took time with each person. So I loved seeing that. And it was nice. I know Claire lives near there as well. And it's her local grocery store as it is ours. And I loved seeing that kind of, those two worlds come together. Yeah. I love doing an event in a grocery store. I feel like that's really like meeting people where they are. I agree. I feel like more book signings in grocery stores really, really, really, really special. Well, thanks for sharing your three things. You too.

1:24:14This is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Abarbanal and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Episode portraits by Louis Zergon Pomeroy. Logo design by Ellie Skirzat and Ian Dingham. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.

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