It”s hard when you”re so tall, says Adam Platt.
Question: How do you maintain your anonymity?
Adam Platt: The whole issue with non- anonymity is sort of one tries to remain anonymous but if you’ve been doing this- if you’ve been doing a job long enough in New York and if the restauranteurs are out to find you the rule is that in my experience they generally will. Now they’ll pretend not to know that you’re there but if they’re looking for you they’ll generally find you. In many cases they know what you look like already. They’ve worked on the restaurants where you’ve been in. After the second or third visit somebody will say, “There is that guy,” and if it’s me I’m 6 foot 6 and I weigh 480 pounds so they will- they’ll spot you anyways and in my case if I’d try to disguise myself it would be even more absurd a situation. So I don’t although I register under different names and I have a credit card with a different name on it and I try in various ways not to call attention to myself, but generally if a restaurant is just opening, within the first two to three months, they’re- A) they’re going to see the critics when they’re there, B) they’re treating everybody like a restaurant critic in New York. They’re the-- The level of service is sniveling to the nth degree. It’s their job. It’s a service industry and they’re- it- they are- the restaurants are at the highest level and they’re treating everybody quite well. I think when- where disguises make a difference is where critics will go back after the second or third year and there’s the conceit of taking away stars or adding stars, and we don’t do that at New York so I don’t do that, but whenever I go back to a restaurant or when I go out on my own--excuse me--and the place has been open for three or four or five years and they don’t recognize you or they’re not paying attention to you, you notice the difference in service. And it’s basically because the fancy restaurants survive by cultivating the clients who go there again and again and if you’re not one of those people and they don’t know you they are going to treat you- they’ll treat you well but they’re not going to treat you as well, whereas in the first couple of months they’re treating everybody really well.
Recorded: 4/22/08
