Influential Restaurant Critic Gael Greene Passes Away At 88

It’s difficult to find something to say about Gael, who died this week, that wasn’t said of her when she first came on the scene reviewing restaurants for New York Magazine back in the 1970s. Admittedly terrified of covering a subject she confessed to know little about but with the full support of editor-in-chief Clay Felker who never wanted his columnists to sound like anyone else’s, Gael used a reporter’s nose for details and atmosphere that went way beyond the stolid listing of this dish and that to come up with a questionable star rating.

She came to New York via Detroit and worked as a cub reporter at the Post before joining New York, where she became a star upon the publishing of her first review, which had none of the genteel touch of some in the field and none of the venom of others.

Gael brought pizzazz and glamor to a staid restaurant scene just starting to simmer with variety and new ideas. She saw all the weaknesses of the Old Guard French places and was excited by a younger generation of French, Italian, Chinese, Indian and American cooks. Self-titled “The Insatiable Gourmet,” she played it to the hilt, mixing sexual ecstasy in with the caviar and foie gras. That incessant approach grew somewhat tired over decades she reviewed restaurants—there are only so many times she could use words like “orgasmic,” “decadent” and “sensual”—and, having written two highly erotic novels involving food, she couldn’t escape the moniker. (Those who tried to imitate her style always came off sounding like parody.) Her writing had both elegance and irony, as when she said, “There are times when born hollandaise heads, as well as nouveau turbot freaks and recherché escargotphiles alike crave the saignet abundance of a New York steak.”

In direct contrast to her arch-rival Mimi Sheraton at the Times, Gael never went for the jugular when she could use a paper cut. Where Mimi would throw a punch, Gael would drop a witty aperçu. She made a farce of anonymity by wearing flamboyant hats or a rhinestone-studded captain’s hat. Gael swooped into a room and kept going, plopping herself down and giving herself over to both her own passion and the chef’s desire to please. She also came under a great deal of criticism for sleeping with chefs who were under review.

And then there was Gael’s wide streak of charitable commitment, as founder and persistent promoter of Meals on Wheels. It would be enough for her to remembered solely for that, but there is little question that for the way she changed food coverage and the way Americans think about food, Gael will be long regarded as in the vanguard.