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Wednesday Rant: Fixing the Star Rating System. Is it Possible? I Think So and I Have the Solution.

Posted on July 1st, 2009 3:10pm by Nancy Nichols
Filed under Chefs, Food Fight!, Foodie People, Rants

Oh, Leslie “Catch a Falling Star” Brenner, you are a troublemaker. Just when Bill Addison sorta got a handle on his stars, he split the scene and left you with a spectacular mess to clean up. You’ve done a good job, and I’m with you on the baked potato—it’s a super dish to judge a restaurant by, but I’m off task.

However, I disagree with something you wrote a couple of weeks ago about the DMN star system. June 19 on Eatsblog.:

“If a restaurant is serving brilliant main courses and charging $50 for them, that’s far less impressive to me than if it’s serving brilliant main courses and charging $22 for them, and I definitely consider than when assigning a rating. If you charge $50 per entree you can afford much more help in the kitchen. It’s a lot of money to charge, and my expectation is that the dish will be stellar. And if you’re asking a diner to pay that kind of money, the whole experience, including service and ambience, had better be stellar too. At the lower end of the financial scale, if I find a restaurant with good, honest cooking, where you pay, say $10 for an amazing chile relleno stuffed with brisket, that’s definitely appreciated and it’ll be rewarded.

First of all, I don’t see a direct relationship between a $50 entrée and the number of folks in the kitchen. There are too many other variables, like food costs, to factor in, but I’m losing myself. I would move forward to the remark you made in the comment section under the post above.

“It’s hard to imagine giving a five-star rating to a great $10 chile relleno place. Service and ambience are also considered when assigning a star rating, and while it wouldn’t be impossible to imagine service and ambience at that level someplace selling $10 chile relleno, it would be very unusual.”

Let me say this about that. You are wrong. And because I’m on deadline, I’m going to make this long and drawn out. And then I’m going to propose a peaceful solution.

I like fancy food but I love down, dirty, and dive-y too. If I search my taste memories, the ones that rise to the top fastest are generally a great chile relleno or a cheeseburger with green chiles. I ate at Alain Ducasse last year. Besides the 10,000 Swarovski crystals hanging from the ceiling and the cheese trolley, nothing else I was served knocked my chaussures off. The meal was $3,500 for five people with two bottles of wine (at $250 per).

So here is the deal. Use any symbol you want: Stars, Stripes, or Dollar Signs. I’m partial to Hearts. Then pick three colors and assign a price point to each color. For the sake of argument:

♥♥♥♥♥= entrees above $20

♥♥♥♥♥= entrees between $10 and $20

♥♥♥♥♥=entrees below $10

It’s even pretty. Now I will use a couple of my recent dining experiences and demonstrate.

♥♥♥♥ Five Sixty

♥♥ Rathbun’s Blue Plate

♥♥♥♥♥ Breakfast at El Jordan

♥♥ Alain Ducasse

This peaceful and pretty guide is not only reader friendly, it is critic friendly—you can let your freak flag (heart) fly and love Wolfgang and chiles rellenos the same amount. It’s about food and the passion we all attack it with. And for the record, if ANYONE out there steals this idea, you will have to deal with my lawyer—and he makes rattlesnakes look like newborn kitties.

24 Comments to “Wednesday Rant: Fixing the Star Rating System. Is it Possible? I Think So and I Have the Solution.”

G. Bertram @ July 1st, 2009 at 3:24 pm

BRILLIANT!!! Only modification I would make would be to either add an additional level, or change the price breaks to $15 & under, $16 – $30 and over $30. WAY too many restaurants with some entrees over $20…and I’m not sure Wolfie has anything UNDER $30…
Nancy Nichols @ July 1st, 2009 at 3:40 pm

More is always better.
PotCallingKettle @ July 1st, 2009 at 3:43 pm

I have a great idea.
Start this at D first.
Thanks Tristan.
Old Man @ July 1st, 2009 at 3:59 pm

I’m more interested in where you find the great chile relleno stuffed with brisket!
RB @ July 1st, 2009 at 4:04 pm

i think this is scott’s idea. he proposed 3 different symbols though instead of 3 colors of 1 symbol.
Wes Mantooth @ July 1st, 2009 at 4:08 pm

You want to use graphics to convey information? Amazing.

No, seriously, it’s a great idea. Except for the hearts. They should be beans.
hungry @ July 1st, 2009 at 4:21 pm

why not chiles?
D @ July 1st, 2009 at 4:24 pm

This isn’t necessarily relevant to the post, but I’m curious why Blue Plate would only get two “hearts.”

I dined at Blue Plate in the middle of May and I am planning a dinner there later this month solely because of the service I received.

I arrived for my reservation about fifteen minutes early and was told they were busy and that I may have to wait a few minutes to be seated. My date and I ended up waiting however long it takes to almost finish two cocktails. I think forty minutes sounds about right. The staff was very apologetic when we were finally seated, which I appreciated. Our waitor came by our table and introduced himself, then he was able to identify what we were drinking and offered to bring us another. He suggested an appetizer, which we ordered, then said we were going to be taken care of (or something to that effect) because we had to wait so long. If anything, I assumed this meant we were getting a free appetizer and didn’t think about it again.

During the course of our meal we had a couple more alcoholic beverages each, main courses, sides, and dessert. To my surprise, everything had been comped except for our main courses. The service was as good as any I’ve had in Dallas (including my experiences at some of the more “stuffy” restaurants in town)and, as an added bonus, Kent Rathbun was in house that evening making rounds through the dining room.

That being said, the food wasn’t necessarily superb. But, it was very good and I recommended Blue Plate to many of my friends after my experience there. My standards might be different, but two “hearts” seems awfully low.
Nancy Nichols @ July 1st, 2009 at 4:52 pm

This is not Scott’s idea, it is mine and I’ve been writing it for years. It’s not like it is rocket science.
Nancy Nichols @ July 1st, 2009 at 4:52 pm

Oh, and D Magazine just may surprise you one of these days.
luniz @ July 1st, 2009 at 5:03 pm

nancy, why do you hate the colorblind?
. @ July 1st, 2009 at 5:29 pm

Sounds like time for D to get their ♥’s on.
luscher @ July 1st, 2009 at 5:41 pm

sharp lass
Margie @ July 1st, 2009 at 5:56 pm

I think this is a wonderful idea!
S @ July 1st, 2009 at 6:14 pm

I definitely agree!! and for $3500 i would much rather visit my favorite pink heart-ons over and over again. NN what’s your favorite heart-on place…hehehehe…get it heart-on…LOL…ok, i’ll stop…
Simon McDOnald @ July 1st, 2009 at 9:49 pm

Thank you, Nancy.

I agree you should start this at D first.

Simple. Easy. Perfect for these days.

I also agree with the beans…because it’s awesome.
Matt @ July 1st, 2009 at 9:52 pm

Ask your lawyer exactly how much protection you have for “your” idea, and what he could do if anyone else uses it. I’ll give you a hint — the answer to both questions is a synonym for zero.
Twinwillow @ July 1st, 2009 at 10:37 pm

Ok, I’m on board.
Proll E. Wright @ July 1st, 2009 at 11:42 pm

Had you written anything about this system before April of last year?
snootyfoodie @ July 2nd, 2009 at 1:58 pm

Although I love your idea, some may view it as a half hearted attempt at getting DMN to shape up. Some others might view you as hard hearted if they don’t heart the # of hearts you give them. Still others might have a heart attack if their heart rate is higher than it should be (insert systolic/diastolic type numbers to rate the service/atmosphere). Imagine the livid emails from pastry chefs calling you cold hearted for the heart count you gave their heart health dessert…wait, is it fair to call you cold hearted if you’re describing a house made blueberry sorbet??

But most are likely concerned by the inordinate amount of corny play on words available…oh and valentines, imagine the possibilities!! Cue Juice Newton, NN is the Queen of Hearts.
bawdy snatcher @ July 2nd, 2009 at 2:53 pm

Has snootyfoodie been possessed by Rawlins?!
Robin @ July 2nd, 2009 at 4:50 pm

When did “cocktails” become a dirty word? What’s up with “****tails”? Just silly.
Rod Dreher @ July 3rd, 2009 at 11:33 am

I dunno, Nancy, I rarely eat at really expensive restaurants, and take my gastronomic pleasures almost exclusively from low-range places (e.g., the exquisite Thai joint Noodle Wave in Richardson). But I think five stars really ought only to be given to chefs who attempt culinary feats of the greatest complexity. You have far higher expectations from Aurora, say, than you do of El Jordan, for example. If I were Avner Samuel, I would be cheesed off if I got five stars, but so did the excellent Tex-Mex joint way up Lemmon. Does that tell readers that the Tex-Mex joint is just as good as Aurora? I don’t think so; what it tells readers, or what it ought to tell readers, is that the Tex-Mex joint is the very best of its kind. But they’re not trying to work at the same level as Avner Samuel.

I agree that it’s a vexing problem, because if you’re only talking about sheer enjoyment, one can be equally blissed out by a great plate of chile rellenos and a cold beer as one is by anything that comes out of Dallas’s most hoity-toity kitchens. It’s all subjective. On a hot day, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot wouldn’t satisfy me like a tall glass of perfect iced tea. You know?

But maybe that’s actually a point in favor of what you suggest. Star ratings are irresolvable problematic. When I was a film critic, there was some junky but completely fun summer movie I once saw, and gave four stars to. It was by no means remotely in the same category as the truly excellent films of the era (e.g., Goodfellas, Saving Private Ryan), but it didn’t try to be. It was trying to be a summer popcorn movie, and it was completely transporting, given one’s expectations. I took flack for that — “How could you have given a rollercoaster-ride kind of movie four stars!?!” — and I understand the complaint. But in the end, I felt I had to rate it against others of its genre, and hoped the reader discerned the difference.
David @ July 7th, 2009 at 11:26 am

I think Nancy’s solution is so obviously spot-on it makes me wish I had thought of it along with Liquid Paper and the Topsy-Tail. D Magazine should definitely pioneer it. No direspect, but I don’t think DMN can afford all those different colors of ink…