High Steaks

That Craig LaBan is even in Philadelphia, let alone that the courts are making rulings on his wigs, is a potent symbol of the city’s food revolution. His predecessor, Elaine Tait, acted more as a booster for the local restaurant community than as a critic. Her photo sometimes ran with her column. LaBan is an altogether more serious journalist — the prime cut to her choice. In 2000, he won the prestigious James Beard Award for excellence in restaurant reviews. He studied culinary arts at French cooking school La Varenne. And his arrival, 10 years ago, coincided with the city’s turn toward finer, more adventurous and compelling restaurants.

It might be giving the Inquirer too much credit to say it saw the restaurant revolution coming. But LaBan is the kind of serious food journalist a serious restaurant town requires. And it isn’t because he dresses funny. “He knows his food,” says Greg Welsh, co-owner of the Chestnut Grill. “I give him that.”

Even so, Welsh passes LaBan’s photo to any restaurateur who asks — and serves as a kind of unofficial culinary theologian, calling for limits on LaBan’s perceived God-like power. “I frequently get a call from some new restaurant owner who wants his picture,” says Welsh, “because they’re afraid of him. If they knew he was in their restaurant, they’d strap on their knee pads and do whatever it took to make him happy. So I give them the picture. Consumer advocate! He’s not Ralph Nader, putting seatbelts in cars. For God’s sake, it’s dinner!”

JUDGING PURELY FROM his demeanor — his nervous laugh, his unsettled body language — Alex Plotkin seems uncomfortable with the attention his suit has brought. Just being interviewed for this article taxed his nerves.

He called repeatedly to address small issues, at one point phoning every 15 or 20 minutes for several hours. He also looked up Philadelphia magazine’s number and faxed, unrequested, the past three years of Chops’ highly sensitive profit-and-loss statements. (He wanted to prove Chops suffered a small financial hit in the two weeks after LaBan’s review ran. Judging from the documents he sent, it did.) And he recounted a couple of conversations he interpreted as threatening, including one in which someone suggested the Inquirer could retaliate against him and dig into other aspects of his life beyond meat.

This suggestion wasn’t made by an employee of the Philadelphia Inquirer. It was just idle chatter. But it added another sleepless night to Plotkin’s total. Some might think needless worry is just what the restaurateur deserves for filing suit. But in person, Plotkin professes loftier ideals. “I don’t wish Craig LaBan any ill will,” he says. “I really don’t. I’d just like him to write about what he ordered. Just write that you ate the steak frites, not my New York strip.”

It would be easy to dismiss Plotkin as needlessly obsessive. But mostly, he is a product of the age. In a time and place when people proudly call themselves “foodies” and write long Internet treatises on tapas, is Plotkin really so odd for suing on behalf of the steak his livelihood hinges on?

I spent a long night hanging out at Chops, and during one of Plotkin’s absences, a man in another booth spoke to me. “Did you like your steak?” he asked.

“Yes,” I told him. “That was the first I’ve eaten here.”

“Really?” he said. “I must have had 25. I come here all the time.”     

When Plotkin returned, I told him about the conversation, and his face brightened for a brief moment. He estimates he received roughly 30 nasty phone calls and e-mails during the largest wave of media coverage. He also had to take down his restaurant’s online message board, because some of the verbiage, post-lawsuit, was inappropriate for public consumption. “I try not to read food blogs or message boards at all now,” he says. “This hasn’t been good publicity. And that’s fine. I didn’t do this for publicity. I did this on principle.”

 

Of course, in principle, Plotkin could just look at that guy in his restaurant who’s eaten 25 of his steaks and realize he’s already beaten Craig LaBan. In a perfect world, in a different age, the restaurateur and the critic might even come together like the lion and the lamb, and settle their differences free of the stress and tension a courtroom figures to provide. With some aromatic dish between them and a bottle of fine wine on the table, Plotkin and LaBan could see their way toward a resolution that would assuage one without injuring the other.

The prospect of such a sit-down shouldn’t be so far-fetched. Food is an increasingly important part of Philadelphia’s identity. It is a means by which those dedicated to eating its finest variations seek to distinguish themselves from one another. But once upon a time, food was also celebrated for its power to bring us together.

E-MAIL: svolk@phillymag.com