The Creepy Misogyny of NYT Restaurant Critic Frank Bruni

Today’s NYT features a review by “Frank Bruni” of the restaurant at the Penthouse Executive club entitled: “Where Only the Salad Is Properly Dressed.” He claims to like the steak there, but the entire article is a platform for his sexist comedic stylings, such as lines like this:

The men who actually wait on the tables are less attentive and personable than the women who hover around them (and, it should be noted, vanish quickly if shooed away). The prices of some dishes, pumped up to reflect the entertainment on hand, might also be called topless.

And this:

Meet Foxy. When I visited Robert’s on Valentine’s Day in a mixed-gender group (not all that unusual at the restaurant), she approached our table to hawk neck and shoulder massages, also $20 apiece.

“Foxy,”I began, then stopped myself, wondering if I was being too familiar.”Are you and I on a first-name basis, or should I address you as Ms. Foxy?”

“You can call me Dr. Foxy,”she said.

“Is that an M.D. or a Ph.D.?”

“Yes,”she answered.

The doctor coated her hands with moisturizer and, less seductively, antibacterial gel. She knows how to make a guy feel special.

The guy in question was one of my companions, whose collar she had already spread so she could get at his skin. She told us that she used to work at Scores, a disclosure that raised an interesting question. Is there a strip club arc of professional advancement, with the Hooters overachievers graduating to Scores and the Scores valedictorians to the Penthouse Executive Club?

And what’s after that? A cameo on Howard Stern’s show?

But it was in captioning the accompanying photographic slide show entitled “Two Kinds of Flesh” that Bruni reveals his true opinions of women who work at the restaurant. Here are a few examples:

Bruni caption: “SHE NEEDS A STEAK . . . OR A SWEATER A dancer at the Penthouse Executive Club.”

Bruni caption: “Here’s the possibly perfect meal at Robert’s: a porterhouse, rare or medium-rare by the looks of it, with the fat, crunchy onion rings. Look at that meat. On the plate, I mean. You can see how nicely charred it is on the outside, how soft and red within. It takes an impressive steak to rivet a photographer’s attention from the scene to the cuisine. This one succeeded.”

Bruni caption: “What I really want to do is direct.”

Bruni caption: “A scene from the Penthouse Executive Club, a casting call for the sequel to “Showgirls” or Britney’s latest night on the town? You decide.”

Yet another reason to be a vegetarian.

–Ann Bartow