The Most Memorable Pieces by Pete Wells

As The New York Times’s restaurant critic for the last dozen years, Pete Wells has reported from the dining-room trenches on a changing industry. When he started the job in late 2011, old-guard restaurants like Le Cirque and the Four Seasons were still humming, with the help of expense-account diners. The #MeToo movement and the pandemic, which reshaped restaurant kitchens, were years away.

Pete has explored the five boroughs and far beyond, as the Food desk’s coverage of restaurants widened its scope. He noted the rise in food halls in New York, and the city’s vast wealth of Chinese restaurants. He is on a seemingly endless quest for ceviche. (If you’re curious about his process, listen to him on this episode of “The Daily” and learn why he always packs a notebook.)

Here are 21 pieces that show the sweep and depth of his criticism.

Pete Wells’s First Starred Review

Wong, ★★, 2012

His first column as restaurant critic took him to an Asian fusion restaurant from the chef Simpson Wong, where the duck-fat ice cream and duck-tongue meatballs brought smiles of pleasant surprise.

Finding New York’s Hidden Gems

Forever Jerk, multiple locations, 2021

Pete followed the flavor, often to Queens, for long-simmered West African delights, Egyptian specialty sandwiches and roasted cold noodles. To find Forever Jerk, he stalked a smoke trail to a stretch of Flatlands Avenue, where Oneil Reid, the chef and owner, has set up one of three Forever Jerk stands in the city. (Pete gave no stars to restaurants he reviewed during the pandemic. “Formerly,” he told readers, “I tried to make the stars reflect how close any given restaurant came to being an ideal version of itself. But in the pandemic, there were no ideal restaurants, only places that were making it up as they went along.”)

A Sri Lankan Favorite on Staten Island

Lakruwana, ★, 2013

Lakruwana began its life in Times Square, but a fire drove it to Staten Island, where the Sunday buffet has become one of legend. “Lakruwana may be New York’s most elaborate realization of the immigrant restaurateur’s dream: a shrine to another culture that can soothe homesickness in some patrons and kindle a thrilling sense of discovery in others.”