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It is worth thinking in terms of visitor traffic, rather than tourist traffic, because a lot of restaurants cater to business travelers—people who are visitors, but not necessarily tourists. Business traffic will, of course, be way down this year, and those who travel will probably have lower expense accounts.We may hate to admit it here, but many international visitors rely on the Michelin Guide and similar publications, not food boards. That sort of makes sense. If I were planning a trip to France, I probably wouldn't ask for advice on a French bulletin board. The fact that I speak their language poorly is only one of the reasons. The restaurants that appeal to visitors tend to be those with celebrity chefs, those with long-standing reputations (whether deserved or not), those that are near major attractions, or those highly recommended in the major media and published guides. I was surprised when I dropped into Keens Steakhouse at around 5:30 p.m. on a weeknight in December, and it was already almost full. (Keens, in case you don't know, is enormous.) I heard a lot of non-American accents, and saw a lot of people with shopping bags. The eGullet thread for Keens is pretty anemic, and it didn't exist at all until Frank Bruni reviewed it. The people who fill up Keens aren't getting their advice from eGullet. It has a practically recession-proof reputation.

Lunch at a four-star restaurant is almost always a good deal. Frank Bruni said that his best meal of 2008 was lunch at Le Bernardin. If you'd like to sample a Canora/Grieco place, and you should, I'd recommend Insieme, their best production, which unlike Hearth is new since your last visit here. Veritas has a new chef, and though I haven't been yet, others say it's practically a new restaurant—and an excellent one. Another suggestion is Allegretti, one of the better debuts of 2008.

Even in the best of times, the restaurant industry has a relatively high failure rate. When chefs/owners are asked the reason, they seldom blame themselves. You don't hear, "Our food and service sucked." If they can, they come up with other reasons. So when a place closes, and the chef says, "The recession killed us," that may or may not be true. Many new places around 6-18 months old will be hitting the natural inflection point that hits all new restaurants. By then, the folks who only patronize the Latest Thing will have moved on. If the restaurant hasn't developed a following by then, it probably never will. I'm not saying we won't see a lot more restaurants closing than usual. I'm just saying that they won't all be the recession's fault, and they certainly aren't just because the chef/owner says so.

Friend of the house, by any chance?

It reflects the fact that one is probably not going to get the soigné treatment at all of these places, and the fact that most of them aren't equipped to do what Per Se can, when it wants to. The reality is that, for most people, the kind of meal he described is a very rare experience. Most of us can't afford it very often, nor would we want to even if we could.I don't try to predict what other people will enjoy, but it is important to note the very real difference.

Bruni has a mini-report on Eleven Madison Park today: I think Bruni is itching to write another four-star review, and I thought EMP was one of the few places where it could happen, but apparently not yet.

Those are great suggestions, but I would add one note of caution. Most of those places probably cannot duplicate the 18-course extravaganza that Per Se produced. They offer their own kind of pleasure, but you shouldn't go in expecting another meal like the one you described at Per Se.

Practically every restaurant insists that tasting menus are for the entire table. However, if there's something on the tasting menu you don't like, they'll allow reasonable substitutions. The regular menu is four courses prix fixe.

I seriously doubt that's the reason. I don't find it dated at all...but even if I did, that wouldn't suffice to take away a star it otherwise deserved. If you search the boards, you'll find reports of sub-par meals here, from people who know what they're talking about. I have to assume it happened to the Michelin inspectors. Let me hasten to add that it hasn't happened to me: my visits have been excellent.

I'm always curious about the timing at this place. Did you book in advance, or if you didn't, how long did you wait to get in?

Even if it is to be considered a blog, it's roughly 10% about food and restaurants, and 90% about the travails and inner workings of her (mostly unsuccessful) dating life ← Actually, she's married now, and thankfully she spares us the details of what goes on in the bedroom. Practically every restaurant is still called "sexy," though.

These blogs occupy a fascinating, but occasionally awkward never-never-land between journalism, commentary, and entertainment. Eater, Grub Street and the Feedbag all want to be perceived as serious news sources. It's true, as FG noted, that any significant story on one of them is eventually noted by the others. But on any given day, any one of the three could be the first to 'break' a particular story. If any one the three has consistently better sources, I haven't been able to detect it. But are their writers journalists? Last week, Eater.com "reported" that the TriBeCa restaurant Devin Tavern, which it had formerly "deathwatched," was "officially dunzo." Their source seems to have been a no-longer-extant blog post by a bartender who had worked there. It took Eater five days to notice a comment on the original post, that Devin Tavern was not, in fact, closed. They then walked back the "story". Now, regular newspapers make mistakes too. But Florence Fabricant would never report a restaurant as "officially" closed unless she had spoken to someone who was actually an "official". It's not that hard to call the restaurant to verify the story. I also suspect it wouldn't take the Times five days to correct such an error. Grub Street is affiliated with a mainstream magazine. When Josh Ozersky was asked his reason for leaving, he mentioned the bureaucracy he had to navigate before he could post anything. That apparently means that at Feedbag he can post what he wants, when he wants.

For what it's worth, there are a number of chefs who are extremely snooty about photos. It's not a matter of flash or no flash; they don't want photos of their work on the Internet.

Here's the funny thing. If the Michelin Guide had given no NYC restaurant its top ranking, there would be just as many posts — correction: there would be far more posts — complaining that the Frenchmen are parochial, and do not understand any city other than their own.

That strikes me as an awfully literal—even anal-retentive—reason to disqualify Craft, assuming one agrees that it's "about the best ingredients cooked perfectly."

Honestly, no. I've read a lot of critiques of the NY Guide, but they're all from people who have deep, independent knowledge of the NYC restaurant scene—that is, people who don't actually need a guide.So whenever I read that, I always wonder whether any significant number of folks who actually relied on the guide were disappointed. I figure that if the guide's target audience found it misleading, you'd eventually see a story about it.

I haven't actually heard about any significant number of Parisians who proceeded on that assumption, and were disappointed.

Do they take reservations for parties of any size, or only for larger parties?

Grub Street had a post late yesterday about a Craig's List ad by a "Michelin Star Chef" who is purportedly opening a seafood restaurant in SoHo. The speculation is that it could be Micheal Psilakis. This isn't the first time I've seen CL ads where Michelin stars were prominently cited, either as a lure (to make applicants feel the job is important) or as a requirement (describing the level of experience the employer is looking for). Whatever we may think of the Michelin stars, it's clear to me that people in the industry take them seriously. It is considered a major feather in one's cap to have earned a star, or to have worked at a restaurant that had one.

That is fair enough, but one must recognize that "stodgy" isn't a neutral term. Most people wouldn't use "stodgy" to describe a restaurant they liked, and sure enough, you don't care for these places. Four stars means "extraordinary," and if you were the one giving out the stars, I sincerely hope you'd give them to places you loved.The one sure thing is that Bruni loved the four-star restaurants he reviewed. He didn't call them stodgy, or any synonym of that. He has indeed pooh-poohed formal, "fussy" service on many occasions, but it's notable that he has not yet awarded four stars to restaurants that conformed to any other model. EMP and Corton are offering, broadly speaking, a slightly toned-down version of the model you find at the four-star places (except Masa). It is not a radical re-thinking in the same way as Ko or Ssäm Bar.

I'm just not seeing how you could possibly get that. He said that Corton and EMP are "hovering just below the very summit," with no further implication than that. Indeed, although he liked Corton, he found more flawed dishes than he has ever reported in a four-star review. The implication is pretty simple, isn't it? They're not ready yet. "Putting on notice" is a gloss not really implied by the text.Of course, Bruni could be predicting that EMP and Corton are among those that could very well be four-star restaurants in the future, if they fix what needs fixing. This isn't anything new. Over the years, many restaurants have been initially awarded three stars and promoted to four later on. But generally, Bruni finds the four-star restaurants exciting too—in fact, more so. His exact words, in fact, were that the higher star levels chart increasing levels of excitement.There's a myth that four-star dining is necessarily "stodgy" — indeed, Bryan used that very word in his earlier post, though Bruni never said that in the review.

One would like to think so, but I was pretty sure Gilt and The Modern were shoo-ins too. What made me confident, though, was that critical opinion was unanimously favorable. That doesn't happen often, but when it does, Bruni is seldom a contrarian. I didn't read the line that way at all. To the contrary, he seemed to be saying that those summit-dwelling places — not all of which are stodgy, by the way — could teach a lesson or two to restaurants not yet operating on that level. This, of course, presumes that Corton even wants to be a four-star restaurant, and I am pretty sure that wasn't the intention. Let's face it: Bruni didn't get Gilt, and three years later he still doesn't. Bruni wants food that appeals to the gut, not the cerebellum.

I think this over-simplifies. ADNY had a six-year run, which I would hardly call a failure. As I understand it, the place closed due to labor/lease issues. Its replacement, Adour, got top ratings from the major critics, which I wouldn't call a failure either.Benoit is in a location that has housed successful restaurants for decades, and it serves a style of cuisine that has long been popular. There is nothing complicated about it: he botched the opening, and is now trying to fix it. That leaves Mix in NY, which was a failure here, no question about it. However, a similar concept succeeded in Vegas, and there certainly are restaurants that have worked in both places. This wasn't one of them. I think his main mistake there was partnering with Jeffrey Chodorow.

But how bold can a chef be in a place that's doing classic bistro food? ← By introducing dishes that offer modern takes on the classics. Or by introducing dishes that have been out of style for so long that they seem new.

It is probably a failure of my imagination, but I cannot imagine cocktails good enough to justify a 90 minute wait in the rain.