When that happens, you might be startled by how upset you become. It probably won't be the food that's to blame. You can always shrug off a tough steak, since the chef didn't mean to disappoint you. But everyone takes poor service personally. Get a bad table and you'll wonder if the hostess finds you unworthy. Find yourself with a disrespectful server and you'll feel worse, because you're expected to tip.
Now and then, poor service is the result of a restaurant having an unfortunate day. Maybe the chef snapped at your waiter and made him sulk. Maybe the front of the house, as it's called, is short-staffed because a waiter called in sick.
More than likely, poor service is inherent, caused by a staff with lackluster spirit or a manager with a lax attitude. Here in New York, with our restaurants tumbling into informality, a guest can easily become a casualty of incompetence. We've entered the post-service era, where fewer and fewer restaurateurs still stand watch.
Which brings me to M. Wells, a metal-clad diner as shiny as a magpie's trinket, situated on a corner in Queens as dead-drab as one of the borough's countless cemeteries. A little more than a year ago, the diner was an abandoned shell, and now it symbolizes the renewal of Long Island City as surely as the MoMA PS1 art museum and the Silvercup film studios. I don't know what a burger once cost at the derelict diner that became M. Wells, since I never ate there, but I'm betting it was about $2.99. M. Wells sells one for $42, proof that gentrification is thriving in Queens.
Walk in and you might presume that you've stumbled on a formulaic re-creation of the diner genre, but you'd be wrong. M. Wells is not a faux-old-fashioned spot with black-and-white shakes and brassy waitresses to put you in your place. It's not retro-romantic, with votive candles, arugula salads, and flourless chocolate cake.
My experience there was like no other. The motto is "All's well at M. Wells." I assure you it is not.
The proprietors are Hugue Dufour and Sarah Obraitis, husband and wife. He is from Montreal, where he was a partner at Au Pied de Cochon, a modern legend that might well have launched lowbrow-made-highbrow dining. The restaurant's most enduring accomplishment was the uplifting of poutine, a dish usually found in rural Quebec dives that consists of fries, cheese curds, and brown gravy. Au Pied de Cochon added seared foie gras and was besieged with praise. M. Wells calls itself, oddly, a Quebeco-American diner. It specializes in freakishly appealing combinations, some brilliant and some frivolous, most unkempt but a few artistic. It also offers inspired pastry classics. The pineapple upside-down cake, as it's made here, is clear evidence that this dessert deserves enshrinement alongside Babe Ruth and FDR as an icon of twentieth-century America.
Dufour is a quirky presence. On one of my early visits, he wore fleur-de-lis-patterned pants while sitting on one of his counter stools, drumming his fingers, looking anxious. Obraitis, who is from Queens, runs the front of the house with considerable charm and little attention to detail. Or maybe the chipped plates, distracted staff, and badly washed glasses are intended to enhance an unceremonious ambience. She is totally relaxed, seemingly everywhere, talking to everyone, a wonderful hostess but a less than attentive supervisor.
My editors and I first went there for dinner because we had heard that it was exceptional, which is certainly true of the atmosphere, part raucous frat boys on a bus, part tranquil middle-aged women in cute shifts, plus a whole lot in between. Queens is not a destination for residents of other boroughs, other than those en route to airports, but M. Wells appears to be changing that.
We were happily stunned by a gargantuan meat-loaf sandwich stabbed through its heart with a serrated knife, and by a côte-de-boeuf-and-fried-soft-shell-crab combo plate, the meat a showcase of succulence, massive and mouthwatering, while the poor crabs had to settle for burial under a mound of rare flesh, drowning in animal blood. It was cuisine and carnage combined.
I assumed Obraitis and Dufour didn't know I was a critic, even when I showed up for a second meal. The first dish I ate could not have been better—escargots and marrow set in the trench of a bisected shinbone. The marrow enriched the escargots, and the escargots gave heft to the marrow, which is usually perceived as little more than quivering fat. Topping it all were minute, crunchy breadcrumbs. The beef tartare was a bit too moist and much too chunky, precisely as it was intended to be. The cooking here has two styles: a little too much or a lot too much.
I admired the M. Wells interpretation of Caesar salad, which has smoked herring substituting for anchovies. It did have one flaw, in that the herring obliterated the flavor of the grated Parmesan. (Anchovies, magically, don't do that.) Porchetta Sierra was a spin on vitello tonnato—slices of rare, rosy, roasted veal covered with a mild tuna sauce. Dufour's version was half-good: The mackerel-mayonnaise sauce was wondrously clever, but it couldn't save the dry, overcooked pork beneath it. If you admire audaciousness over achievement, both preparations could be described as intriguing. Then came the greatest pineapple upside-down cake of my life.
So I was practically bounding when I approached Obraitis to ask if I could set up an interview with her and her husband. She seemed delighted and immediately agreed—and added that she knew who I was, even if I had made my reservation using a pseudonym. She promised to get back to me within a few days.
The days passed. I didn't hear from her. I called the restaurant and left a message. I e-mailed her at an address recommended by the fellow who answered the phone: write@mwellsdiner.com. I have my share of detractors, but Obraitis had given no indication that she wished to avoid me.
···
I've been reviewing restaurants for more than twenty years, almost always for GQ. Unlike other critics, I'm not particularly interested in disguises—camouflage seems so World War II. When I'm reviewing, I always hope to eat like an anonymous patron and be treated as such. That means not being noticed, but people in the restaurant business make fun of me whenever I claim I'm not recognized. They say I always am. To answer the question most asked, I don't know if my photograph is on any kitchen wall. If it is, I hope it's above the pastry station.
Restaurant reviewing, as you probably suspect, is a nice way to make a living, although spending your waking hours overstuffed is not as much fun as you might think. Being recognized isn't so delightful, either. The food does not improve for a critic once he is known, although service tends to change dramatically. Consider a world where you are perceived to be captivating and where each word you speak is deemed to be of dazzling import. Whatever you desire—clean plates, crisp napkins, warm rolls—is yours for the asking. Restaurants occasionally send out extra dishes to people like me, which is something we don't desire, yet it would be churlish to refuse the gesture, to insist that unordered entrées be taken away. Perhaps I'm naive, but I don't think of these offerings as bribes; they're more like an opportunity for the chef to show off.
When I'm on assignment, I pay for every meal. In case you're wondering, now and then a restaurant owner who has known me forever refuses to give me a check. When I'm not working, I take it—and always leave an oversize tip, in cash. When I am working, we battle until I am permitted to pay. I always try to be truthful and candid in my evaluations, which has cost me dearly. The great chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who long ago invited me to eat with his parents in Alsace, no longer speaks to me because of a story I wrote.
This is the ethical core of who I am and what I do, yet the ethics of food writing don't end there. I'm also extremely aware of my behavior in restaurants. I try to be diplomatic and considerate. Never in my professional life has anyone in the restaurant business questioned my conduct. Not until I ate my third meal at M. Wells.
Finally, eight days after our first meeting, Obraitis wrote and asked if the story was still possible. I wasn't surprised or offended by the delayed response. Wizened journalists have learned to suppress such reactions. Anyway, M. Wells felt like a restaurant still in training, even if it had been operating for nearly a year, and I wasn't expecting efficiency. I figured I'd get my story done.
I wrote back to her on a Sunday morning, cheerily telling her we were on. I told her I already had made a reservation at M. Wells for the following Tuesday evening and was thinking of having the Peking duck. She replied, "You would absolutely adore the Peking duck, but we need 48 hours to get it ready." Hmm. In my business we don't expect excellent math skills from the folks we write about, either.
We later spoke on the phone and arranged a future dinner date for me, her, and her husband. She seemed pleased with my choice of restaurants, a small Cantonese seafood palace in Manhattan's Chinatown. We would do the interview there.
Tuesday night arrived. My 6 P.M. reservation was for four persons: myself, two other journalists, and a woman in the restaurant business. The doors opened promptly, and we were amiably sent off to the right. On my second visit I had been seated to the left of the front door at a long wooden communal table set with Mexican religious candles. That's by far the more comfortable section of the long, narrow diner space. The right side has cramped booths, a majority of the counter stools, and heat rising from cooking surfaces.
The two men were across from me, the woman next to me. I sat on the outside, which gave me the best view of the room. We ordered wine and bar snacks, smoked mussels and papas bravas, potatoes that are a specialty of Spanish tapas restaurants. The wine, a rosé, was crisply excellent. The mussels were superb: plump, fresh, oily, and lightly smoked. The potatoes were bland despite the supposedly spicy tomato sauce.
Our waiter, a young fellow, never returned. We sat amid the detritus of our snack course—soiled plates, crumpled napkins, empty glasses. At least forty-five minutes went by. My friends were unhappy, one of them vocally. I pleaded for patience. When I'm working, I always wait as long as it takes to get whatever service the restaurant is capable of providing. That's part of being a critic, a way of evaluating whether it's well run or not.
This time I realized my guests were becoming far too restless, not just from the lack of attention but also from the heat, the stickiness, the dearth of space. I finally got the attention of a young waitress. She came over and said, unconcerned, "Do you know what you want?" I admit that her brusqueness caused me to snap. I replied, "We knew what we wanted forty-five minutes ago." She did not respond. Perhaps she deserves credit for remaining unruffled, although I think a more likely explanation is that she didn't give a damn. She took our order. We ate.
The best dish of this meal was the massive, underpriced ($9) blue-cheese salad with monstrous chunks of cheese and hunks of candied walnuts as big and burnished as jeweled Fabergé eggs. Lee Perkins Tuna, a kind of overdressed sashimi, fell flat, dead on arrival, and the pommes de terre fondantes, spuds with veal demi-glace and summer truffles, were both overly rich and inexplicably flavorless. The barbecued short ribs consisted of caramelized meat on prehistoric-size bones, not bad eating but not much of it, a rarity for an establishment that likes to send out an avalanche of food. These are splendid bones for your dog, if you own a very big dog.
Then came the banana-cream pie, textbook perfect. That's the pie I want smashed in my face when I play for the Yankees and hit a walk-off home run.
Nothing else of significance happened during that dinner. What stands out is the heat and the long waits. During our meal, Obraitis came by to say that she and her husband had to leave to attend an event and were looking forward to seeing me in a few days. I felt the same, although I didn't enjoy the food as much as I had at the first two dinners, and the service was dreadful. In order to get a check, I had to wave to our elusive waitress.
Late the next afternoon, an e-mail arrived from Obraitis. This is what it said:
I am a bit distressed by the feedback I received after your visit last night. Either you had despicable service or you guys were in an awful mood. It seems we couldn't make you happy, several servers heard you complain and ask for more attention. One of those servers, a female, received a hardy pat on the ass from you. Totally unacceptable in our world. I don't know what to think or how to proceed. But I must relay my worry.
I sat numb, experiencing the kind of paralysis a person feels when he picks up the phone and learns of a ghastly accident or a horrific illness. I was being accused of sexually harassing a member of a restaurant staff. After a few minutes, I wrote back, and this is what I said:
Absolutely, 100 percent untrue. I just went bone-cold when I read that. In all my years going to restaurants, I have never done that and never been accused of doing that. I would not do that. Who in the world told you that? I will be happy to come to your restaurant tonight and confront that person, face-to-face. It's a lie.
I will comment quickly on the other stuff. First, I thought one of the men in my group was totally out of line with his mouth and his comments. I just couldn't get him to shut up. Second, we had two servers. A young kid, practically a boy, who brought the bar snacks and then forgot about us for 45 minutes, and a taller woman (blonde, wearing yellow?) who took over. Yes, I said something to her about nobody taking our order for 45 minutes, but that was the extent of my comments about service.
But it simply isn't important compared to that accusation. I assure you it never happened, not by me.
That indictment from Obraitis was wickedly reckless—unless, of course, she had witnessed me doing such a thing, which she had not. She did not ask for my account of what occurred after she and her husband left the restaurant. Under other circumstances, I might have dwelled on the illogicality of the first part of her message. Here was a restaurant proprietor blaming guests for being in a bad mood because they were treated hideously. But at the moment, it didn't get my attention. The accusation was way too momentous.
I think all of us, men and women, fear the false allegation, being put on trial for something we did not do. For a man, a charge of sexual harassment is nuclear, because we are always perceived as guilty. It's damned if you do and damned if someone says you did.
People who have dealt with me in restaurants know I didn't do this. I'm far from beloved as a critic, but I've never been accused of pawing a waitress. Think about it. Would a critic who is dining in a restaurant where he has been recognized do something like this? It seems too stupid to be believed, and I don't think anybody considers me brainless.
I was left breathless, not only by the accusation but by the offhand manner in which it was delivered. Something this damning should be treated with the utmost seriousness. And of course, the complainant has to be identified—the ugliness of an anonymous accusation is beyond measure.
Eventually I decided there could be only two explanations for Obraitis's e-mail. The first assumes that the waitress really did make a complaint. One of my companions put forth a theory: The waitress created a fabrication to deflect attention from the appalling job she had done.
There's another possibility, my theory. I wonder if Obraitis made it all up in order to intimidate me, stop a restaurant critic from writing an unflattering review. Either one of these scenarios is possible. It could have been the waitress fearing for her job or Obraitis fearing for her restaurant. I asked my three friends for their recollections. The first guest, a man, said, "I didn't see any of the behavior that Sarah is alleging. I find her comment ridiculous."
The second guest, another man, called it "absurd—I witnessed nothing untoward on your part." He went on to say how "bizarre" it was "that we, the patrons, are somehow to blame for not having a good experience. An experience that consisted of dirty dishes and glassware, lack of utensils when plates are served or careless thrusting of utensils, huffy attitude, and all-around eye-rolling. I guess that's the whole hipster restaurant proposition: Service is for stiffs."
The woman added, "I was sitting beside you for the entire meal and did not see you touch anyone. I walked behind you when we left the restaurant and didn't see you touch anyone. It's sickening that someone would make this up and direct it at you. It crosses a line. They treated us badly, were not sorry about it, and then decided to attack you further with untrue accusations. It's the worst restaurant experience I've ever had."
Three days later, I got another e-mail from Obraitis, the last one. The first thing she said was that she and her husband were canceling our dinner plans and no longer wished "to pursue the interview." I remember thinking how disconnected she was from reality, that after making such a terrible denunciation, she could think that I would be interested in eating with her. I did not speak or write to her again.
That last e-mail from her contained slightly more details on the alleged incident. Obraitis wrote, "...apparently upon requesting your check you tapped one of our female servers inappropriately." I suppose she's backing off somewhat by adding the word "apparently" and by changing the "hardy pat on the ass" to a simple tap.
I've reported what occurred at M. Wells. I believe I have been accurate. I do think the "hipster restaurant" mentality mentioned by one of my friends is partly to blame for what occurred. There is a reason why serious restaurants train people working for them to be polite and attentive. After my three dinners at M. Wells, I am reasonably certain that thorough schooling has never taken place there.
Critics like me deserve some blame for the current proliferation of impossibly low service standards in so many casual New York restaurants. We tend not to censure lackadaisical conduct, thinking this is what customers want and that we would appear out of touch if we disapproved. In fact, the article I was planning to write most likely wouldn't have dwelled on the egregious manners I'd encountered.
I wish I had never been so forgiving in my reviews of New York restaurants. I should long ago have paid attention to this disastrous decline in service. Casualness in restaurants does not automatically make customers feel more relaxed. It often has the opposite effect. Remember how tense my friends became when we received no attention at M. Wells.
I appreciate an atmosphere lacking formality. I love Momofuku Ssäm Bar in Manhattan and Schwa in Chicago, both unpretentious and unfussy—but also attentive. They employ people who know how to take orders, fill glasses, clear plates, drop checks. Neither neglects customers. These days, too many new restaurants do. Their motto might as well be Too Cool to Care.
Well-run restaurants recognize that thoughtful service enhances an evening out, and that a bit of formality might be required in order to reach that goal. Customers these days tend to confuse discipline and manners with arrogance. Perhaps they are remembering the excess stuffiness of decades past. That hardly exists any longer. Arrogance today is exhibited by inconsiderate servers who do almost nothing for customers other than slap plates down in front of them and expect a generous tip. Arrogance is a restaurant believing it can prosper without looking after its customers.
I will tell you what else is extraordinarily self-defeating: We empower popular restaurants, and M. Wells is very much one of them. All we care about is accessibility, getting through the door. Such restaurants are rarely held accountable, no matter how uncaring they might be. I doubt that the people who operate these sought-after spots ask themselves if they are treating their customers properly. They are not obliged to do so.
There is one thing more to say. It is not charitable, so I don't suppose it will reflect well on me. I do not forgive the people at M. Wells for what they have said. I wish there were some way they would not get away with it. I'm pretty certain they will, and I will always be sorry for that.
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