Restaurant critics might not have much to say about reality shows but they know a thing or two about cuisine in New York. Guy’s American Kitchen restaurant got harsh reviews from the New York Times. It was angry and funny enough to make me curious about what’s good to eat at Guy Fieri’s restaurant.
“Did panic grip your soul as you started into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex?” writes New York Times food critic Pete Wells about menu items such as “Ain’t No Thing Butta Chicken Wing” and “Guy-talian Nachos”. And it wasn’t the only bad review for Guy Fieri’s New York restaurant, it was just the most colorful.
When it comes to New York cuisine, restaurants need to stay within a certain limit, not too quirky, not too affordable, yet American but with a certain je-ne-sais-quoi. Guy Fieri’s kind of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” is all great for a reality show and other parts of US, but not when it comes to New York.
New York Times’ food critic was not at all impressed by Guy Fiery’s New York eatery. “When you have a second, Mr. Fieri, would you see what happened to the black bean and roasted squash soup we ordered” Pete Wells complains. So besides waiting too long for the order, the food wasn’t all that great.
The Cajun Chicken Alfredo felt like “ghostly nubs of unblackened unspiced white meat”, the watermelon margarita was something between “radiator fluid and formaldehyde” whereas the nachos were “deeply unlovable”.
And for the harshest comment of them all: “When you hung that sign by the entrance that says, WELCOME TO FLAVOR TOWN!, were you just messing with our heads?”
It also got really personal, as Pete Wells had harsh critics not only for the restaurant but also for Guy Fieri’s reality show. “When you cruise around the country for your show ‘Dinners, Drive-Ins and Dives’ rasping out slangy odes to the unfancy places where Americans like to get down and greasy, do you really mean it?” Pete Wells writes. “Or is it all an act? Is that why the kind of cooking you celebrate on television is treated with so little respect at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar?”
