It sounds like the setup for an SNL skit, big time chef (Thomas Keller) confronts a food critic (MacKenzie Chung Fegan) off the clock who just wanted a night out with friends. The critic is asked to leave, but instead partakes in an hour plus conversation about food criticism and the fine dining.
Keller does not know what I want from him, he says, or what I am doing at his restaurant. I’m not here to write a review, I tell him honestly. My predecessor, Soleil Ho, weighed in 2½ years ago, and it’s not customary to reassess so soon after. But I eat at restaurants I’m not planning on reviewing all the time, and my credibility demands that I visit one of the most celebrated and enduringly popular restaurants in the country — helmed by one of the most powerful chefs in the world.