A few years back, I heeded the call of pizza from a local restaurant I won’t name (more on that further into the column). For what felt like ages at that point, I’d heard it was some of the best in Santa Fe, and while I’m not a regular of this particular restaurant and ultimately enjoyed its other offerings, the pizza itself was the strangest combination of cracker-like yet too squishy. I never returned. Well, I never returned for pizza.
I’ve heard the Pizza Alarm (™) go up any number of times before in Santa Fe—that thing where your friends start telling you such and such spot has killer slices. And I’ve certainly tried more than my fair share of pizzas hoping for that to be true. I’m not a person who begins sentences with, “In New York…” then ends them with, “...and that’s why the water situation up there makes anything you’ve ever had in any other state or country complete garbage.” I am, however, someone who wants so very badly for pizza to be good, only to have been spurned and disappointed by local options time and time again.
The issue is ongoing. A few months back, I stopped by a local business that started selling pizzas just recently. This business has not traditionally been known for this menu item, but word on the street was that its workers had cracked the pizza code and were offering one of the finest pies in all the land. In the case of this one business, I can’t say the pizza was terrible, but I can say that it was so thick and doughy that there was never any hope for it to be anything but undercooked. I ate one slice and could not continue.
Fast forward to the other day, and yet another local business that has added pizza to its menu when there was none in days of yore. While attractive enough visually (see above image) and topped with green chile and pepperoni (easily the best combo in all pizza-dom) it, too, proved disappointing. The crust was undercooked in some places, yet overcooked in others; the cheese offered an insta-congealing effect in my mouth, forcing me to spit some out for fear i’d choke on a mozzarella ball; the green chile was mostly cold and too wet; the sauce, however, was quite tasty and not oversweet. I wondered if a pizza should be a struggle like that, and in a way that required me to compartmentalize its various elements. In the end, I decided, I do want to think about the puzzle pieces that make up a dish, but I also want to be able to see said dish for the whole picture. This was not the case.
Perhaps you’ve noticed I’ve yet to name any of these spots (likely because I mentioned that in my first sentence), and that is because this piece isn’t actually about the pizza itself, so much as it’s about the right of the people to criticize. And yet, something gives me pause. It’s not that I’m afraid to say when I don’t like a restaurant or dish or experience. Even within the pizza milieu, I recently discussed what I did and didn’t like about the ongoing Tender Fire Kitchen pizza pop-up at Midtown’s El Rey Court. But I’m starting to fear the post-pandemic culinary landscape coupled with Santa Fe’s close social proximity has gotten into my head a bit. Like pop-up pizza, I’m experiencing pop-up guilt.
During the pandemic, the SFR editorial staff made a decision to tread lightly in our food coverage as we didn’t wish to be the reason any local business went under. We’re some years removed from the thick of that all, however, and I’ve lately been wondering how much longer I’ll need to wear the kid gloves. In an August piece in The New Yorker, titled “How Music Criticism Lost Its Edge,” writer Kelefa Sanneh explored the concept of the softening music critic. It’s rather fascinating, and fun as food-for-thought. In a late-October conversation I had with myself after tasting disappointing pizza for the tenth or so time in recent memory, I started to wonder if I, too, have softened. While I find it at least marginally silly that the democratization of food reviews via Yelp and social media have trained most folks to think they’ve got the wherewithal and expertise to do the job I’ve done professionally for years with the same set of criteria—including years spent working in restaurants from sandwich shops to fine dining—I’ll admit the dread that comes from the possibility of a reactionary restaurant owner or fan certainly dances in my head from time to time. I don’t think I want to do that anymore, though.
As someone who is told regularly all the ways in which I fail the community with my stupid little words, I know what it feels like to be criticized. I even know what it’s like for people to call for my termination (from work; not my death, though that has probably happened at some point). Sometimes it hurts, true, but more often than that, it allows me to think about how I operate. I want to be better at my job, no question. I also want local restaurants to do better, especially as prices have become absurd. Of course, that’s not the restaurants’ fault, it’s, like, society, man. And I’m aware of supply chain issues and rising costs for businesses. Still, with dining out now firmly in the luxury camp, it only seems fair to call out the issues. I’ll also remind our local restaurants that I don’t work for them and I owe them precisely nothing. I’ll likely come up short, and you likely will, too, restaurants. I’m sure I’ll hear from you when you think I came gunning for you for any other reason than I think you can and should do better. So no, I won’t name these disappointing local pizzas in this column, but that’s going to change moving forward. We’re splurging to dine with you, Santa Fe eateries, and you’re doing something for public consumption. We get to feel however we feel about that. But just like someone expressing disappointment to a friend, the issue isn’t rooted in trying to hurt anyone—it comes from a place of believing or hoping that restaurants have the capacity to do great things. This is going to be fun!
