“In a restaurant, the first thing I look at is the color of the floor”: an interview with restaurant critic Oleg Nazarov
Miscellaneous / / June 29, 2023
What trick was inspired by toothpaste for restaurateurs and how the trick with glasses makes customers pay more.
Oleg Nazarov has visited five thousand restaurants around the world. He understands any cuisine and knows exactly how to make the institution go to the top - he has 10 books about restaurant business and more than 500 creative PR campaigns, including pancake towers and the creation of copies of famous paintings from vegetables and bacon.
He told why food bloggers cannot be considered restaurant critics, gave advice on choosing an institution and explained what techniques restaurateurs use to make the client pay more.
Oleg Nazarov
About the profession "restaurant critic"
- Please tell us about yourself. How did you get into the profession? How old is she?
- In general, I am engaged in the promotion of restaurants, I was initially a PR person. I wrote a lot about the restaurant business, I published 10 books, including publications with practical advice for restaurateurs and two cookbooks “The Most Delicious Dishes of the Country”. As a journalist and writer, he prepared restaurant reviews for Vechernaya Moskva and Express Gazeta, and wrote for Restaurant Vedomosti magazine.
Since I was doing public relations, I had many famous friends and journalists who participated in my events. They called me differently: a showman, a restaurateur, although I'm not a bit of a restaurateur.
Until 2007, there was no such thing as a restaurant critic in our country at all. Everything changed with the release of the cartoon "Ratatouille".
People saw that there is such a profession - to walk on restaurants and write about them. This is exactly what I was doing.
After the interview, the journalists asked how to introduce me. I answered: "Restaurant promotion specialist." But it seemed to them long and not entirely clear. Therefore, journalists began to call me a restaurant critic.
Later, the team of the publishing house of my book “The Most Delicious Dishes of the Country” began to position me as the main restaurant critic of the country.
So I'm used to the fact that I'm a restaurant critic, although I don't consider myself one in its purest form.
— Who can be called a real restaurant critic?
- We have a lot of people who write about restaurants and call themselves restaurant critics, although they are not. They are food bloggers, gastro experts. Yes, they go to restaurants and write: “What a wonderful pizza, but it cannot cost fifteen thousand!” They can have a million views and tons of subscribers. But these are people who simply hype on the topic and do not earn money by writing the restaurant criticism itself. Their business is blogging. You can hype on anything, including food.
For a person to call himself a restaurant critic, he must meet four criteria. First and foremost, the critic must be absolutely independent from the publishing house where his opuses are published, and from the restaurants themselves. Without this it is impossible to write objectively.
The second criterion: he must be honest, so the critic goes to restaurants for his money, receiving a fee for the articles published in the publication. A writer should be paid for what he writes. You have to earn some money.
Third: a person must understand the topic. To do this, you need to visit a lot of places, try different tastes. There is such a term "prayerfulness", but here there should be "aloneness". You need to understand not only the features of the dishes, but also how and by what principles restaurants work.
A restaurant critic is not a gastro-expert who only evaluates food. Here the task is to evaluate the work of the entire restaurant.
The fourth criterion: a restaurant critic must express his thoughts well, write in such a way that people enjoy reading.
— What criteria do you meet?
- I got a hit on three points out of four. First: I am honest, I always write absolutely truthfully about what I see. Second: I have what I call the term "aloneness." I have visited about five thousand restaurants in different countries of the world. I understand the restaurant business and know exactly how to make the establishment prosper, I conduct seminars on this topic, I advise restaurateurs. Thirdly, I express my thoughts well, I can write with humor, irony.
There is no main thing - independence. If I work with some institution as a PR specialist, then I promote it accordingly. I love writing about friends. And about friends - either good or not at all. If you come to a friend and see that he has something bad, you will tell him about it, and write about something else. Since you are an honest person, you will find an element in the establishment that is worthy of praise. If the food is bad, write about the wonderful service. If the service is not very good, you will focus on low prices.
Of course, I write not only about friends. And I always try to remain objective. I don't write for money. If they offer me, I explain that I can take a fee only for a consultation. And I won’t take money just for writing about a restaurant well. If I like it, I'll write for free.
For example, I recently went with friends to the restaurant "Bull" and was stunned by the fact that I saw a real line of visitors there. Haven't seen this in a long time. There dishes for 300 rubles. But the main thing is not even the price, but the fact that everything there is of very high quality. I was so amazed by the queues that I made a video, posted it on my social networks and wrote a text about the restaurant. Nobody paid me. Soon the owner of this network responded: it turned out that he read all my books when he started the business. So, thanks to the post, we met him.
— But are there 100% restaurant critics in Russia then?
- I consider only two people to be full-fledged restaurant critics.
The first is Boris Kritik. No one knows what his real name is and what he looks like. We often correspond with him, exchange advice on where to go if we go to other cities.
He lives in St. Petersburg. Often travels to different cities, for his money goes to restaurants. He writes so caustically, so to the point - it's a pleasure to read. As a former satirical writer, this gives me great pleasure.
The second is Yakov Mozhaev, a restaurant critic from Yekaterinburg. He started as a loader in a restaurant. Then he rose to a waiter, and graduated as a senior head waiter. It was in Soviet times.
He knows the restaurant business from the inside, writes honestly, pays for himself - he does not take money from restaurants. Six years ago we held the Ural Congress of Restaurateurs, I invited him as a speaker, because I want to quote his articles. He writes better than Bulgakov. There are such turns... Separate phrases can be pulled apart into memes.
- Are there any risks in the profession of "restaurant critic"?
— There are risks. Especially if the person writes honestly. After all, the owner of the restaurant may not like your review. It is now that restaurateurs have become civilized, and earlier such a business was opened by former bandits or, as they say, reputable businessmen.
I'll give you an example. It was 2014. A website with restaurant criticism was launched in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The heading was led by a character under the pseudonym Robin Bobin, whom no one knew by sight.
He came to Bellini. I ate there, he didn’t like it, and he “smeared” it in his article. But it turned out that this restaurant belongs to a woman from a very influential family in the region.
A scandal began, they began to look for this Robin Bobin. We ran into the site where the rubric was published.
If this critic had been found, I think he would have had his knees broken with baseball bats.
But the most curious thing is this: I arrived in Krasnodar a couple of months after those events, and it so happened that I ended up in that very restaurant. Not a cheap establishment, but the food is very high quality: drinks, service, wines - everything is on the level, everything is arranged correctly there. I sit and do not understand why Robin Bobin did not like it here.
Found his old review. I'm reading. So he came to a restaurant, ate a salad, ordered hot. Waiting 10 minutes, 15. After 25 minutes, they carry his order. It turned out that he really did not like the waiting time. But the fact is that the standard for serving a hot dish in a restaurant is 20-25 minutes. Therefore, the fact that they didn’t bring him within 10 minutes is not a drawback at all.
Further: he ordered risotto and is indignant that he was served some kind of "creamy porridge made from undercooked rice." But in risotto, rice should be al dente, that is, undercooked with butter. He was served a standard dish, prepared according to all the rules, and he is again dissatisfied.
A person has honesty, there is independence, the style is good - he wrote in such a way that few people thought. But he doesn't really know what he's talking about.
And there are a lot of people who rushed into restaurant criticism, considering it an easy job, but not understanding the topic. PR girls, former journalists who wrote about scandals or sowing, on uninteresting, boring or dangerous topics, decided to move to where they thought it was safe and pleasant. We thought: I will go to restaurants, they will feed me, maybe they will give me food for the road - it's wonderful.
How often do you get recognized in restaurants?
- I call myself a person widely known in narrow circles. Few people know my face. Mostly those who go to my seminars, plus business owners.
Young startups who want to go fast open some food business, they don't read books. They don't know me. But the owners of large businesses, reputable restaurateurs - yes. In every regional center of Russia, I have acquaintances and friends in this area.
Without guile, I will say that I can come to any such city and not spend a single ruble on food in a restaurant for a week - and even gain five kilograms.
Because everywhere there are people who have read my books and applied the life hacks that I shared.
Sometimes there are amazing stories when they find out in unexpected places. Last year we went to the Pskov-Caves Monastery. They make monastery cheeses that mature in cellars. That's where, in these cellars, we went. We buy cheeses from the person who manages the products there, and he suddenly says: “Oleg Vasilyevich, is that you? And I went to your seminars.”
Sometimes the waiters find out.
About restaurants
— What is the peculiarity of Russian restaurants? Are they more about food or is food an addition to something else?
— A restaurant in Russia and a restaurant, for example, in Europe are two different things. In Europe, people go to restaurants to eat tasty and inexpensive food. And this goal is clearly not in the first place for us. Such studies were carried out by various organizations, RBC, Rambler & Co. People go to restaurants to have a business meeting, a romantic date, a friendly drinking party.
Basically, restaurants for Russians are an opportunity to show off, have fun, get to know the opposite sex, and socialize.
That is, the restaurant performs the function of a communication club. People come here for positive emotions, not for food.
After the introduction of sanctions in 2014, the situation has changed somewhat. Salaries people have fallen, the share of those who come to the restaurant is no longer for the sake of hanging out, but still to eat.
What's the strangest restaurant trend you've come across in recent years? Maybe it's the refusal of meat, the principle of "zero waste"?
- The healthy menu, the principle of "zero waste", the rejection of meat - this is of interest to a small percentage of people, thin girls who follow the figure, part of the youth. But on the scale of 140 million Russia, this is not a trend.
There is a trend that I really like and which I myself have been promoting for the last 10 years - “people eat their own”. This is an absolute trend for people in most countries of the world.
So you came to France, which means you will eat frog legs and beef bourguignon - what the French themselves eat. They came to Germany - everyone eats there knuckle. In Austria - schnitzel, in Hungary - goulash, in Uzbekistan - plov. And only we have pizza, sushi and rolls.
But gradually restaurants come to this. They are looking for something local, which is grown in this region, what is produced here, which is typical of this area. This is a good trend, I'm a fan of it.
I was in the city of Zlatoust, I was invited to "Belmont" - a restaurant of European cuisine, where the menu includes gourmet dishes with complex names. For eight years they worked very successfully, but gradually they began to notice that there were fewer clients. And all because restaurants with a similar concept have opened nearby. First "Riviera", then "Coliseum", next to "Versailles", a little further - "Palermo". The entire 160,000th Chrysostom was filled with pretentious "Europe". As a result, sales began to fall immediately for everyone.
When I arrived at Belmont, I asked why they did not want to change the format, because there is something regional. At first they couldn't think of anything. But when I was walking around the city, I saw a monument: a figurine that looked like a ruble, with the inscription "One happy kuzyuk."
I was wondering what it is. It turned out that the State Ural Plant used to work here, in short - KUZ. And his workers and residents of these places were called Kuzyuks. They were characterized by stinginess, homeliness. Hence the figurine that looks like a coin.
I proposed to the Belmont restaurant to change the concept and open a Russian restaurant with an emphasis on Kuzyuks. They came up with the name "Happy Kuzyuk". It was 2017. And this year, Happy Kuzyuk was among the seven best restaurants in Russia in the competition for the best concept.
- Which city in Russia is the most "delicious"?
- Definitely not Moscow. Moscow restaurants are geared towards making money.
Petersburg will definitely overtake the capital in the race for the right to be called a "tasty city".
There are unusual restaurant concepts, many establishments with cool names, interesting food. They are closer to Europe in a good way, with the right approach to restaurants. Yes, the prices are lower.
There are very interesting restaurants in the regions: in Kaliningrad, Vladimir, Krasnodar. I heard a lot of positive things about the restaurants in Vladivostok, but I haven’t been there for a long time, I can’t personally evaluate it.
Could you tell us about your worst dinner at a restaurant?
- Yes. Friends talked a lot about the recently opened at that time in St. Petersburg restaurant Matilda Shnurova "Cococo". They admired what kind of food there was, how delicious and unusual everything was. And I got a chance to go there.
My son and I went to see St. Isaac's Cathedral, he wanted to climb to the very top. Suddenly I see a sign next to the same restaurant "Kokoko".
It was three in the afternoon, we go in, but the hostess says that all the tables are occupied. This despite the fact that I see with my own eyes an empty hall. But she claims: everything is allegedly on the reservation, guests will come at four o'clock. Although guests reserve tables mainly in the evening. I agree, but I promise to drop in by five o'clock.
At five, history repeats itself. I start to boil slowly and I already admit that I am the most evil restaurant critic in Russia. They called the manager. A table was immediately found: supposedly in a miraculous way, someone refused.
In the hour we sat there, only two tables were occupied. We ate, paid and left. It was delicious. But about this story, I wrote a post in which I criticized the method that this and some other restaurants use, creating an artificial illusion of over-demanding the place.
Some idiot marketers advised the owners of the establishment to create advertising for their restaurant in this way. So that visitors think what a magical place it is, that you need to sign up here for two weeks, like in some kind of Michelin restaurant.
- Did you have to leave the restaurant with a scandal without eating?
- That was probably the most terrible trip to the restaurant. Not the most terrible dinner, because we didn’t manage to eat, namely a hike.
It was a long time ago, in Murmansk. I was invited to speak at a big celebration. The day before the event, we decided to have a little snack. The Fish House fish restaurant caught my eye.
We go. A waitress comes up - a fragile girl, well, just a bunny - and starts selling. So she spoke well about blue-skinned halibut, about cod, which everyone in Murmansk eats, which is why they call the locals “codfish eaters” because we ordered many different dishes from her for a substantial amount. Even though we only planned to have a bite to eat. She even sold salmon to us, because we “definitely never ate such a thing.”
Bye food is being prepared, she brings us an ordered bottle of Pinot Grigio. Opens, pours, and I understand: something is wrong with the wine. Normally, it is a clear wine with a light wheaten color. And here it is dark, with some bubbles. The taste turned out to be generally bitter. I tell the girl that the wine seems to have gone bad. She calls the manager. She comes and asks what our problem is. But I answer that they have a problem, with this bottle. When my kidney stones came out, the urine was the same dark yellow color as this wine. She claims that she called the supplier and he allegedly said that this is wine and it happens like that. But it is clear to me that this drink was, perhaps, once Pinot Grigio, but has now deteriorated. I invited her to taste the wine herself, she refused. In response, we refused to pay.
To this she reacted with an attack: "I have the impression that you have never drunk such wine at all." And she said that I go to restaurants to drink wine and not pay. I tried to answer with irony, but she no longer cut humor. As a result, she forbade us to come to their restaurant, and we, accordingly, refused to pay for the order and asked to cancel it.
We ran, they chased us and threw stones at our backs.
In the evening, going out on the stage of the Palace of Culture, where we were invited, instead of the phrase “Hello, Murmansk”, I said from the stage: “Friends, do not go to Fish House, where you will first be given spoiled wine to drink, and then they will chase you, throwing you in the back stones."
I tell this story everywhere, including at seminars. One day a man from Murmansk came up to me and said: "Relax, your rays of hatred have reached - the Fish House has closed."
How to choose a restaurant
- Is there a way to understand, even before placing an order, whether this place is good or better not to eat here? What to pay attention to at the entrance, in the menu, in the room itself?
— You can evaluate the quality and level of the restaurant in a few minutes. I have several ways.
First of all, I pay attention to the color of the floors in the restaurant. If the floor is made in light colors - white, cream, beige - then for me this is an indicator of the complete lack of taste and brains of the business owner or designer. The guest should feel comfortable in the restaurant. A white or light floor gives the feeling of a hospital canteen. If the restaurateur did this, then he did not read a single book on restaurant design. And in this institution there will be a blunder on a blunder, a mistake on a mistake - like a chain.
The second way to check if a restaurant is right for you is to ask for a wine list right away or look for a page with alcoholic drinks in the menu.
Look at wine prices. If the wine that is sold in the store for 600 rubles costs 4,000 here, then you can safely leave. So the restaurant owners are real goons. If they cheat 650% on the wine that is in the retail, then nothing good can be expected from the kitchen. There will be a continuous rip-off, inflated prices - you will give money for no one knows what.
If a wine that costs 600 rubles in retail is sold here for 1,500 rubles, this is normal. This appreciation is understandable. Because you came to restaurant, they will look after you here, create an atmosphere. There should be an extra charge, the client always pays extra for the service, for the comfort.
Is there a dish that can be called a marker of the quality of a restaurant?
- I define talent soup chef. Learning how to fry a steak, especially with the current technological capabilities, modern devices, is easy.
Soup is much more difficult to make, so for me it’s the first courses that are an indicator of the chef’s skill.
I often order soups in restaurants, sometimes two at once, I take the second portion instead of hot.
Another tip: you need to look whose restaurant it is. I'll give you an example. My house has a restaurant, the owner of which is Azerbaijani. They prepare different dishes, including European cuisine. But I will never take arugula salad there, avocado, shrimp and other similar products. I take khashlama, lamb shoulder - that is, what they definitely know how to cook here. Whatever the name of the establishment, if there is something that, as you think, the restaurateur and his team definitely know how to cook, this should be ordered. It will be tasty and inexpensive.
What tricks do restaurants use to get customers to pay more?
“These are not tricks, but sales techniques. This is taught, including me. This is normal, everyone should increase the size of the check. At seminars, I often tell a story about juice.
There is a standard serving of juice 200 milliliters. So they sold before - in a standard volume. The client ordered, drank, thanked. But then one cunning person came up with the idea of serving juices in different glasses: in small glasses of 200 milliliters and in large glasses of 400.
Who drinks juice usually? Either a girl or an unfortunate man who behind the wheel and can't afford to drink anything strong. They order juice, and the waiter says to them: “Do you want a small glass or a large one?” Here you are, as a girl, what will you answer?
- Small.
- So it is, girls, when they are asked: "Small or big?" - most often choose a small one. And the man will choose, of course, big. He purely psychologically will not be able to say "small". It turns out that for a restaurant, his juice will be a double sale, because in a glass there is not one portion of 200 milliliters, but two.
Then they came up with even more cunning and smarter: a small glass for 200 milliliters, an average for 400 and a large one for 600. Here the waiter offered you three options. What will you choose?
- Average.
- Girls really choose the middle one more often. And the man orders everything just as big. As a result, you drink a double dose of juice, and he already triples.
There is another trick. The company invented it toothpaste Colgate. They realized that the wider the hole in the tube, the more paste pops out. This means that the faster the product will run out for the buyer, and he will go to the store for a new one.
In production, only this small part of the tube was changed, and sales immediately increased by 30%.
The same thing happens when you drink juice. After all, a tube always goes to the juice: the thicker it is, the faster the drink will end. A friend of mine uses straws in his restaurant so large that the juice can be drunk in one sip.
And then there's the two-finger rule. If you have less than two fingers of drink left in your mug or glass, then the waiter must come up and, looking affectionately into your eyes, ask: "Shall we repeat?" Most often, a person says: “Yes,” because that our organism This is how it works: food and drink are not absorbed immediately.
About restaurant customers
Do you think the customer is always right?
- No. We need an individual approach. You can't give generic advice.
For example, a guest in a restaurant says that you fried a steak for him incorrectly. Let's say he asked for Rare, and the waiter brought him Medium. The client refuses to eat, does not want to pay, makes noise and shouts: “Disgrace!” What to do in such a situation? Maybe the waiter got it wrong.
Here the waiter does not have to decide anything at all. It's not his skill level. Its task is to transfer the problem to a higher level − manager. And already the manager should look at the guest. If this is a regular guest who often comes, leaves a lot of money, then it makes sense to believe him, to agree to his requirements.
And if an impudent-looking person screams and is indignant in the hall - there are such types, lovers of attracting attention - then it makes sense to make him pay. If he doesn't show up again, the restaurant won't lose anything at all.
- Is it true that in restaurants they are greeted by clothes? If you did not come in the form in which the administration of the institution wants, can you expect worse service?
- It used to be like that. Now you can already come in a T-shirt and with such a cutlet of money.
But, in principle, the waiter immediately evaluates the client: what shoes, what watch, what level of well-being he has.
This is called customer-centric valuation.
The waiter evaluates the client to try to get on the same wavelength with him. If it was possible to establish a connection, then the waiter will understand what the person wants, and will be able to offer it to him.
- Do I need to leave a tip and how to calculate it so as not to seem greedy?
— I think we have no direct obligation to leave tips. The choice is up to the client. If I liked the service, I'll leave, if not, then I'll leave like that.
In America, the situation is somewhat different: there is a rule of 20% tip on the check. If you leave 10%, then the waiter will chase you and swear loudly.
In Russia, you can leave 10% of the check. If the service is average, it is even acceptable to give 3-5% or nothing.
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