Helen, help me: what if you have lunch with a jerk?

We can’t always choose our dinner companions. What’s the right move when you’re sitting next to a bum in a restaurant you want to go back to? —Anonymous, Brooklyn

We’ve all dined with assholes; we all hope we’ll never be the jerks someone dines with. It would take unbelievably horrible behavior to get someone blacklisted from the restaurant, let alone the rest of their group. But I’m with you when it comes to embarrassing rudeness by association. Just remember that your server is your ally—they’re almost certainly on the lookout for your companion’s every inelegant gesture and rude remark, and a conspiratorial flinch or well-timed eye roll can effectively communicate that you disapprove of such behavior and want to be swallowed. . Earth. (I once sat across from a friend of a friend at a group dinner who was so loud and rude and overbearing—and obviously so bad at hiding his distress—that the captain intercepted me on my way back from the restroom and asked if don’t want me to eat the next dish in the kitchen.) If the situation is really dire, just be direct: get up to dust your nose or, after paying the check, go inside (“Oh no! I think I dropped my AirPods!”) and find your server Say something like this: “I just want to apologize for how stupid this guy is. Your patience with us was unbelievable. I can’t wait to go back without him.”

I want to know about restaurant PR. It’s hard for me to read between the lines: I recently had dinner at a place that was listed as one of the fifty best in the US, and it was terrible – the chef was drunk at the bar and the kitchen staff said it was the worst place to work. How can we believe these hyped pay to play restaurants are any good? —Anonym

That’s a big, messy, really good question. There are more ways than ever before to learn about new restaurants—not just through publications, but through countless individual online creators and branded group efforts, mini-magazines and large video channels focused on certain neighborhoods, certain cuisines, certain price ranges or anything else. This ocean of content means customers are flocking to that hot jazz bar, that can’t-miss burger joint, or the #1 best fried chicken joint, or the only restaurant with a white tablecloth tasting menu, which is worth waiting for. Of course, there is a lot of money floating around this ecosystem, a lot of emails asking for and offering coverage, and many of cooked food sent from the kitchen. The FTC requires creators to disclose information about freebies, but I think I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve seen disclaimers or hashtags that do. Sometimes it feels like everyone is eating for free and no one is admitting it—it’s no wonder that a person can begin to suspect that everything they encounter is classified advertising. (This is probably a good place to mention that I do not accept PR invitations from restaurants I plan to cover, I make reservations under fake names and The New Yorker pays for all my meals.)

PR can sometimes be a force for good in the restaurant world. There are many wonderful places that, for various reasons, do not have access to the kind of media attention that will attract people’s attention. Contracting with an agency (or investing in other forms of outreach) can put a business on the radar of people who write lists, shoot videos, and generally document what’s new and exciting in the restaurant world. At the same time, there are fewer old-school food critics than there used to be, by which I mean people who write about restaurants from a carefully evaluative perspective—analyzing the pros and cons and trying to place the restaurant in a larger landscape, rather than offering more straightforward service recommendations. The pressures of digital media mean that even critics in this more traditional mode are often asked to engage with the industrial-list complex. But for me as a reader, one of the great things about criticism is that it allows me to build a close relationship with the critic over time, to get to know their likes, dislikes, and biases, and to learn how to compare their experiences with critics. my own In my view, this is the foundation on which to build the kind of credibility I think you’re looking for, and it involves knowledge and calibration on the part of the reader: put in the work (sorry, but it really takes some work) and you’ll find critics and sources whose judgments align with your own, whether they’re writing a full review or any best-of list.

But, unfortunately, there is no universal guarantee in matters of nutrition. Like attending a live theater or concert, part of the appeal of dining out is the unpredictable immediacy of real life. You might get unlucky and visit a great place on a day when the bathroom pipe bursts so all the servers are grumpy, or it’s at night when the chef with magic hands doesn’t show up and the sauces are too salty, or you might hear a song in of a playlist that reminds you of a terrible ex, and even if the sound system of the restaurant is almost drowned out by the roar of fifty people eating dinner, you suddenly entered a bad mood. The chef could be drunk at the bar. Staff could complain loudly about how much they hated their jobs. Of course, perhaps some shrewd PR guy conspired with a whole corps of writers and editors. But maybe it’s an off night. Maybe this place just isn’t your style. At least it’s fun to complain.

At what point during a martini should I eat the olives? —Emily H., Northampton, Massachusetts

Two thirds of the way. But you really should try to get your Martini with a raisin.