A young Robert Sietsema, photographed in Chicago circa 1960
Robert Sietsema, the Village Voice food scribe and curator of its recent inaugural Choice Eats gala, is renowned for how closely he guards his anonymity. When this writer met him at a party last year, he declined to reveal his last name or the publication he wrote for; one editor once revealed that he asked her to use an alias when they were out together.
So when he decided to weigh in on Freeman’s “horrible” ethics—and gave The Gray Lady a kick in the behind, to boot—we wanted to give the 20-year veteran critic a moment to speak his mind.
In a Gothamist interview, you mentioned Danyelle Freeman in passing. What do you think of her as a critic?
I think she was thrust into a very important position without having a lot of experience and perhaps chosen for extraneous reasons. Her writing has been improving, but still she seems to take an a priori, frivolous attitude towards the material. And the fact that she did choose to be recognized is, to me, like, really horrible. I mean, it’s not so bad if you get recognized over the years due to a number of mistakes or just through working hard. But it suggests to me that she’s out to cadge free food. The historic method of payment on the part of The Daily News kind of encourages that. I mean, I don’t know whether this is true today, but it used to be, for example, when Jim Leff worked for them for a while—they pay you a lump sum and your expenses come out of the lump sum, so it’s incumbent on you to spend as little as possible. I presume that part of her being non-anonymous is that she goes into a restaurant under her own name, flashes her cleavage, and they just bring her free food. I mean, unless she says something to contradict that, I have no reason to believe that she pays for everything she eats. Which is horrible; I mean, you absolutely can have no trust in her judgments. Because what they serve her is not going to be what they serve Joe Schmo going in there. I hope I’m not being too cruel.
Well, you’re on the opposite end of the anonymity scale, so I think your opinion is an important one.
There’s plenty of places for non-anonymous food reporters, and stuff, but she has claimed to be a critic.
Right. And you think she’s out of line?
Yeah, I mean, it’s also so self-aggrandizing, I mean—really.
Whose writing or palate do you really like and respect? Do you like Peter Meehan, the “$25 and Under” columnist at the New York Times who is sort of your counterpart?
I worship him. I think he’s absolutely great, I think he’s fantastic—certainly one of my favorite writers, and [I] look forward to meeting him. I was heartbroken when the Times cut him back to one piece every other week—all I can say is, are they out of their fucking minds? I mean, really. We’re in a situation where the economy is going down the toilet, the number of people who can afford to spend $200 or $300 on a meal every night is dwindling, and yet the Times is pitching their whole goddamn section towards them. Frankly, Peter Meehan’s piece should be as big as Bruni’s, and above it.
Photo courtesy of Robert Sietsema
