Chronicle restaurant critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan revealed at an event Wednesday night, on stage with predecessor Michael Bauer, that the newspaper was bringing back the star system for reviews, which went away with Bauer. And the first starred review in eight years is of House of Prime Rib.
According to Michael Bauer, who retired after 30 years as the Chronicle's restaurant critic and overall food editor in 2018, the star-rating system that the paper employed during his tenure kept him "honest," because no matter what he wrote, his praise or lack thereof would need to match whatever the ultimate star rating was.
Bauer tended to be a generous and mostly kind critic, which led to Eater nicknaming him "Mikey Two Stars" back in the early days of that site. And it was certainly true that the vast majority of restaurants that received reviews would get two or two and a half stars under his watch.
It's unclear if half stars will be used going forward, but it appears that the new star system at the Chronicle will only give a single star rating — no more separate star ratings for service, atmosphere, and food, plus an overall weighted average, with food counting double.
Fegan's review of House of Prime Rib, which, she notes, arrives one year and one week after the death of the restaurant's longtime owner and exacting taskmaster, Joe Betz, gives the restaurant two stars, indicating a "great" if not always "excellent" restaurant. One star, going forward, means "good," and zero stars means "not recommended." Four stars — which Bauer consistently awarded to the likes of The French Laundry, Chez Panisse, Quince, Benu, and Saison — is reserved for "extraordinary (a singular restaurant by every measure)."
Fegan seemed slightly reluctant to be celebrating the return of star ratings — and she said Wednesday she was "relieved" to hear that Bauer, too, "as a writer," wished that the stars didn't have to be there so that people would read the full review. But Bauer admitted, this is ego-driven, and Fegan conceded as much.
"Perhaps more than ever, readers want help deciding what is worth their time and money," the Chronicle says. "A star rating system give diners an immediate sense of value."
And, like the all-over-the-map Top 100 that Fegan and colleague Cesar Hernandez have produced the past two years, which has some truly baffling choices when it comes to rankings, it sounds like high marks, star-wise, won't be reserved for just the Quinces and Benus of the world, going forward.
"Stars help give diners a common language for comparing restaurants across styles, cuisines and price points," the team writes. "The Michelin-starred tasting menu, the high-concept noodle bar, the taqueria making tortillas from scratch — they can all be equally terrific."
So, I guess this means we can expect some four-star delis and bakeries coming down the pike, but we'll see.
Fegan spends only a minimal amount of column space discussing the quality of the food at The Hopper, as fans have long called it — because we all know what you're getting, and consistency has been a hallmark of the place for its nearly eight decades in business.
"The House of Prime Rib is a Merry Olde England theme restaurant that time forgot, a large-scale catering operation where almost nothing is cooked à la minute, a happiness factory with no surprises where salad forks are chilled and cocktails extra large," Fegan writes, noting that, arguably, the prime rib is even slightly better at nearby Harris’ Restaurant, but that hasn't hurt the Hopper's popularity.
She does note that service, during one meal with a particularly junior server, was off and included a "coarse upsell" on an expensive glass of wine. But overall service was professional and steady, and the experience seems largely unchanged since Betz's passing. She does note, though, that on one visit, the restroom was in some disarray, something that perhaps Betz, who was known to pick errant threads out of the carpet himself, would never have allowed.
The revival of the star system should bring back some controversy and competitiveness on the restaurant scene — especially if Fegan and Hernandez pick up the pace with covering new openings. As Bauer noted on stage Wednesday, he used to do three reviews a week by himself — a new restaurant and two updates of previously reviewed spots — while editing reviews from others. And at one point, he said, when the paper had county-specific sections, they were publishing nine reviews per week. Fegan and food editor Janelle Bitker balked at this, despite Fegan saying that she eats out about five nights per week, and goes to several lunches per week as well — and this has still only yielded about one new restaurant review per month, with another coming from Hernandez. (To be fair, Fegan is only recently back from her second maternity leave.)
Fegan's most scathing reviews of the last couple years have been of Tosca Cafe — as one of her early reviews on the job in 2024, Fegan noted in the headline, "SF’s historic Tosca Cafe was my favorite restaurant in America. What happened to it?" — and the now shuttered Park Tavern, with Hernandez's recent (arguably unfair) takedown of JouJou coming in a close third. Would JouJou then, given the tone of the review, not even garner a single star for its French-California brasserie menu and solid service? We'll never know.
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