Back in July, I wrote a post about how Craig LaBan, the food critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, was being sued by a local restaurant for libel. They claimed that he had incorrectly identified a cut of meat in an article, thus giving them a negative review that they hadn't deserved. The real big brouhaha about the whole thing was the fact that if the case when to trial, LaBan's secret identity would revealed, making it impossible for him to do his job effectively, as he would then always receive special service from the restaurants in question.
Well, LaBan's days of anonymity are now over, not because of the lawsuit, but thanks to Philadelphia Magazine who ran a picture of his face along with an article about the case in their September issue (as far as I can see, the picture is not available online). Folks have been buzzing about this decision, especially since Philly Mag editor Larry Platt has for years respected LaBan's choice to keep his appearance concealed. For further discussion about this latest installment in restaurant critic outing, check out Philafoodie's recent post.
9-05-2007 @10:19AM jsmylie said... What a bizarre situation, and what an interesting article. I respect the guy's desire for anonymity, but not if it's the kind of celebrity anonymity he seems to be going for.
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9-06-2007 @12:18PM Fred said... Isn't that a picture of him on page 2 of that article?
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9-06-2007 @12:51PM Dave said... If you ever have a chance to meet Craig, you'd understand that he's not the least bit interested in "celebrity anonymity." He simply wants to be able to review food as effectively as possible, and that means eating the same food served to "average joe's" like you and me (me, anyway) - hence the importance of preserving his anonymity. If a restaurant recognizes him, do you honestly believe he'll be served the same meal that his readers will get the next day, week or month? No way! That recognition undermines his ability to assess the food and service the rest of us will receive, which is precisely what Craig cares about. Larry Platt should be ashamed of his decision.
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9-10-2007 @2:06PM Pender said... At least, as a consolation prize, he'll always receive excellent service at restaurants!
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9-10-2007 @5:04PM Wm. A. Lightfoot said... It seems to me that the obvious solution to the problem of critic recognition would be to seek and employ free-lance food writers and restaurant critics, or at least feature a column in which freelancers are able to submit a review written about a local establishment. In the event of concern for veracity, i.e. Is the reviewer just trying to give a friends restaurant a "good word"; a smart publisher would be able to weed out this sort of practice by judging the writer's abililty to write, compared to that of someone with no abilities as would surely be the case in submissions from an non-professioal writer.
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