LETTER- Let's not eat like family

Where did this lunacy come from that restaurants should treat us as "family?" [August 11 Food: "Keaveny's dream: Belmont welcomes Tavola"]

When I eat with family, I eat for free. When I'm paying, I expect to be treated as a guest. Today's restaurant writers and novice owners show no awareness of that. It's like no one but proletarians exist. The best restaurants get snubbed; the boorish are awash in praise.

In my opinion, 9 in 10 restaurants gushed over in the the Hook serve pathetic, sometimes insane, concoctions from self-styled chefs in humdrum surroundings that probably should be condemned. Week after week, we read glowing, undeserved praise for some untested dump where the chairs rock that opened in a converted outhouse in Belmont, while the area's truly superb restaurants, Tastings and Clifton Inn are two of many example, are ignored.

Can the Hook do better?

Rey Barry
Charlottesville

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