I heard that a food critic (who is British male) made a comment on a dish like this:
It looks very pretty, but it doesn't eat very well.
The expression amazed me as I never knew food can be a subject of verb eat. I couldn't find such a usage in any dictionaries. Is it something poetic rather than correct English?
English is cool, in that words can often be "bent" to suit our purposes.
Context is everything. Can you use food as a subject of the word eat? Sure you can; you just saw it done. But I'm not surprised you heard this obscure usage being uttered by a food critic. It's their job to eat, taste, and comment, and they will form their sentences accordingly.
I found a similar usage in the comments of a wine critic:
On the second night the wine seemed to offer up even more dark fruit, suggesting that a year or so in bottle may deliver even more. This is not to say that the wine doesn't drink well now – compared to a few of the 2007 Cotes du Rhones I have had, this wine does not show too much heat or acidity at this stage.
I agree with Ryan's answer above; I, too, would not recommend using this wording too often. After, say, visiting a McDonald's, you probably don't want to say:
The French fries were edible, but the Big Mac didn't eat very well.
no matter how mediocre you found the food – unless you want to sound like a food critic for some reason.
The sentence isn't grammatically flawed, but it's not how most people would say it.
Some verbs are used with 'patient focus'. In the Grammar of Discourse Longacre gives examples such as The article reads smoothly and My new car drives nicely.
It doesn't eat very well appears to be this type of construction, but I have never heard EAT used in this way.
Strictly speaking, this is a structure known in linguistics as "middle voice" (although you don't often see that term used when talking about English grammar). In many languages it's explicitly marked, but in English it usually takes the form of a verb that looks like it's active voice but has passive meaning.
As other people have already said, "the dessert eats well" is grammatical, although for many people sounds a little bit forced. There are, however, plenty of other examples of the middle voice in English where it's alive and well. A simple example:
Active voice: "The ball broke the window" (the ball is subject and is causing the action of breaking)
Passive voice: "The window was broken by the ball"
Middle voice: "The window broke" (the window is subject, but underwent the action of breaking)
Or
Active voice: "The sun melted the ice" (the sun is subject and causing the action of melting)
Passive voice: "The ice was melted by the sun"
Middle voice: "The ice melted" (the ice is subject, but underwent the action of melting)
In each case, the middle voice form is derived from a transitive active voice verb, but with the object of the transitive form being used as the subject of the intransitive middle voice form.
Saying a phrase such as "eats well" is a fairly poetic usage. It is more stylistic of British English than American English. From my American point of view, it sounds a bit awkward. It is a matter of opinion if such a sentence is correct, but in general, I would avoid using the phrase in this way.
On those lines, it irks me to hear someone say "Oh, she takes a good photo!" when what they mean is "She looks good in a photo!"
It is no more strange than to say the food "looks" very pretty. It has no eyes with which to see, or certainly none that remain operational at this point, I hope! I look at the food and behold it to be pretty, so we says it "Looks pretty". "Eats well" is quite parallel, in this sentence.
