I refer to Mr. Kevin Sedgwick’s letter which appeared in the Compass on Tuesday, 5 June, and was written in response to a review of Pappagallos that appeared some time earlier in Cayman Net News and although I have not read the review referred to, I would like to add my own thoughts based on the facts as presented by Mr. Sedgwick.
My husband and I are frequent visitors to Pappagallos and it has long been one of our favourite restaurants on the Island. There are many reasons for this some of which are, the extremely high standard of service, the food itself which is always consistently excellent, not an easy thing to achieve on an Island where the majority if not all of your raw ingredients are imported, and lastly, the fabulous surroundings.
In my experience you’d really have to be trying very hard to have a terrible time at Pappagallos so I must congratulate the CNN restaurant critic for his efforts.
I find it appalling that he and his party would firstly announce their arrival – if he is taking his job seriously, he should not only remain anonymous but should eat there a number of times before extolling the virtues or otherwise – I would recommend he read a book called Garlic & Sapphires by Ruth Reichl who was the restaurant critic for the New York Times for many years – specifically because she goes into great detail about the disguises she employed to ensure her anonymity so that her reviews were always true – in addition she specifically makes mention of attending each restaurant many times before putting pen to paper – some food for thought!
Secondly, that he should turn up an hour late and complain that his table hadn’t been kept waiting for him is quite astonishing – he was lucky to have a table at all.
In addition, on an Island where the majority of the kitchens close at 10pm to show up to do a review of a restaurant at the end of the evening and more importantly to try none of the appetizers and/or desserts and/or wines (I’m sure Gerardo has been tested many times in the past and can recommend a meaty red that would compliment even an overdone steak) is also quite astonishing.
In light of the above, I do wish to state that this is not a personal attack on the restaurant critic but it is a personal recommendation to anyone out there who is considering making the journey to Pappagallos – I would simply like to state that every restaurant in every corner of the world has it’s off days but in my years of dining at Pappagallos I have yet to experience one and would highly recommend that each person out there makes up his or her own mind before taking the CNN review to heart.
Tara Hopwood
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