The food is fine, but what about the wine? A critique of the restaurant critic

Restaurants, in all their totality, are a form of improbable magic. In the best of cases, they’re the antidote to real life: dimly lit rooms buoyed by the current of disparate conversations, removed from the noise of the outside world, where sensory pleasure is delivered on silver platters, glasses are never emptied, and someone else handles washing the dishes.
Needless to say, the escapist grandeur of that dining experience is the sum of many parts. Yes, at the forefront, there’s th