JL Patisserie’s influencer saga reveals pay-to-play side of food criticism

A social media influencer named Aurora Griffo, who went by the handle @glamorama, posted a video reviewing the new location of local pastry chef Jenna Leurquin’s JL Patisserie. And, while she had a few nice things to say, she didn’t love it.

But after she posted a video featuring the criticism, the James Beard-nominated pastry chef didn’t take it lying down. She posted her own video on social media pointing out that this influencer had previously reached out to them offering to go easy on her review if they offered her free food.

"So we totally respect a bad review, but what we don't like is lying and bullying. The first thing she said was that our pistachio was so faked. Fun fact. We have right here our pistachio paste that is 100% pistachios from Italy. And this isn't just about me. This specific influencer has gone to many different local restaurants and bullied them," Leurquin said.

"The problem is if the next generation is influenced by her to believe it's OK to bully and disrespect the food industry. My biggest pride in what I've built here isn't just how I source my ingredients, but it's having found the people to be in my team that wake up every day and that care about what we do, our processes, and that work really, really hard to do this," Leurquin said.

That video has now gotten 8.5 million likes and counting. And that influencer has deleted her account, apologized and she told The Arizona Republic she has faced massive backlash since.

It's brought to light a really interesting conversation about food criticism today and the role these social media food influencers play. Kirstie Kimball joined The Show to talk more about it.

Kimball is an independent restaurant critic and food writer in Minnesota who writes on Substack under the name Beyond Beurre Blanc.

Mark Brodie/KJZZ

Full conversation

KIRSTIE KIMBALL: I think this is a difficult conversation because I don't know if the average restaurant or bakery guest is really ready to hear and digest that other influencers do this all of the time, but it's less direct and more implied.

So Aurora really put something in the spotlight that is standard practice for influencers and is why I don't think the average person should trust influencers with their limited funds to spend at restaurants.

So every influencer would deny this when you ask, but very few influencers are going around doing collabs where they get free food and then being balanced about their meals, right. They're going to be really positive. And even fewer of them are posting publicly that those meals are free, which is actually considered taxable income that they don't report and in violation of FTC guidelines.

So, you know, I think that it's hard because Aurora really got a lot of the heat for something that's pretty common, but it's not about her. It's about influencers.

GILGER: Right. And this kind of broader picture of what food criticism even looks like in today's world, right.

KIMBALL: Yes.

GILGER: So you do independent food criticism. There are, you know, traditional food critics working at newspapers or magazines. Those people still exist. And then there are, there is the influencer realm, but there is this kind of growing body of people like you, who kind of do this on Substack or with a blog, and they have their audience fund them.

How do you function in that way?

KIMBALL: Yeah, so my audience totally funds me. I'm 100% reader-funded. So the big difference, I think, between indies like me and legacy press is that, you know, I have to pay out of pocket for my meals. Yeah. And if that meal is just OK, it hurts, right. Because I think about the people who funded me, not my press that has, you know, a pretty big budget for me.

I love legacy press journalism. I think it's so important. But I love independent food criticism because I think we get a little closer to the guest experience when we have to put our card down with our name that's tied to our personal bank account.

GILGER: So that's kind of two ends of the spectrum. But then there's this influencer end of it. You talked about the pay-to-play kind of aspect of this and how this is just how it works. But it sounds like restaurants are sort of in on the game often as well. Is this sort of a poorly kept secret?

KIMBALL: I guess, yeah, I think it's a poorly kept secret. And it's not universal, right. So there are restaurants with PR budgets that sort of do that pay to play. And I'll give an example from my local market. There's a restaurant right now where almost every influencer showed up within the same week. And I was like, "oh, they're getting their meals comped at that restaurant, right."

And when I reached out to influencers, they didn't put ad or paid partnership on their posts, but they said, yes, my meal was comped. And so, you know, I believe them when they say that they had great meals there because the restaurant knew they were coming, right, was able to prep for them, gave them the best server in the house.

But when I went to that restaurant three times, 'cause I am working on a review on that restaurant, my meals there were all bad because nobody knew who I was. And that's a challenge, right. And like, why wouldn't a restaurant put their best foot forward if they know an influencer is coming in?

GILGER: Fair enough, yeah.

KIMBALL: I totally get it. On the other side, though, there are so many restaurants that don't have that PR budget or, you know, like JL Patisserie, didn't want to pay to play, right. And it's hard for them to get noticed if all people are doing is looking at the influencer videos. And I don't think that the average guest realizes that most of what they're seeing is PR funds.

GILGER: OK, so tell us more about the kind of tactics you use, the measures you have gone to to try to remain anonymous. Because it's not like your picture can't be anywhere these days. It's almost nonexistent anymore.

KIMBALL: Right. And I have pink hair. So I'll just say that out there for everybody listening, I have pink hair. And there are things that I do to get around that. I'll use light disguises, which I won't go into. What I do for that gives it away. ... My favorite thing to do is to sit down with a table of my friends after they've already been sat.

So the food's in front of them, and it's hot. I'm in the car. I've been waiting in the car the entire time they've been sitting in the restaurant. And then all of a sudden I appear to see, is this food as good as food I had, you know, when I was here and they knew it was me?

So there's a lot of things that I do that go beyond just I'm sitting in the restaurant trying to be anonymous. I really ask the question, how do I make sure that someone gave me food and didn't know it was coming to me?

GILGER: What do you think this whole debate, though, Kirstie, says about sort of the, the state of restaurant criticism today, like most people are not going to read like an in depth review of a restaurant anymore, are going to even find out about a restaurant they might want to go to because something kind of hits or goes viral or gets buzzy on social media.

KIMBALL: Right. And I think that it's a moment of crisis, right. I call it the hype cycle. And people chase the hype cycle. So instead of going to your favorite restaurant five times a year, you'll go to five different restaurants that are all new. And, you know, new restaurants aren't our best restaurants. And that's not because they won't be one day, maybe, but because a new restaurant is building the plane while flying, right?

GILGER: Yeah.

KIMBALL: And so I think there is a return to wanting to read longer form criticism. And I think the independent critics are proof of that. Because if we all keep looking at the buzzy influencer videos, that's all we're going to get. And if that's all we get, we end up just getting the PR budget restaurants as the main places that we're going to. And we're missing out on huge swaths of, of the restaurants in our city that are worth us going there for dinner.

GILGER: So the last thing I wanted to ask you about is kind of along those lines because one thing I think I'm noticing in our local food scene here in the Valley is that chefs and restaurant owners like JL Patisserie, but I've seen others do this as well, are starting to post kind of light pushback or sometimes pretty strong pushback on these negative reviews from influencers or from people on social media.

Just arguing that, like, you know, keep in mind when you're gonna post something like that, that, that we are people who try really hard at this and that we have, you know, put our livelihood into this place basically. It's like there's a humanity they're asking for, it seems like.

KIMBALL: Yes, 100%. And I think that restaurants deserve that. I think it's really important for influencers and critics to like, look up, right? Not be plate-focused, not just look down, but look up at the restaurant and see the human nature of the people who are working.

And once a month I release a piece that I call a guest education piece that's about like, why does a croissant cost $9 now? And trying to help people be better guests and I have a piece coming up called "Why is my meal taking longer than usual?" to try to create a sense of patience in restaurants when maybe everything is going wrong that night.

And I think if influencers, if critics see the humanity in restaurants and they write about it and they talk about it, they'll have so much more grace from the restaurant industry, too.

Because I've noticed that as I've started doing that and talking about that, people see me as someone who gets what's going on in the restaurant, and I think that that matters a lot. The first thing that you have to do is respect that this is the thing that they have built with their own two hands that they're so proud of.

And then you can come in and say, here's what I think happened at the restaurant, and here's why I think that it happened, and here's what I think they could do better. But it starts with knowing and understanding that this is their everything.