Apologies for probably boring you with insider tittle-tattle about restaurant criticism when we’re so behind with actual restaurant reviews, but last week’s news about the launch of the first Gault Millau guide to local eateries deserves a mention. Not because the addition of yet another guidebook is particularly newsworthy. Rather, what’s interesting is the announcement that its editor would be Tamás Molnár B., fresh from a messy split with the publisher of the the Alexandra Restaurant and Wine Guide series he launched back in 2008.
While “MBT” does enjoy a certain reputation for gruff candor – which no doubt helped in the initial success of the Alexandra Étteremkalauz – he, like some other big-name food writers in this town, is said to routinely work as a “consultant” to some of the same restaurants he is responsible for critiquing on behalf of readers. Which raises what is often euphemistically called “the appearance of impropriety,” if not the specter of lethal putrid PR contamination of the sort that led to the recent bust-up of the local edition of Decanter. On the other hand, no matter what happens the GaultMillau étteremkalauz will still be better than the “Best of Budapest”…
