I like print. I'm in the magazine business myself, so when I heard there was a new Stamford magazine in the works (to be published by Moffly Media), I thought, "Hey! Print! Stamford! Sign me up."
I have the premiere issue. It's certainly pretty. Very glossy, some great photography and illustration. And kudos to Moffly for having the cojones to launch a print magazine about affluence in this day and age!
But I wasn't really thinking, I guess, when I subscribed. I'm not exactly Moffly's target demographic. I'm not going to drool over pages and pages of photos of people attending benefits. Personally, I'd rather read about the agencies and organizations that the benefits are benefitting; they strike me as more interesting than the photos of the smiling, well-turned-out people who are chit-chatting and sipping beverages on their behalf. But that's not Moffly's beat. And I'm not going to earmark the page that tells me where I can buy a $1,850 mirror. And that's what Moffly's magazines are all about: celebrating luxury, high-end, affluent lifestyles.
I was hoping, I suppose, that their Stamford offering would be a tad grittier than its sister publications—much like Stamford itself. And there's a bit of grit here and there, such as a piece on the talk shows taking over the Stamford Center for the Arts building.
There's a nice piece about the future of downtown, but it's just that ... nice. A little too nicey-nice, at that. Nothing too insightful delivered, nothing too controversial explored.
My favorite piece by far was a department offering entertaining tips from Marcia Selden Catering. That's a great way to utilize local businesses in a magazine such as this, and I look forward to seeing future iterations of this department.
I liked the section that showed Stamford's best destinations (though wondered if they gave up too much too soon), but a final page of "Fab Finds" would have been much more interesting and serviceable if all the "finds" had been found in Stamford. (Two out of six were local.)
The part I really disliked was a guide to restaurants. It felt very slapped together and generic. Worse, it was out of date. Here's their take on one pizza restaurant:
John's Best Pizza, 495 Hope Street: "This old fashioned Italian staple is rarely seen without a line of cars winding around the lot waiting to pick up a box of the smoky wood crusted pizza."
John's Best has been gone from that location for what, a year? Two years?
And then the cheery nicey-niceness continues:
Quattro Regali, 245 Hope Street: "Noted for its cozy atmosphere, this restaurant offers up authentic Italian cuisine that rivals any Italian restaurant in Stamford. Everyone in your party will find something they love..."
Wow. Because the last time I was there, a month ago, I sat on a dusty, musty banquette and ate the most oily, foul pasta dish I've ever come across ... the kind of simple pasta dish that would be really difficult to get wrong, and yet they did. Anyway, it's moot, because (thankfully) Quattro Regali is gone now, too.
If you're going to promise "the highest quality coverage in ... dining" and celebrate "the best of what life has to offer," at least get the restaurant stuff right.
Oh, well. It's their first effort. Let's see where it goes from here. If it were my magazine, which it is not, I'd say: sharpen the focus on the local, really try to capture the culture of this unique city, and more grit/less fawning.
