What makes a restaurant critic?
What happened when Grace Dent lunched at Lapin — and why it still matters.
Believe it or not, I asked Dan O’Regan if he’d be interested in writing a piece on restaurant critics two weeks before Grace Dent rocked up in his restaurant. She couldn’t have timed it better.
Critics write frequently about chefs and restaurateurs — but it’s rare to hear it from the other side of the pass. What is it actually like to have a critic turn up in your restaurant? Do the opinions of critics still hold value in this rapidly changing digital world? And what makes a critic a critic, rather than just someone who peddles ‘reviews’ in Instagram captions?
Dan might not have all the answers but he has shared with us a fascinating insight from a lesser-heard perspective. If you — like Dan — still believe in the value of a proper restaurant critic and an honest, paid-for opinion, please consider supporting our work by subscribing.
Thank you! And well done for holding your nerve Dan. ~ Meg
Sunday lunch, half-twelve. Sunlight slicing across tables. A low thrum from the kitchen, the usual dance between calm and chaos. I looked up — and there she was.
Grace Dent.
Not a lookalike. Not a maybe. The actual Grace Dent. The Guardian’s resident high priestess of puns and pith. A woman who can dismantle a dining room with three perfectly weighted syllables.
I felt the blood drain from my face — paler than the cream that would soon adorn her Soufflé Suissesse. I’ve read her stuff for a while now. Always admired the way she cuts to the truth with warmth and wit. She doesn’t just get the food, she gets the theatre. The feeling. The subtext. The people. The graft behind the gloss.
And suddenly, we were in her notebook.
Just before she settled in, I clocked another restaurateur a couple of tables over. He glanced at her, then at me, with this wide-eyed, knowing look. No words, just that half-smirk that said: Good luck, mate.
I whispered her name as if it might collapse the soufflé. The team caught on instantly. Energy shifted. Plates moved with extra poise. Every garnish became a sermon. Every eye darted back to her table like a nervous tic.
There’s a specific voltage in the air when a proper critic walks in. Not panic. Not fear. Reverence, maybe. Because someone who actually knows what they’re looking at is now looking at you.
It got me thinking — what actually makes someone a critic?
Because right now, everyone’s reviewing. Everyone’s posting. Everyone’s building a brand. But not everyone’s a critic.
Writing about food doesn’t make you one. Just like cooking a Sunday roast doesn’t make you a chef. A critic has skin in the game. Not just opinions, but perspective. Not just presence, but context. They’ve eaten across decades and boroughs. They ask questions most people don’t even think to ask. They know how to tell a story that makes you feel the room and taste the sauce.
There’s a chasm between a diner, an influencer, and a critic.
A diner eats. An influencer sells. A critic sees.
They see what’s behind the plate. The prep, the panic, the punt someone took on serving rabbit to this postcode in the first place. They ask: What’s being attempted here? Did it land? And most importantly — why should anyone give a shit?
The best reviews don’t just describe the meal. They decode the whole moment. The where. The who. The why. They clock the tempo of service, the fabric on the chairs, the way a smile twitches when a table’s going sideways. It’s storytelling, sure. But it’s also anthropology with a starter course.
A good critic doesn’t just say “this is good” or “this is crap.” They say why. With humour, with clarity, with taste that’s been sharpened across thousands of forks.
And yeah, taste is subjective. But criticism isn’t about agreement — it’s about articulation. It’s about knowing why a sticky toffee pudding in Newcastle and a squid ink risotto in Soho both work, and being able to make you care either way.
The best ones connect the dots — across price points, postcodes, and plates. They read food like a cultural document. They translate it for the rest of us.
There aren’t many of them left. The industry’s shrunk. Deadlines are shorter, fees are laughable. But the ones still writing with conviction — they matter. They’ve paid their dues. And they bring something vital to the table: discernment.
Influencers? Yeah, they’ve got their uses. Some are brilliant at what they do. They fill seats. They bring eyes. Some even have real taste. But let’s not pretend they’re all cut from the same cloth. There are plenty of blaggers with a ring light, no palate, and a brand deal for everything from ramen to retinol.
They trade in hype. And hype fills tables. Remember that place with the queues and the six-month shelf life? Hype fills seats, sure — but it doesn’t build staying power. I went deeper on that circus — influencers, blaggers, the good ones and the grifters — in this piece.
Critics cut through the noise. They’re not louder — just better tuned. They serve the reader. Not the algorithm. And in a culture obsessed with clout, that kind of clarity is gold dust.
So yeah — when Grace Dent walked into our restaurant, we felt it. Not because she might write about us. But because she might actually see us.
That’s what we all want, really. Not praise. Not even protection. Just to be understood on our own terms.
When she left, I didn’t know what she thought. At the time, that was still hanging in the air. But now? I do. The review’s out. We’ve read it, passed it round the kitchen like a sacred scroll and a debrief all at once. But even before a single word hit the page, those couple of hours mattered — because we weren’t just plating food. We were being witnessed.
And that?
That’s everything.
We don’t fear criticism.
We fear invisibility. And when a real critic sees you properly — really sees you — it’s not a threat.
It’s a gift.
Dan O’Regan is the restaurateur behind BANK in Totterdown and Lapin in Wapping Wharf. Dan writes his own Substack, Notes on a Napkin, which we’d highly recommend reading.
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Insightful and articulate as ever, Dan. Lovely stuff.
Lovely work Dan with some great notes and observations!