Restaurant People Really Hate Food Bloggers

“Every publicist in this town keeps a do-not-invite list, because some people are just freeloaders.” That’s the closest that a restaurant publicist person will get to admitting the truth, which is that they burningly hate at least half of the world’s food bloggers. And the only people who hate food bloggers more than restaurant publicists are restaurant managers. They won’t say so publicly-and sure, they appreciate it if the blogs actually bring in customers sometimes! But pretty much? They consider them hideous leeches. That quote comes from Hall Company’s Sam Firer-and full disclosure, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten at a single restaurant they represent, which seems unlikely-from the discussion that has ensued over the recent and rather remarkable Time column by Josh Ozersky.

Ozersky, who also seems to dislike food bloggers as well, confusingly, seems much-beloved in New York food-blog circles (yes, I said circles), but/and in that column Ozersky wrote about how wedding caterers all suck and you, like he just did, should have high-end professional chefs do all the cooking for free for your wedding. This was really unusual!

And it was not at all cleared up by a statement from Time that announced, improbably, that Ozersky is “friends with a variety of chefs and those relationships inform much of his writing.” Has anything issued from a press office as a “clarification” ever made everyone less happy?

So I guess just think of him as a guy reporting back from inside another universe. Let it wash over you-it’s now just lifestyle porn, with the Ozersky brand explaining some sort of weird high life, on the order of some rent-a-jet in-flight magazine. He’s not one of us regular people now.