America’s Next Great Restaurant

Did you watch this show last night? It was good. I recapped it for New York magazine’s “Grub Street” blog:

America is crazy about food. Some of us eat it every day. Others of us have conversations like, “Have you tried that amazing new kind of toast?” and, “Last weekend at the farmers’ market we watched a goat give birth to a jar of marmalade.” Because America cannot love something without turning it into a reality show, we’re enjoying a superabundance of cooking-related TV. NBC has decided to dive into this simmering goulash of food shows with America’s Next Great Restaurant which promises, at the end of its nine-week run, to give America its next great restaurant. So now you know: Any restaurant that opens between now and the conclusion of this show will not be great. It will suck. You have NBC’s word on that. I happened to watch the premiere of America’s Next Great Restaurant at a dinner party (I invited myself; I’m an incorrigible freeloader). The hostess was kind enough to lend me some earphones I plugged into the TV so I wouldn’t bother the other guests.

Read the rest here.