Guy Fieri Responds to Infamous NY Times Review: ‘Can’t Make Everybody Happy’

Guy Fieri has become a culinary meme, winning over millions of fans with his love of greasy spoon diners and his “Flavortown” image. But when interviewed by Chris Wallace on the newsman’s HBO Max show, the discussion quickly turned to the most famous of Fieri’s haters.

In 2012, Fieri opened his first New York restaurant, Guy’s American Kitchen and Bar, in Times Square, prompting a review from New York Times food critic Pete Wells that was quickly exalted by both writers and Fieri detractors as a masterpiece.

“Is the entire restaurant a very expensive piece of conceptual art?” Wells wrote. “Is the shapeless, structureless baked alaska that droops and slumps and collapses while you eat it, or don’t eat it, supposed to be a representation in sugar and eggs of the experience of going insane? Why did the toasted marshmallow taste like fish?”

When Wallace brought up the review, apologizing even as he did so, Fieri simply shrugged it off.

“If you’re gonna spend a lot of your time worrying about what other people think of you and what’s going on, then you are really going to lose track of where you’re planning on going and what you’re trying to achieve,” he said. “Can’t sit there make everybody happy, not going around trying to piss people off, but I have an agenda of what I want to do and where I want to go. And I think that’s maybe what more people should do.”

Guy’s American Kitchen and Bar closed its Times Square location in 2017, though it has other locations open in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Boston and other cities. Fieri said the experience of opening that restaurant in one of the world’s most famous tourist spots was still a valuable lesson.

“Did we learn a ton from it? Absolutely. Do we appreciate the opportunity? Without question. Would I ever change it from what’s happened in the past? Never,” he told Wallace.

New episodes of “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace” premiere on HBO Max on Fridays. Watch the video of Fieri responding to his critics in the clip above.

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