As a fitting way to start The Golden Dish and its new life under my own banner, I think that this is the time to clear the air once and for all about The Honey Paw brouhaha. Sometimes it’s best to let the dead rest in peace rather than opening up old wounds. But this was such an extraordinary event—both personally and professionally—that I’d like to have the last word.

The art of dining with civility in big city restaurants

The art of dining with civility in big city restaurants

I wasn’t particularly happy with the coverage that my former press lord, The Portland Press Herald, published concerning the event. It merely made it worse, plunging me into a hot bath of bad publicity.

The truth is I wasn’t going to write about the restaurant, as requested, but when I was threatened so fiercely by The Honey Paw triumvirate, I felt differently. I told the editors about the event and they were outraged by anyone trying to censure the news, whether the dimly lit travails of restaurant critiques to more important news coverage about world catastrophes and joys that are much more important than this bit of trivial pursuits. So they told me that it was up to me whether write the review and if there was the threatened ban they would make it a front-page story.

That they did. There was so much interest in the piece that their website nearly crashed. This was the biggest story they ran since the bombing of Pearl Harbor or the start of the Great Depression of 1929.
Pretty ridiculous, no? But Portland is, after all, a small place and the greater world is so much bigger; the tickets to birth and background can be fleeting and here they seemed to be flung from the window like a kettle filled with old fish.

What follows is my confutation of the events that followed.

I’ve spent thousands of dollars eating at their restaurants, even paying $15 for a cup of coffee merely to experience what such an outrageously priced mug of java tastes like.
But they think I have too much personality and not enough professionalism to write about food and dining in the little town of Portland. And for that they wanted to put me in my place, with an omnipotent sweep of authority, an as-of-right slight.

Here’s what happened. I had a very nice lunch with my friend George at The Honey Paw on the day that it opened only to be followed out by co-owner Arlin Smith. He asked to speak to me, which I thought was odd since he’s never been a warm and cozy type of guy.

It was obvious that I was there to write about the restaurant as I took photos of the food (and returned five other times before putting pen to paper).

“We respectfully ask that you don’t write about us.”

“Why? “ I asked, thoroughly taken aback.

He responded, “We don’t want you to represent us.”

“Represent you? I repeated, thinking what an odd phrase. “I don’t represent you or any other restaurant. I’m here as a critic, no more no less,” I responded, thinking of how I’ve written about them in such glowing terms so many times.

“We don’t want you to represent us, “he repeated. Again I asked why.

“Well, there was the line about the hat.”

“You mean calling Andrew Taylor the ‘hat model’? It was meant as a joke. I thought he looked cute in that bright orange hat.

“We were horrified,” Smith said.

I couldn’t help but get a little agitated and responded, “Horrified? War, cancer, death—those are horrifying incidents. You’re being ridiculous.”

Then he said, “If you write about us we’ll ban you from our restaurants.”

Meanwhile my friend George was standing nearby overhearing all this. Talk about the horrified look on his face!

So I said to Smith, “Perhaps I should write about this exchange instead.”

At which point Smith warned in a threatening tone, summoning up his large frame ready for attack, “If you do that then we’ll really get you.” And then he warned that I shouldn’t repeat this conversation to anyone.
I think I’ve just been threatened. I walked away from this inane conversation.

So they don’t like me. I’m not so crazy about the trio either who strut around their three restaurants, The Honey Paw, Eventide and Hugo’s with their holier than thou attitudes that only today’s wave of 30-somethings with their sense of entitlement can display.

The problem is the food is so good and for a restaurant maven such as myself it’s very tempting to partake in whatever they dish out. Though their kitchens are not infallible. I had a particularly bad dinner a while ago at Eventide. The line cook messed up totally in preparing one of the dishes and when I brought it up to the waitress she merely shrugged as if to say, “We can do no wrong.”


There are many chefs and restaurateurs in town who manage to run their kitchens and restaurants with aplomb, dignity and humility. And I’ve been their biggest proponents ever ready with praise because they are so good. But these three—Smith, Wiley and Taylor–well, you know the expression: “Our (bleep) doesn’t smell.”