Fiery Fieri Gets Ice Cold Review

Guy Fieri is all fired up about a terribly critical review of his restaurant Guy's American Kitchen & Bar (photo by Casey Kelbaugh) in The New York Times. You might recognize Fieri as the guy with bleach blonde hair in those TGI Friday's commercials. The review, submitted by Pete Wells, is laughably harsh on the new restaurant. The entire review is written in questions. It starts out with this and only gets worse.

Guy Fieri, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square? Have you pulled up one of the 500 seats at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar and ordered a meal? Did you eat the food? Did it live up to your expectations?
Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,” did your mind touch the void for a minute?

Read the whole review here. Fieri is upset, understandably so, and is on the Today show defending his restaurant. While there may be something to his claim that Wells is "trying to make a name for himself" it should be noted that Wells is the dining editor of The Times, his name is pretty well respected at this point.

I, for one, have never been much of a Fieri fan. I prefer the likes of Richard Blais or non-chef cooking celebrity / somewhat pompous individual Anthony Bourdain - who also slammed Fieri's restaurant.

-Via Hyper Vocal

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I stand corrected. :) I duly retract any implied snark. I like both Fieri and Bourdain, but the Times review was hilarious. I have to add that I'm not sure I'd dig Guy's place either, necessarily. I like to watch Diners Drive-Ins & Dives, but his cooking show bores the hell out of me, and the dishes he makes don't have much appeal. I really enjoy watching No Reservations, too.

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I'll just go to the Golden Corral instead.

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Well he was a chef. I am actually a pretty big Bourdain fan as I watch his show, and I have read his book - Medium Raw. In the book he actually states he doesn't consider himself to be that good a chef and prefers to travel, write, and talk about cooking. I wholeheartedly agree he is better-qualified than Feiri.

I call him a non-chef because he doesn't own his own restaurant and as far as I know, he isn't currently working in anyone's kitchen. He is sort of a pompous jerk, but a lovable pompous jerk at that.

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Er, "Non-chef cooking celebrity/somewhat pompous individual Anthony Bourdain?" May I suggest a little research?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bourdain
Bourdain is a chef, and a better-qualified one than Fieri, for that matter. And that's coming from someone who actually likes Fieri.

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A hissy fit that has gained alot of media and public attention for the restaurant, the chef, and the critic. The old adage about there being no such thing as bad publicity?
Your points about the value of a critic's review and that of peer reviews are solid. We're drowning in information and gobsmacked with distractions. What source will give us the most valuable information for the least amount of time? Peer reviews are often well written and highly entertaining as well.

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