Stories from the table

The AJC has a “star” system for reviewing restaurants. Food and Dining Editor Ligaya Figueras and colleagues Elizabeth Lenhard and Wyatt Williams use these guidelines from the AJC’s dining blog:

I’d rushed home early from work that Friday after a long week. I picked up my daughter and headed to the restaurant.

Our instructions, from our dining companion, were clear:

“Let’s meet tonight at 7 p.m. Wait for me in the reception/entry area as opposed to taking a seat if you get there first,” her note said. “Keep in mind, we have to do our best to be anonymous. So don’t do anything that would call attention to the table. Don’t ask for special service. I’ve gone through the menu so I already have an idea of what we should order.”

This was not a typical weekend dining experience. We’d been invited to participate in reviewing a restaurant by the AJC’s food and dining editor.

Ligaya Figueras, who joined us in September, is preoccupied with her anonymity, among other things. You can add thoroughness, fairness, accuracy, quality and diversity.

And if you’re among Atlanta’s “foodie” crowd, you know that she hit the ground running when she arrived. Her work at AJC.com, MyAJC.com, on our Atlanta restaurants blog and in print has been so prolific — including our fall dining guide — that she’s hard to keep up with.

She has one of our highest-profile and important roles at the AJC, leading our food and dining coverage along with other writers and reviewing restaurants herself.

Her goal?

“In short, we want The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to be your source for food news,” she said. “It’s a tall order and, like low-and-slow ‘cue, it’ll take a bit of time to cook, but we’ll make sure it’s worth the wait and that you come back for more.”

The role of food editor is a demanding job, and with metro Atlanta’s thriving restaurant scene, the work gets a lot of scrutiny.

I know what you’re thinking. What a great job. You get to eat for a living, and then write about it. The AJC pays for all of your dinners. What could be better?

Well, I found out that there’s more to it than that; it takes a lot of work and talent. And maybe it sounds more glamorous than it is.

(And we do pay for the meals when Figueras and our other writers review restaurants. It comes down to journalistic ethics: we won’t accept free meals, and noting the cost of a restaurant is a crucial point of information for our readers and users.)

On the night I joined Figueras, the hottest topic at our table — besides the food — was whether we’d been recognized. I feared we stood out as untypical diners.

First, we each ordered something different, and then shared, as Figueras requires. My daughter, who is in graduate school to be a dietitian, was convinced that gave us away.

I brought a notebook, but my daughter recognized that was a dead giveaway so she ordered me not to pull it out to take notes. (Figueras uses her iPhone to take notes with amazing dexterity.) We also took pictures of the food – but based on even occasional spins through my Facebook feed, that wouldn’t give us away. Everyone seems to post pictures of food.

My theory? By the end of the meal the staff figured out we were from the AJC because of all the questions we asked — and because we ordered glasses of wine (all different) instead of a bottle.

It didn’t really matter. We focused on the food and the experience.

Figueras skillfully drew us out. How did we like this or that, she asked. What dish did we like best and why? The least favorite and why? She explained this restaurant’s goals, and then went about measuring it against them.

I probably scored a few points with my daughter, Erin, as well.

“If you put a steak in front of me, I could tell you the different nutrient components in it, how your body digests them, absorbs them, and finally uses them. I could not tell you how the steak was cooked or how it was seasoned,” she said. “That’s why it was so interesting to eat with a food critic. I tend to see food through a nutritional perspective, Ligaya focuses on the cooking methods, seasoning, and pairing of foods.”

“I’ve never thought so deeply about how food was paired together on a plate and all the seasonings used.”

Figueras’ standards for restaurants are high. And so are the ones she has for herself and our coverage. (She actually assigned us “homework” in advance of our meal. I’m the boss after all.)

Among other things, the AJC’s coverage adheres to the guidelines of the Association of Food Journalists.

“Our goals are to be fair, to be honest, to understand and illuminate the cuisine we are writing about and to look beyond specific dishes and experiences to capture the whole of a restaurant and its intentions,” Figueras said. “However, we do have one more goal: To present this information in a way that is engaging. Quality, engaging prose can and should live on the page with criticism that is fair, accurate and unbiased.”

So why do through all of this trouble? We believe this coverage is a crucial piece of what the AJC offers you as a customer of ours.

While it can be tough on restaurant owners and chefs, we want you to rely on us for information to make your decisions about where to eat. To do that, we want the restaurant experience of journalists to be the as close as possible to the one you’ll have.

That’s not easy. But it sure helps to have someone as committed as Ligaya Figueras.

And how many stars will the restaurant we visited that night get?

Figueras ate at the restaurant again, as she always does, before deciding. And we’ve talked and exchanged emails, so I know she’s thinking hard about it.

I’m awaiting her conclusion too. It will be online and in the newspaper soon.