On 9 April 2017, The Observer 's restaurant critic Jay Rayner visited Le Cinq, a three-Michelin star restaurant in Paris. He visited with the intention of writing an observational piece on how expensive some restaurants were, as he had been irritated by people complaining about the cost of eating out, and described his experience as by far the worst of his 18-year career, exacerbated by the earnestness of the waitstaff. His review went viral and was praised by writers from Vox and Vice , though many reviewers from French outlets criticised Rayner. Eater subsequently listed the review on their The Best Bad Restaurant Reviews of 2017 listicle.
Jay Rayner became The Observer's restaurant critic in 1999; [1] by April 2017, his reviews for the platform were averaging 60,000 views. [2] After tiring of people complaining about the cost of eating out, he visited the three Michelin starred Paris restaurant Le Cinq with the intention of writing an observational piece on how expensive some restaurants were. [3] His review described the restaurant as decorated in "various shades of taupe, biscuit, and fuck you", with thick carpet to "muffle the screams", [3] and featured press shots supplied by the restaurant throughout as the restaurant had not allowed The Observer to photograph their food. [3] According to his review, what Rayner ate included the following: [4]
He described his €600 experience as "by far the worst restaurant experience I have endured in my 18 years in this job", [7] exacerbated by the earnestness of the waitstaff, [8] and wrote that he had been left with unpleasant memories he would be lucky to forget about. [3] He also criticised the restaurant for giving his female companion a menu without prices [9] and ended the review with several iPhone pictures of what he ate, which also appeared on his website. [3] Rayner's review went viral [5] and received around 3,000 comments within three days; [6] the extra traffic caused his website to crash. [5] By 17 May, the review had been viewed more than 2,000,000 times and he had been dubbed "the world's most feared food critic". [2] Rayner subsequently published to Twitter an itemised receipt. [7]
The review was described by Vox as "a glorious 'the Emperor has no clothes' exercise", [10] while Vice described it as "worth a read, in a craning-your-neck-to-look-at-a-very-expensive-car-crash kind of way" [6] and the Sydney Morning Herald described his images as depicting "piles of slime on plates". [3] However, Libération 's Elvira von Bardeleben felt Rayner was hypocritical for criticising the restaurant's opulence given that he had dined there for that reason [11] and dismissed his review as contrarianism, [8] while François-Régis Gaudry accused Rayner of bitterness and Alice Bosio of Le Figaro described Rayner's critique as a "diatribe as violent as it is a caricature". [6] A source close to the restaurant's head chef described Rayner's review as "rich bashing". [11]
The review was listed by Eater on their "The Best Bad Restaurant Reviews of 2017" listicle [12] and included in Rayner's 2018 book Wasted Calories and Ruined Nights, a compendium of 20 of Rayner's negative reviews. [1] In the foreword to that book, he explained that he had written the review because he had been made "eye-gougingly, bone-crunchingly, teeth-grindingly angry" by the experience, so much so that it made him wonder what he could do to Le Cinq with "a can of kerosene and a box of matches". [13] The review was described in 2023 by Sean Thomas of The Spectator as "one of the most famous British restaurant reviews of the last decade". [14]