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Yesterday morning, as you likely saw and no doubt heard, Kobe Club proprietor Jeffrey Chodorow took out a full-page ad in the Times dining section to lambaste Frank Bruni’s previous pan of his establishment. In the seven-paragraph (and, we must note, poorly punctuated) screed, Chodorow claimed Bruni’s attack on him was personal and bashed the critic for having no real “food background.” (Remind us, by the way, not to eat in Chodorow’s restaurants, as, lacking a food background of our own, we’ll clearly be unqualified to know whether we enjoyed our experience.) He also named three critics who, unlike Bruni, liked the Kobe Club: New York’s beloved Gael Greene (who indeed fawned over the restaurant in her 240-word squib), and Bob Lape of Crain’s and John Mariani of Esquire (who are both known to be on the take). He didn’t mention that lots of critics hated it, including New York’s chief food critic, Adam Platt, who gave the Kobe Club no stars and called it “a bizarre agglomeration of restaurant fashions and trends, most of them bad.” But Platt earned a glancing dig, when Chodorow announced an “After Adam” feature on his new blog. Platt responded yesterday afternoon on Grub Street, and last night, Grub’s Josh Ozersky checked in with the ranting restaurateur to find out if there was more to say on the topic. Apparently there was.
The Gobbler Responds to Mr. Chodorow’s Broadside [Grub Street]
We Ask Jeffrey Chodorow If He’s Been Feeling Well Lately [Grub Street]
