Reviewing restaurants for the N.Y. Times was his dream job. But it wreaked havoc on his body

As It Happens8:05Why the New York Times restaurant critic is giving up on his dream job

Pete Wells has rarely been sure about anything. But he's certain he has to stop writing restaurant reviews.

After a prolific, and sometimes controversial 12-year career as the New York Times's restaurant critic, Wells is hanging up his reviewer hat, for the good of his health, a decision he detailed in a column for the newspaper.

"There's always something I'm worried about. And yet, the moment I told the people at the Times that I needed to get off the merry-go-round, I started to feel almost a kind of peace. Or at least just a sense of, you know, having finally aligned myself with what my body wanted me to do," Wells told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. 

"Strangely, I can second guess just about any decision I've ever made. But I haven't second guessed this one."

'I never did get bored'

It may seem an odd statement from someone who has spent more than a decade working his dream job — a gig he says he never stopped loving.

When he first started at the Times, he says one of the paper's former restaurant critics, Ruth Reichl, gave him a warning he's never forgotten.

"She said, you know, 'I think you could probably do this for about five years. You might be able to stretch it to seven. And, after that, I think you'll be bored out of your mind,'" he said.

"And yet I never did get bored out of my mind. I kept finding it interesting."

And his career has, indeed, been interesting. 

There his scathing, two-star review of Per Se, a swanky, Michelin-starred restaurant headed by chef Thomas Keller that proudly boasted a perfect four-star rating from Wells' predecessor. He called the high-end establishment "respectably dull at best to disappointingly flat-footed at worst," and said its mushroom bouillon was "as murky and appealing as bong water."

He knew it would cause a stir. 

"It was so hard that I actually put it off for months," he said. "I knew that the material was really good ... but I didn't really want to pull the trigger."

There's also his viral 2012 takedown of Guy's American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square, written entirely in the form of questions posed directly to its owner, beloved TV chef Guy Fieri.

"Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste?" Wells wrote. "Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?"

He calls that review and its aftermath his "first taste of the cult of personality on the Internet."

"It took a couple days somehow, but when Guy Fieri fans got wind of the review, I started to get some very, you know, expressive, angry, emails and people who were just sure I had attacked their idol."

Fieri later vigorously defended his restaurant on The Today Show. But Wells stands by the review, and insists it's nothing personal. 

"I kind of feel like he's OK," Wells said of Fieri. "And I liked his show."

But Wells has also dedicated plenty of ink to singing the praises of the city's bustling and diverse food scene, and using his platform to draw attention to the affordable, neighbourhood staples that get overlooked by highfalutin food critics. 

Take, for example, his glowing three-star review ("three is a lot," he said) of La Piraña Lechonera, a Puerto Rican food trailor in the South Bronx.

"I love that place," he said. "It's not at all a fancy atmosphere, but it's a genuinely joyous atmosphere."

The people who are most likely to describe the business they work in as the hospitality industry are often the ones with the kind of shakiest grasp on what hospitality means.- Pete Wells, New York Times food critic

People often conflate price point with good service, he says, but that's a mistake. He waxed poetic about the "warm, personal experience" of grabbing a bite La Piraña Lechonera, where owner Angel Jimenez chats with customers over the counter while he roasts their pork, but lamented the "cookie-cutter approach to service in the high end" that can leave customers feeling alienated and unseen. 

"The people who are most likely to describe the business they work in as the hospitality industry are often the ones with the kind of shakiest grasp on what hospitality means," he said.

'Blood pressure was bad. Cholesterol was bad'

So given his enduring passion for his craft, why is he stepping down?

He went to the doctor for a long overdue checkup. His test results, he says, were a wake-up call. 

"Blood pressure was bad. Cholesterol was bad," he said. "I realized there are other things besides boredom that might make walking away a good idea."

In part, he says he blames the rise of food-tasting menus, where restaurants serve up "course after course after course and it just keeps coming." But even with an a la carte menu, he admits he feels compelled to try everything, sometimes more than once, to be absolutely certain he's writing from an informed perspective.

After a while, it takes a toll, he said. In his parting column, he spoke to colleagues struggling with their own health, and mourned his predecessors who died too young.

While Wells won't won't be writing any more reviews, he still plans to keep working, in some capacity, at the Times. And while he'll be eating at home a lot more, he says he won't be giving up on restaurants all together. 

"I'm looking forward to going back to a few places just as a civilian, when I'm not taking notes in my head and I'm not taking pictures of every course," he said.

"Right now, nothing really transcends. It's material, you know? It's all up for analysis, which is not the ideal way to experience food."