Restaurant critic’s departure reveals potential dangers of the profession

Restaurant critics seem to have the best journalistic job: they enjoy meals at other people’s expense a few nights a week.

But New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells painted a more complicated picture. In a recent column, Wells announced that he was leaving the beat because the constant eating has led to obesity and other health problems.

“Intellectually it was still very stimulating, but my body started rebelling and saying, ‘Enough is enough,'” Wells told The Associated Press. “I just had to face the fact that I can’t process food the way I used to, I can’t process alcohol the way I used to, and I just don’t need to eat as much as I did 10 years ago.”

To write a review, food critics usually visit two or three restaurants and bring a handful of diners so they can sample as many dishes as possible. If the restaurant has a special focus on wine, cocktails, or desserts, they try those, too.

“You have to try the full menu,” said Ligaya Figueras, senior food editor and lead dining critic for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “If I really want a salad today, I can’t just eat the salad.”

Special features, like lists of the best places to get pizza or burgers, can keep critics eating the same thing for weeks. MacKenzie Chung Fegan, a restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, sampled Peking duck all over the city for a story about a restaurant that specialized in the dish.

“There was a two-week period where I ate more duck than any doctor would recommend,” Fegan said.

All that restaurant food can take its toll. In a 2020 study published in the Journal of Nutrition, researchers from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University found that 50% of meals at full-service U.S. restaurants—and 70% of those at fast-food restaurants—were of poor nutritional quality, according to American Heart Association guidelines. Less than 1% were of ideal quality.

Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and Tufts professor and one of the study’s authors, said restaurant meals typically contain fewer whole grains and legumes than ideal, slightly fewer fruits and vegetables, and slightly more salt and saturated fat.

During the period the study examined, between 2003 and 2016, the nutritional quality of food in grocery stores improved, Mozaffarian said. But restaurants did not make similar changes, he said.

“I can’t tell you how many restaurants I go to and everyone’s plate is covered in fries,” Mozaffarian said. “There’s not an equal and diverse array of healthy and unhealthy menu options.”

To be fair, Fegan said, diners are looking for something tasty when they eat out, “and often that means something with fat and sodium.”

“When I look at the menu and think, ‘What’s the most exciting thing on this menu?’ it’s probably not a serving of broccoli rabe,” she said.

Figueras deals with the challenge in different ways. On nights when she doesn’t eat out, she says she’s “hyper alert” and eats mostly vegetables. She plays tennis and walks her dog to stay in shape. And when she does go to a restaurant, she eats fruit or another healthy snack so she doesn’t arrive hungry.

“Everything tastes good when you’re hungry,” she said.

Lyndsay Green, the restaurant and dining critic for the Detroit Free Press, also tries to eat healthy on her days off. She gets most of her food from a local farmers market. Green said she’s noticed menus are getting healthier. Many chefs are offering gluten-free or vegan options, she said, and they’re getting more creative with their nonalcoholic cocktail menus.

Green thinks restaurant critics can help readers by being open about their own needs. For example, a pregnant critic could write a restaurant guide for other expectant parents.

“Almost everyone has health issues and nutritional standards, so I think it can be our job to talk about that in our work as well,” she said.

Wells isn’t the only restaurant critic to make a change in recent years. Adam Platt retired from restaurant coverage for New York Magazine in 2022, also citing the toll it was taking on his health. Wyatt Williams retired from restaurant coverage for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2019, saying he’d simply lost his appetite.

Fegan and Wells both noted that women seem to stay in the business longer. Mimi Sheraton, a former restaurant critic for The New York Times, died last year at age 97 after a 60-year career in food.

“I think if you’re socialized as a woman in America, you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about portion control and weight control,” Fegan said.

Wells will write a few more reviews before stepping down in early August. He will remain at the Times. Times food writers Melissa Clark and Priya Krishna will serve as interim restaurant critics, the newspaper said.

Wells said he will continue to go to restaurants and may even enjoy them more now that he is no longer distracted by work. He said he will be sad to lose touch with New York’s seemingly endless restaurant scene, but will be happy to find more balance in his own life.

“When you’re eating out all the time, you lose touch with your own normal appetite,” he said. “I didn’t know what was normal for me anymore.”