After NYT lashing, Guy Fieri needs to step up his PR game

The New York Times savaged the celebrity chef’s new restaurant, prompting a satisfactory response on ‘Today’ show. Too bad he didn’t go far enough.

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So when the food critic from the vaunted New York Times wrote a deliciously scathing review of Fieri’s Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar restaurant in Times Square last week, it caused an online firestorm of supporters and detractors that continues today.

The review by Times critic Pete Wells was written as a series of questions directed at Fieri. It opened with “GUY FIERI, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square?”

And followed up with other questions such as “Were you struck by how very far from awesome the Awesome Pretzel Chicken Tenders are?” and “Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?”

The review was covered in journalism trade pubs, including Poynter.org, which interviewed other food critics to see if they thought it was fair. Most agreed it was.

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