I know at the time you were an anonymous writer, but did you come out in 2012, and reveal your-

Adam Platt: Something like that, 2013, I think. Was that your decision? Why did you decide to? That was, I would call an institutional decision, but I was all for it so let’s just say that. It was like, okay, we’ve had enough of this charade. I mean, everyone in the industry at this point also knows you. Yeah! Well, what was funny about that, and I said this in the introduction that I wrote to the story, is that I would like just to introduce you, to things about me that chefs have known about me for years, is that I’m a giant round-faced gentleman, I like to eat heavy haunches of pork, and blah-blah-blah. But the fact is that they have known this for years, they know what I look like, they know, you know, when I come to the restaurant, they spot me, they usually will give me a good table, they’ll do their best to cook their best food for me. I would argue that, especially when you’re not re-reviewing restaurants like me, like, New York tends to review just new restaurants. When you’re reviewing new restaurants in New York, number one; they’re treating everybody as well as they can. Because, and you know this, like, restaurants, over time will come to treat their regulars better, or really well because that’s who gives them their money. They’ll treat everyone else with a certain standard, but regulars get the VIP treatment. When they’re first opening, for the first three months they give the VIP treatment- everyone’s getting the VIP treatment! So they’re giving me the VIP treatment, and unless they know you’re coming, it really doesn’t make much of a difference. So, that’s my argument. I haven’t noticed a huge difference since I stopped being anonymous. But, it’s more pleasurable for me to be actually part of a community, like I can go on panels, and I can actually talk to chefs- I’m not buddy-buddy with chefs. But I can talk to chefs and go on panels, and television.

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