Suing a restaurant critic

When the owner of Chops restaurant in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., got a bad review from the Philadelphia Inquirer's food critic Craig LaBan, he didn't just get mad--he sued:

In his "Or Try These" sidebar to his Feb. 4 review of Fleming's in Radnor, LaBan called Chops, a popular Bala Cynwyd steakhouse, the "Palm on City Line," where he had a "miserably tough and fatty strip steak."

However, according to the suit filed by Chops owner Alex Plotkin, LaBan had a steak sandwich minus the bread, not a strip steak.

"No legitimate food critic would ever mistake, or compare, a steak sandwich with a strip steak," the lawsuit states.

Legal precedent would suggest that Mr. Plotkin hasn't much of a case should this ever come to court. The New York Times provides perspective with some tales of food critic lawsuits past:

These rulings, from about a dozen over the past three decades, were all in favor of the reviewer.

“Trout à la green plague”? Ruling: “An ordinarily informed person would not infer that these entrees were actually carriers of communicable diseases.”

“The fish on the Key West platter tasted like old ski boots”? Ruling: “Obviously, that was hyperbole used to indicate that the reviewer found the fish to be dry and tough.”

“Bring a can of Raid if you plan to eat here”? Ruling: “The techniques of humor and ridicule were protected.”

The Times also notes that the English are a bit more toughskinned when it comes to restaurant reviews:

People in London still quote phrases from Matthew Norman’s review of Shepherds, a London restaurant, in The Sunday Telegraph Magazine in 2004. He said it was “among the very worst restaurants in Christendom,” serving “meals of crescendoing monstrosity.”

In particular, Mr. Norman did not care for the crab and brandy soup. “Were it found today in a canister buried in the Iraqi desert,” he wrote, “it would save Tony Blair's skin.”

Comments

[Rabbit]

“Were it found today in a canister buried in the Iraqi desert,” he wrote, “it would save Tony Blair's skin.”

If I ever come within a mile of writing something like that, I will go to my grave satisfied even if I never put another word on paper.