Dubbed the “world’s most opinionated food critic”, Steve Plotnicki is in hot water, to put it lightly.
Photo: Steve Plotnicki via Facebook
His recent comments on Israeli-Palestinian war have sparked controversy and led a few restaurants and diners, chefs and people in food to boycott the popular guide founded by him — OAD. Opinionated About Dining is followed by thousands of food lovers around the world, and is compiled by more than 200,000 reviews contributed by some 6,000+ people from all over the world, including top chefs, food journalists and influencers.
For months, Plotnicki has been sharing controversial opinions on his social media, which largely went unnoticed until Matt Goulding, co-creator of the Apple TV series “Omniverse” shared several Instagram stories denouncing what “is absolutely horrible”. Goulding shared several of Plotnick’s posts, the most controversial one being a response to a tweet. The tweet: “dozens of murders (in Gaza), including children, to save the lives of four Israelis”. Plotnicki’s reply to the tweet, which was “A million (dead) from Gaza for one from Israel would be acceptable to me”, has since been deleted but has been archived by pro-Palestinian accounts.
When contacted by the Spanish magazine Gastro SER, Plotnicki did not deny writing the tweets and said it was a “hyperbolic comment” and justified his response with a few more comments.
The food critic, who is Jewish and of Polish origin, and lives in the United States, also claimed that his father was the only member of the family who survived the Holocaust. “Although I do not wish any harm to anyone, I believe that the Jews must do everything possible to protect themselves from their enemies.”
A few former collaborators of the OAD guide have already distanced themselves from Plotnicki and his statements. They have issued a statement where they assure that for them “all lives matter”, and have decided to no longer contribute their opinions to the guide, using the hashtags “#notinourname” and “#alllivesmatter”.
In Thailand, former Asia’s No.1 Le Du has asked to stop appearing on the OAD list. Guru By Bangkok Post spoke to chef-patron Thitid “Ton” Tassanakajohn, who said, “I became aware of Plotnicki’s tweets through an article and then saw a few food journalists in Europe post about it. I looked into it and decided that it wasn’t right. Of course, we aren’t taking any sides because the war is bad for everyone, but we cannot have such thinking in food communities. Especially when one of the influencers that you know, who owns a list, says something like this. This is too hateful and unacceptable. They should have nothing to do with that.
“This is the reason why we have asked for Le Du to be taken off the list and guide. But we have not heard back from OAD.”
At the time of publication, Le Du was the only restaurant in Thailand to make such a request. The other restaurant to make the same request is Souvenir in Belgium.
