It was interesting reading my own obituary in the Globe yesterday. The writer, Ben Leszcz, felt that I lacked the common touch as a restaurant columnist for Toronto Life, preferring to write about elite chefs rather than \u201cScarborough strip malls.\u201d Magazine writing is an ephemeral medium and anyone who embarks upon that path knows that yesterday\u2019s articles line today\u2019s gerbil cages. But if I may whisper a retort from beyond the grave, I also covered my fair share of pubs, diners, suburban ethnic restaurants, caterers and chain eateries, and reviewed countless restaurants in strip malls. I have also spilled a lot of ink on trendy new stars such as Local Kitchen, the Black Hoof and Ceili Cottage. Leszcz also painted my approach to my old job as conciliatory, even collaborative with the chefs and restaurateurs I wrote about. It\u2019s true I have never seen the point of being rude or bitchy at someone else\u2019s expense. There are plenty of other critics who take that easy line. I have been to innumerable bad or mediocre restaurants. Often I simply didn\u2019t write about them \u2013 the mandate from Toronto Life for most of my time there was to offer the reader recommendations rather than snide put-downs. Sometimes I did look closely at restaurants that weren\u2019t working in the way they intended, but rather than merely giving them the finger, I tried to explore the nature of their failure and perhaps suggest ways in which they might improve. As a restaurant-goer and citizen, I had a vested interest in helping our industry evolve.
\nOne thing about the article did make me sit up. Leszcz announced that Chris Nuttall-Smith is to be my successor at Toronto Life. I\u2019m not sure if that is strictly accurate. When she fired me, editor Sarah Fulford told me categorically that there would be no dining column in her refashioned magazine and I have no reason to suppose she was handing me a porkie pie.
\nMeanwhile, folks, I\u2019d like to say for the record that I am not in fact dead, just delightfully liberated, and I intend to write about the city\u2019s restaurants for another 25 years, whether the places in question boast white tablecloths, greasy wooden boards or scratched formica. Sarah Fulford is guiding Toronto Life in a new direction. I hope it won\u2019t follow Saturday Night into oblivion \u2013 I had good times at TL, helped build the brand, and I still care about it. But whatever happens, I\u2019ll still be around and writing, and often in a positive way \u2013 for which I make no apology. Restaurant critics have an obligation to do more than just trash the inadequate. We can also celebrate and encourage, cajole and tease and make our own contribution to the culinary environment in which we all live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was interesting reading my own obituary in the Globe yesterday. The writer, Ben Leszcz, felt that I lacked the common touch as a restaurant columnist for Toronto Life, preferring to write about elite chefs rather than \u201cScarborough strip malls.\u201d Magazine writing is an ephemeral medium and anyone who embarks upon that path knows that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,19,95],"tags":[28],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2138,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions\/2138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}