Our restaurant critic weighs in on the job: Is it a health risk?

If you pay attention to the world of food media, you’ve probably heard about Pete Wells, the esteemed New York Times restaurant critic, calling it quits this week.

On Wednesday, Wells penned a column explaining why, after 12 years on the job, he had decided to step down. Most of it had to do with his health.

In the middle of eating his way through a list of roughly 140 meals in preparation for the Times’ annual 100 Best Restaurants list, Wells went in for a routine physical. It didn’t go well.

“My scores were bad across the board; my cholesterol, blood sugar and hypertension were worse than I’d expected even in my doomiest moments,” Wells wrote. “The terms pre-diabetes, fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome were thrown around. I was technically obese. OK, not just technically.”

Wells mentions other notable food critics including Adam Platt, who said he felt the effects of his 24-year tenure as New York Magazine’s restaurant critic years later, including ongoing treatment for gout, hypertension, high cholesterol and Type 2 diabetes. Other male critics have died suddenly before retirement age, including Jonathan Gold, the esteemed critic for the Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly. He passed at 58 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Closer to home, former St. Petersburg Times restaurant critic Chris Sherman hung his hat in 2006 after leaving the hospital with a stent in his heart and a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes. He had been in the role for nearly 20 years. In a final column, Sherman did not blame the job, but acknowledged he needed to eat healthier, and mostly at home.

I’ve been a fan of Wells’ writing and criticism for years. If you haven’t read his infamous takedown of Guy Fieri’s Times Square restaurant, I highly suggest you do. But this latest piece really hit home.

As I read his column, I kept thinking: This is not OK.

I love my job. But there are fewer and fewer restaurant critics, and it can get lonely out here. Wells’ frank recounting of the less-than-savory aspects of our profession felt like an honest, and sorely overdue, assessment of the gig.

It’s hard to reconcile that with the public perception of the profession. The No. 1 thing strangers say to me when I tell them what I do for a living is always some version of: “Oh, wow, what a dream job!”

When you have a dream job, you’re not allowed to complain. Even when it’s not easy.

Critics like Wells, at major media organizations like the New York Times, may dine out six to seven days a week, and consume upwards of 6,000 calories a meal. We do things a little differently here: My role is more of a hybrid one, equal parts reporting and criticism, with some investigative and enterprise pieces thrown in along the way.

Readers are interested in food stories that extend beyond criticism.

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Still, I wonder if they think I’m acting in the same capacity as Wells. When he describes eating an unseemly amount of smash burgers and hand-pulled noodles all over New York just to determine whether a single spot really did have the very best version of that dish? That’s not something I do. And it’s not something my editors expect me to do.

It’s pretty unrealistic. There are more restaurants now in the Tampa Bay area than ever. And as inflation continues to nudge restaurant prices higher, dining out has become really expensive. Pushing the limits of my budget simply in the attempt of naming something “the best” doesn’t always feel like the smartest use of our resources.

Then, there’s the matter of health.

I’ve been a restaurant critic for nearly 10 years now, five of which I’ve spent at the Times, and I’m happy to report that I’ve been able to do so while maintaining a mostly clean bill of health. But there’s no telling how the next 10 years will go. Dining out multiple nights a week isn’t always the healthiest choice. Eating at home is usually better, both for your gut and your wallet. A reader recently asked me if I travel with Pepto-Bismol in my purse, and the answer is: always.

Mulling over Wells’ column, I was troubled. Yes, health is a deeply personal matter, and the aforementioned critics who suffered ailments may not represent what happens to every critic. But I think the expectations for many of us in this industry aren’t just unreasonable — they’re outdated and irresponsible. I started to wonder whether war correspondents have a better life expectancy.

Being a restaurant critic shouldn’t require hazard pay.

I don’t know what, exactly, the solution is, and I’m not arguing for a complete overhaul of the profession. In our influencer-crazed era, having a reliable source readers can trust for well-researched, thoroughly reported restaurant reviews has never been so important.

But we should start thinking about the gig differently, and get comfortable with the idea of adapting.

I hope restaurant criticism continues to exist, in some shape or form, for years to come, and I hope I’m lucky enough to continue this job for a good while longer. In the meantime, let’s loosen those belt loops a bit and admit that criticism is subjective. It’s wholly impossible for one person to dine at every iteration of every restaurant in any city.

And let’s remember there’s a person behind all those “best of” lists, a person that should be putting their health first. Nothing’s more important than that.