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There were no great insights, but it was fun to read. Bruni apparently learned that waiting tables is a lot more difficult than he thought. At least he didn't hesitate to admit that he was not very good at it. My favorite part was the slang:

As several folks have noted, once you're in Manhattan, you're never really that far from anything. But if you want great food within walking distance, the two most restaurant-packed neighborhoods that are also great places to live are the Upper East Side and Greenwich Village. Which one to choose is largely a matter of the "vibe" that you prefer. I would personally choose the UES, as it tends to be quieter and more refined. The Upper West Side comes in a respectable third, but that neighborhood has long been regarded as less interesting from a fine dining point of view. Fat Guy is certainly correct that there are more ultra-luxe restaurants in the vicinity of Central Park South than anywhere else. But I'm guessing that even those with unlimited resources don't choose to dine that way all the time. Mind you, if money were truly no object, I'd certainly consider it.

Early photos can be found here.

Eater reports that Landmarc will be opening a branch at the Time-Warner center. We already know that former Windows on the World chef Michael Lomonaco will be opening a steakhouse in the former V Steakhouse space. So presumably Landmarc II will go in the space that Charlie Trotter once planned to occupy. This appears to satisfy the management's long-standing and amply documented intention to bring in a more casual restaurant at a lower price point.

I was surprised to find this morning that mine was the last post on the BLT Fish thread—eight months ago! I returned to BLT Fish last night with one of the two colleagues who joined me there last May. Andrea Strong reported yesterday that Laurent Tourondel's next venture is a branch of BLT Steak in Washington, D.C. Based on last night's performance, Mr. Tourondel needs to spend more time minding the store back home. Two years into the experiment, the BLT schtick is starting to wear awfully thin. I believe BLT restaurants aspire to serve three-star food, and there is at least a colorable argument that they do so. Why, then, are they so determined to dumb down the ambiance? Naturally, the noise level is almost deafening. The menu is printed on loose sheets of paper, plus a separate loose sheet itemizing the raw bar, plus a separate loose sheet with "highlights" of the wine list, plus the wine list itself in a leather-bound book. All of those loose sheets are obviously printed cheaply, and not meant to last. So you'd at least like to think that they are up-to-date, but alas, they are not. The waiter recites a long list of specials. It is black truffle season, and several of the specials include that ingredient, but it's more extra information than I can keep in my head, so I order off the printed menu. (I also presume, given the BLT franchise's propensity for upselling, that those truffle specials are more expensive than the rest of the menu, but our server doesn't mention prices.) To start, we ordered a pound of Alaskan king crab legs to share. For the entrée, I ordered the Alaskan black cod with honey glazing, while my colleague ordered a Chatham cod special that the server had mentioned. We also ordered two side dishes (mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts). A long wait ensued. My colleague saw a tray of crab legs on the kitchen counter. He thought, "Surely those must be ours." Ten or fifteen minutes went by, but those crab legs remained on the counter, unclaimed. Finally, we asked our server what was going on. A team of BLT staff now descended on us with the crab legs, our entrées, and the side dishes—all at once. But it gets worse than that. Instead of an order of the Alaskan black cod and the Chatham cod, the kitchen had prepared two orders of the Alaskan black cod. My colleague pointed out the slip. After a conference, the staff announced that they are all out of the Chatham cod—a daily special, I remind you—but would he like the halibut? Well, what could he say? I ate my Alaskan black cod, and he snacked on the crab legs, while they prepared the halibut. Later on, he ate the halibut while I watched. You'd think they couldn't mess up anything more, but they managed it. The server forgot to offer us a bread service. The crab legs came without the usual miniature forks for prizing the meat out of the shell. The side dishes arrived without serving spoons. The amuses-bouches came with disposable wooden forks—they can't run the dishwasher? Earlier on, they had taken my coat, and promised to return with a claim ticket. The claim ticket never arrived. When I left, we had to turn on the bright lights in the check room and rummage around for my coat. Luckily, the place wasn't packed. And luckily, I had a distinctive scarf that set my gray wool coat apart from the many others like it. To their credit, the staff was aware of the more egregious of their sins, and tried to make amends. We were served dessert wines for free, and my colleague's entrée was taken off the bill. But of other sins the restaurant is apparently out-of-touch: the cheap outdated paper menus, missing/wrong utensils, and so forth. For all that, the food was great. I would happily eat the honey-glazed Alaskan black cod every day. The side dishes were wonderful, as they always are at BLT restaurants. Dessert (bread pudding) was excellent. The sommelier was knowledgeable, and recommended a terrific pinot noir. But service and ambiance count, and the lapses here were too many to forgive. Laurent Tourondel's cuisine deserves a far better setting.

FG, as I recall your description of the blue foot chicken dish, the kitchen rolled out an entire chicken, when was then carved up for two people. I've just taken another look at Ellen's photos, which confirm this. The portion we had the other night, although wonderful, was clearly much less than a whole chicken between us. So perhaps the reason the tableside carving has been abandoned is that they're now splitting one bird among a larger number of customers?

That presumes that ADNY went anywhere that it had to come back from. As I've been there only once, I'm in no position to judge, but there are some who argue that its standards have remained high, and it is only the whims of certain critics that have changed.

I had been waiting for a special occasion to visit Alain Ducasse. That occasion presented itself yesterday, and my friend and I had a grand time. The experience was, if not perfect, certainly extraordinary—the definition of four stars, if ever there was. I've seen many photographs of the room, but they fail to do it justice. It is creative, comfortable and luxurious, without being over-the-top. The exposed kitchen surprised me. Obviously there are plenty of open kitchens at fine restaurants in New York, but here it seemed slightly out-of-place. ADNY virtually defines extraordinary service. One could give a thousand examples, but what especially impressed me is that our coats were taken when we arrived without a check ticket, and were ready for us when we left. Somehow, the staff is able to keep track of every coat and has telepathic insight when you are ready to leave. Your options at ADNY are a three-course meal at $150, four courses at $175, the seven-course tasting menu at $225, or the six-course tuber melanosporum (black truffle) tasting at $290. We chose the four-course meal ($175 plus supplements), which offers one appetizer, a fish course, a meat course, and dessert. ADNY tries mightily to tempt you with the truffle menu. Before we ordered, a member of staff brought around a box of several enormous black truffles in a bed of rice. I was encouraged to pick one up and take a whiff, which I did. We had already decided on the four-course, but we were still going to see truffles later on. The water service might be seen as an attempt at upselling. Almost every starred restaurant tries to entice you to purchase bottled water, but at ADNY a water sommelier comes along with five waters for you to choose from. However, or request for tap water was heeded graciously. I was beginning to wonder if attempts to pad the bill were going to take over, but I asked the wine sommelier either to recommend a single bottle in the $150-200 range, or wines by the glass paired with each course. He was happy to do either, and I was happy to find that the paired wines came in at only $140, below the bottom end of my stipulated range. Our service began with two wonderful gougères and an amuse of seared tuna with pureed celery root. There was a choice selection of warm bread, of which an olive roll was especially memorable, along with two fresh butters (one salted, one not). For the appetizer, I chose the butternut squash ravioli, celery "moustarda di cremona", and sage emulsion, a complex dish that is difficult to explain. More straightforward, but no less superb, was my friend's foie gras terrine, with mango chutney sandwiched by layers of foie. I had no firm idea about the fish course, but I chose the Chatham cod, which includes "fennel—some braised, others raw—Taggiasca tapenade, and clear essence." I reasoned that as this dish is part of the tasting menu, the chef must be rather pleased with it. It was, of course, impeccably prepared, but utterly unadventurous, and in the end unacceptably dull. My friend made the happier choice: poached Maine lobster with truffles ($35 supp.), which she pronounced superb. She must be getting to know me pretty well, as she said, "I took one look at that cod, and could tell you weren't going to love it." I'd heard rave reviews of the blue foot chicken ($35 supp.), which we both had. This dish is a truffle orgy, with truffles both under the skin and all over the plate. The raves are entirely justified; it was outstanding. Another dish everyone raves about is "Monsieur Ducasse's favorite dessert," Baba Monte-Carlo style, with rum of your choice. A server comes around with a tray of five rums. You choose one, and it is poured into a small copper cup. You also receive a bit of the rum in a snifter. The Baba comes out in a sterling silver bowl that must have been custom-made for Ducasse, as I've never seen anything like it. Your server slices the cake in half, pours the rum over its innards, then ladles on heapings of cream. If there's a better dessert in New York, I can't imagine it. We were not finished yet, as the kitchen sent out a small serving of sorbet as a palate cleanser. Then, a cart comes out with more sweets, of which you may choose as many as you please. (I had the vanilla panna cotta and a marshmallow coated with almonds.) The meal was not perfect: the Chatham cod was just plain ordinary, and none of the vegetable accompaniments wowed me. But at its best, ADNY operates at a level few restaurants can touch.

My friend and I had dinner last night at the Café at Country. The more elegant restaurant upstairs hasn't opened yet. We could see that the tables are all in place and tablecloths laid, so I'm not sure what Zakarian and Psaltis are waiting for. The idea of an informal café to complement a formal sister restaurant is nothing new. Gramercy Tavern, The Modern, Jean Georges, and Aquavit, are among the many that have done it. But this café is surprisingly ill-conceived, and it strikes me as a waste of time. The décor is unattractive, the tables and seating are uncomfortable, and the noise level induces a splitting headache. We were seated at a small circular table that looked cheap, and seemed to belong in an ice cream parlor. It was just barely large enough to accommodate our food. The banquette was too low. The restaurant also has a number of two-top rectangular tables that appear to have come from a different designer. I don't know what the circular tables are doing there, as they clash with the rest of the décor. Dinner began with cylindrical bread rolls that were so hard they could have been used to pound nails. There was olive oil at the table. It came in what looked like a cologne bottle, but the label on the outside said, "I Love Olive Oil." I poured a little of it onto my plate, and my jaw had a good workout chewing through the bread. I started with a beet salad, while my friend had the foie gras pâté. The pâté was probably the highlight of the meal. It was an excellent, but very large serving, and even after my friend and I shared it, we sent almost half of it back unfinished. We both had the braised lamb shank, which came with a side order of basmati rice — another ample portion. This was the dish that the Daily News had liked best. The lamb shank was excellent for what it was — tender, and not overly dry — but we both felt that it was more akin to comfort food than fine dining. Anyone competent isn't going to mess up a lamb shank, and Psaltis is at least competent. Service was solid, but in some ways over-the-top in comparison to the humble surroundings. Our server kept referring to my friend as "Madame," and his obsequiousness was almost irritating. There is a very large wine list, which almost certainly will be shared with the main restaurant when it opens. We had an enjoyable Loire Valley red for about $47. With most appetizers under $15 and most entrées under $25, the Café at Country clearly aims to attract diners who want a thoughtfully-composed menu that doesn't break the bank. But what you get is basically a baby step above comfort food, and it isn't good enough to justify putting up with the ugly, uncomfortable, and ear-splitting surroundings.

Town's Country cousin disappoints, according to Pascale Le Draoulec in the New York Daily News, awarding 1½ stars to the Café at Country: I have a reservation tonight. I hope I'll be happier than Le Draoulec was.

Eric Branger, who had worked at the Ritz-Carlton New Orleans, has replaced Alain Allegretti. That's per Zagat, who say, "a reconcepting of the restaurant is in the works."

It took me nineteen months to get back to Dominic, which I finally did last night. My enthusiasm is undimmed—some minor glitches aside. It's not often that the Zagat review tells you precisely what dish to order, but it does for Dominic: "all can agree the roast suckling pig, a holdover from its old Portuguese incarnation, is 'a must.'" So, that's what I had last night. The menu describes the dish as a 10-Hour Pig Roast ($24). It's slow roasted with Tuscan seasonings, crispy skin, wildflower honey and sautéed greens. The dull sautéed greens added nothing, but the pig was terrific, including the crunchy skin and a brick of tender, flavorful meat. Coincidentally, I had Cookshop's version of this dish on Monday night, and found it bland. The folks at Cookshop need to high-tail it over to Dominic, to see how it's done. Dominic's current winter menu lists five pasta dishes, and it was most peculiar to be informed that three of them were unavailable last night. I wasn't looking to order pasta anyway, but it's strange for a purportedly Italian restaurant to be out of so many items. When I sat down, I was not presented with a wine list. When I asked for red wine by the glass, the server told me that my choices were chianti classico, pinot noir, or merlot, apparently on the view that it is unnecessary for me to be told which chianti, pinot, or merlot it is. I could have insisted, but I just ordered the chianti and ignored the lapse. It was nothing special, but at $7 I didn't feel cheated. The restaurant seemed to be a little over half full, which isn't bad on a Wednesday night, in a neighborhood where there are so many dining options. It might help if they knew their own web address. It says "www.DominicRestaurant.com" on their business card, but the correct address is "www.dominicnyc.com".

This news is a couple of weeks old, but still worth mentioning here. There's a new law in New York that any new or renovated public space must have twice the number of ladies' toilets as men's toilets. Some people have called it the "potty parity" law. Anyhow, according to the New York Post, the new branch of Wolfgang's Steakhouse at 407 Greenwich St (between Hubert and Beach Sts) will be the first establishment in New York to comply with the law. "The result is that the eatery will have four stalls in the ladies room and two stalls and three urinals for the men." The space, which is about a block from my office, was once a spice warehouse (according to the Post). It was recently a restaurant called Shamballa, which didn't last long. Before that, I believe it was a lunchtime deli/buffet place. The restaurant will be 6,000 feet and will seat 200—making it, I believe, larger than the original Wolfgang's at 4 Park Avenue. I walked by yesterday. I was able to peer inside, and it looks like they still have a few months of work to do. Located just across the street from the HQ of the Citigroup Corporate and Investment Bank, I suspect the new Wolfgang's won't lack for patrons. It's probably not good news for Dylan Prime, which is just two blocks away.

Actually, the Times does have a double-standard for opera. Every production at the Met or the New York City Opera gets reviewed, including first-nights of revivals. Other opera productions are not necessarily reviewed. The Amato Opera, which puts on quite an extensive season, is practically never reviewed. The Times is the only paper that makes this distinction. Restaurants that have appeared in that column have been reviewed by other papers' main critics, if they are sufficiently notable (e.g., Fatty Crab). Part of the reason all the $25&U restaurants sound the same is that there are no stars. If those restaurants were concretely rated, suddenly it would give those reviews a focus they now lack. Of course, there are other differences with $25&U. You can pretty much predict about 75% of the restaurants Frank Bruni will review. Not necessarily the date he'll review them, but that they will be reviewed at some point. But with rare exceptions, the $25&U reviews are totally random and unpredictable. Of the restaurants that could reasonably be reviewed, Meehan is getting to maybe 1% of them. So it may be that the paper considers nearly all of these restaurants recommendable in their category, because there just wouldn't be any point in devoting space to that type of restaurant only to trash it, since there are hundreds of others to choose from. (There are exceptions to everything. Kim Severson trashed Dinosaur BBQ in $25&U. Dinosaur was the rare example of a $25&U restaurant that you could predict.) There's nothing inherent in the star system that prevents such places from being rated, except at the Times. Of course, this presumes that the critic discovers this restaurant, is as enamored of the food as you are, and that he thinks it's important enough to write about. None of the city's food critics publishes more than one review per week, so they have to decide whether a taco counter on 10th Avenue is the best use of limited space.

Yes, but it's not a single rank. Bruni has given out one "Poor" rating (Ninja). So, Satisfactory means Satisfactory, not anywhere from Poor to Satisfactory.

Again, thanks to Leonard for some wonderful research. Of the restaurants to which Sheraton gave zero stars, Capsouto Freres is the only one with which I have a recent experience — I've been there twice in the last couple of years. On the current de facto scale, I would certainly award it a star. Here's another example of grade inflation. Mimi Sheraton awarded two stars to Chanterelle in 1980, which Marion Burros re-affirmed in 1984. In 1985, Bryan Miller upped it to four stars, which Ruth Reichl re-affirmed in 1983. Now, restaurants of course change over time, but it is highly unlikely that Chanterelle changed that dramatically in just one year. One must assume that Miller had a very different notion of what constitutes four stars. Your list has three examples where Miller awarded two stars to a place that got zero from Sheraton. He must have been aware of this, so I would guess it was a conscious decision to change the standard. These days, the "Satisfactory" rating is really anything but. On the few occasions when Bruni has handed out a "Satisfactory," the text of the review suggested a distinct lack of satisfaction. A lot of his one-star reviews read like the old "Satisfactory." I'm glad to see that Bruni has restarted that practice, although he's only done it three times, and all but one of the six restaurants got at least one star. I think that's an excellent statement of what the de facto system is. Viewed that way, most of the ratings make sense. But even given this understanding, one can still disagree with individual ratings.

Launching a restaurant is indeed a roll of the dice, but not for the reason you state. A single critic can't make or break a restaurant these days. You have mediocre places like Café des Artistes and One if by Land that aren't adored by any critic, but are consistently packed, year after year. And you have places that fail, like Laurent Tourondel's late lamented Cello, despite rave reviews. Gilt will have plenty of press—three critics have already written about it, and it's been open less than a month. A welter of negative criticism would be damaging, but I see no sign of that happening.

In which reviews did Frank Bruni award a star (or stars) on that basis? Although I disagree with his ratings of Al di La and Sripraphai, I do not doubt that he genuinely considered them "Very Good" — by his standards. I am willing to accept one-star restaurants that don't have a wine program, if the food is sufficiently remarkable. At two stars, the points you mention should be there, except that I don't think the wine markup should disqualify a restaurant from being starred. If it's way out of line, the critic should mention it in his review, just like any fault. The Times says that the rating takes the price into account. What that apparently means is that if a restaurant is over-priced in relation to the value it delivers, it can cost them a star. That seems fair to me, and part of the reason that the owners of Gilt should be worrying. All three critics now who've written about it have had some form of complaint about the cost.

Well, I've no quarrel with BryanZ, but it's just one data point. Bruni said that, even judged against the handful of restaurants in its peer group, Gilt's wine list sets a new standard for extravagant expense. Quoting Bruni:

Bruni and Cuozzo are about as different as can be, but they have very similar complaints. In my view, this gives credibility to both.

Steve Cuozzo has an early look at Gilt in today's New York Post. He has some of the same complaints that Bruni had, although he talks about the food in more depth: In a companion piece, Cynthia Kilian talks about cooking with liquid nitrogen:

Actually, I've never known anyone associated with the Times to acknowledge that their system was confusing. So, perhaps they don't see it.

However, if stars weren't assigned, the words of the review would be even less memorable. What makes Bruni's Alto review stand out, is the fact that he assigned it two stars when most people expected three, with an outside chance for four. The Kremlin-watching around "What will the Times do?" adds an extra element of interest. There wouldn't be this great anticipation around the Del Posto review — will it be the first four-star Italian restuarant? — if it were just a write-up of Bruni's impressions, without a rating. I don't feel much sorrow for the poor souls who, on the basis of the stars, actually think that Alto and Sripraphai are comparable. It shouldn't require a lecture from Fat Guy to figure this out.

It was three, not two.

As Leonard Kim demonstrated above...this is patently false. You may not like Bruni's judgments or his reviews, but he is not guilty of "star inflation".... ← You can look at star-inflation multiple ways. If you just count the number of stars awarded, Bruni has not been profligate: one star is his most common rating. However, a critic can seem like he's out of control when he hands out stars to restaurants that seem wildly undeserving of them, and Bruni has occasionally done that, especially at two stars. Amanda Hesser, in her brief tenure, was a tough grader, but she'll be forever remembered for awarding three stars to Spice Market. To his credit, Bruni has at least retained integrity at the three and four-star levels, but his one and two-star awards have a lot of randomness. Leonard Kim's analysis is fascinating, but it would be great to look at the types of restaurants that were reviewed. Before we get all misty-eyed for the Mimi Sheraton era, it must be remembered that she awarded three stars to Sammy's Roumanian. That's only one data point, but it shows that if you give a critic enough time, inevitably s/he will uncork a few ratings that wildly miss the mark. It would also be interesting to look at Mimi Sheraton's zero-star reviews. There are something like 15,000 restaurants in New York—clearly enough for the critic to write a zero-star review every week. But there's a reasonable argument that, with only one reviewing slot per week, the Times shouldn't waste very much space on restaurants that aren't at least "good." We don't know if Sheraton's zero-star restaurants would get a star from Bruni, or if he simply isn't wasting the paper's resources on them.