Restaurant Reviews

I’ve started reviewing restaurants, in the city and nearby, with the first review to be published next week (as part of a Wednesday feature).

It’s a longstanding project, about which I’ve been thinking for over a year. (To the readers who’ve encouraged me: thank you, kindly.)

We’ve a small but growing restaurant culture here in Whitewater, and that’s all to the good.

Here are a few introductory remarks about reviews.

How does one review something? One takes what one knows and understands, visits and experiences the subject of one’s review, and writes about it afterward. Someone could tell you it’s more complicated than that, but it isn’t. A hundred new men could tell you it’s more complicated, intricate, and difficult than that, but then (having said so) all of them would be wrong.

Readers may consider these reviews as they wish, delivered simply as they surely will be. I’ve every confidence that readers – sensible and knowledgeable as people typically are – can decide whether they consider whether what others write is persuasive.

I will neither accept requests to review a restaurant, nor consider requests to avoid one. A good and genuine review – rather than a thinly-veiled promotional announcement – requires true independence and rests securely on a fundamental right of expression.

Just as much, it’s wrong to announce oneself as a reviewer, ask for special seating or conditions, or make a great show and fuss during a meal. A restaurant review is meant to describe the experience of ordinary patrons, for prospective ones, rather than a special & favored situation. (People who go into restaurants and try to intimidate the staff by declaring that they’ll be publishing their reviews on Yelp show particularly bad form.)

I’ve selected a format, and will visit each restaurant at least twice before posting a review.

Reviews about nearby restaurants will appear here at FREE WHITEWATER. Reviews of establishments farther away will appear at all my sites.

There’s a New Whitewater, a more hip and prosperous place, ahead not too far away.

Hope you’ll check back on 2.20.13 for the first review.