After Michael Bauer dropped Oliveto from three and a half to two stars last week, the debate rages once again as to whether critics — especially ones who are arguably the only game in town — have too much power. Stuart Leavenworth, a Sacramento Bee reporter on sabbatical doing an internship in the Oliveto kitchen, rebutted Bauer’s review on Bay Area Bites today. But while he does take some jabs at Bauer’s methods (Bauer based most of his review on one visit, didn’t sample enough of the menu, and may have a personal bias toward Paul Bertolli over current chef Paul Canales) Leavenworth’s main point seems to be that Bauer didn’t take Oliveto’s legacy enough into account. “Any review of Oliveto needs to at least acknowledge the restaurant’s innovations, such as its special dinners and use of old-world techniques,” he writes.
This conversation comes up pretty much every time Bauer hands out a bad review, especially on a once-lauded place. In 2008 he busted Bistro Jeanty down to one star, prompting a debate about whether critics like him have too much power (or any at all). In April of this year, 7x7’s Sara Desaran blasted Bauer for only visiting Acme Chophouse once before giving the food a half-star review. While critics do need to be careful when handing out bad reviews, one question we had about the Oliveto take-down was the language: A two-star review of Donato on August 16 read like an encouraging pep talk (“Every flaw was easily fixable”), while Oliveto’s felt more like a eulogy (“Once the leader of the pack, Oliveto now trails”). It’s true that these two restaurants have different histories and are in different price ranges, but still…
