Chronicle Launches a Bizarre Top 25 That Will Be Updated Quarterly, Kind of Like the Eater 38
It s seemingly been a struggle for the Chronicle food department and restaurant critic Soleil Ho in assuming the albatross of Michael Bauer s Top 100 list ever since Bauer retired and Ho took his place. And now, a decision has been made to scrap it in favor of a more dynamic, briefer list.
Bauer himself was fond of discussing the burdens of the Top 100, a popular and annually updated list covering the entire Bay Area that he first created in the early 1990s, and for which he spent a good part of his year doing research via revisits to old favorite restaurants and newly added ones of recent years alike. In addition to having to jettison classic Bay Area staples in favor of newcomers, Bauer ultimately complained of the arbitrariness of the 100-restaurant limit that was his own creation, especially as the Bay Area food scene truly came into its own in the early part of the 2010s.