Special Sauce with Ed Levine Are Restaurant Critics Obsolete? Part 2
Mar 6, 2026
Elazar Sontag, food critic at The Washington Post, adapts rigorous reviews for social platforms. Hannah Goldfield, writer at The New Yorker, examines ethics and cultural context in restaurant coverage. Bill Addison, veteran critic, ranges from fine dining to street food. They debate TikTok and Yelp’s impact, the shrinking gatekeeper role, and whether longform criticism can survive in a fast social-media world.
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Intern Relied Only On Yelp Ratings
- Ed told a story about a Serious Eats intern who only visited restaurants with at least a 4.5 Yelp rating, which alarmed him.
- Bill described using Yelp only for addresses and phone numbers, not relying on reviews to choose places to eat.
TikTok Is Reshaping Where People Get Restaurant Information
- Traditional critics are losing cultural context as audiences shift to TikTok for news and recommendations.
- Bill Addison uses Yelp as a phone book for logistics while noting journalism students now primarily get information from TikTok.
Social Media Forms Its Own Credibility Norms
- Social platforms build different ecosystems where some creators adopt journalistic best practices like asking permission to record.
- Elazar Sontag notes he uses social video to amplify reviews while maintaining traditional rigor behind the scenes.