Photo credit: Julia Kuzenkov from Pexels
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
After The New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells wrote in favor of restaurant noise on January 22, at least in part a response to a blog post I had sent him a month earlier that he referred to in his fourth paragraph, I heard from a number of my noise contacts around the country.
Mr. Wells didn’t mention my name, but the language he quoted was so familiar to those who know my thoughts about restaurant noise that most of the emails asked, “Dan, was that you?”
Of course it was.
One of my noise contacts suggested writing a letter to the editor. I hadn’t done that because in these days of impeachment trials and global warming and coronavirus, why would a newspaper print a letter about restaurant noise?
But with his encouragement, I did.
My letter didn’t get printed, but this one from former New York Times executive editor Max Frankel did.
It turns out that Mr. Frankel was the one who suggested that food critics write about restaurant noise many years ago.
And Mr. Frankel said exactly what I wanted to say, only so much better!
The headline the Times provided for the letter, “Dining Without the Din,” is a phrase that I will use in the future.
In four words, it captures exactly what I, and most of those commenting on Mr. Wells’ column, want.
