oakapple

Of the places you mentioned, EMP is the best choice. If you're willing to try something new, consider Corton. Some places don't allow outside wine, and if they do, corkage is likely to be exorbitant. So be sure to call in advance and ask about their policy.

Coupled with the fact that fewer people want to eat that kind of meal at lunchtime.

Did you cancel? I certainly would have.

Well...that is the problem with phone-based reservation systems. It's hard to staff up the phone bank adequately for a restaurant that serves dinner only 26 nights a year. Which it initially did.

Besides that mysteriously missing piece of décor, there's the fact that Secession is an absolute disaster right now. Maybe it wasn't such a great idea to work on seven restaurants at once.

As of today, Diner's Journal is captioned, "The New York Times Blog on Dining Out," so they've taken Bruni's name out of the masthead. Over time, Bruni's contribution has shrunk, and other people's have grown. This seems to be another step in that direction. I don't know the economics of running that type of blog. The Times clearly views Diner's Journal as secondary to the newspaper; all of its contributors are print writers first, bloggers second. Ozersky, as far as I know, never had a piece in the magazine; blogging was all he did. If they think that can pay off, they'll find another Ozersky.

Out of 11 Diner's Journal posts last week, only 4 were by Bruni. And that was an unusually high total for him. The previous week, there were 2 by Bruni and 9 by other people.I consider Bruni an absolute failure as a blogger. This has nothing to do with his critical acumen, or the lack thereof. He simply hasn't used the medium the way it was intended. And he seldom uses it to say anything substantive about restaurants. Only one post in the last two weeks was about an actual restaurant meal (Parlor Steakhouse). NY Magazine's Grub Street is a useful comparison to Diner's Journal, because they are both operated by outfits that have traditional print affiliations. But whereas Grub Street has really embraced the power of what a blog can be, Diner's Journal has not.

Were there multiple seatings, one seating with staggered start times, or one seating at one time?

According to Michelin, one star means "very good cuisine in its category." If the inspectors considered Anthos and EMP to be in different "categories," then the star for Anthos may have nothing whatsoever to do with the lack of one for EMP. I suppose a more obvious example is the starred Spotted Pig vs. the unstarred EMP.The fuller list of Michelin critiera includes: "product quality, preparation and flavors, the cuisine's personality, value for money and consistency." There have certainly been reports of inconsistency at EMP, while at the same time it is clearly the more expensive restaurant. It is also arguable that, since there are not so many high-end Greek places, the excellence of Anthos in relation to its competition is more apparent. I am not necessarily saying that the Michelin inspectors got it right, only that if you take their stated criteria at face value, it is possible to arrive at a rational explanation for what they did.

FloFab says they're opening to the public October 24. Once it's in the Times, it's tough to walk it back, so I think it will happen.

Bouley has been asked several times, and won't even confirm who his investors are, or if he has any. (Obviously he must.)I've said this in a number of forums: there are still people flocking to upscale places. Per Se, Daniel and Le Bernardin, for instance, are pretty solidly booked. Bouley has enough of a reputation that the same type of crowd will certainly give him a shot. There is less margin for error at such places, but diners will come if he's got the goods.

Bouley said that he will open the new place after Secession is running smoothly, which he thought would take 2-3 weeks. That assumes he has all the permits. As of now, he is playing it pretty close to the vest. If it doesn't open by the end of October, I would say something isn't quite right.

WWD.com has a first look at the new Bouley. It is eye-popping. Heck, I was impressed just with the little bit of it I could see when I peered in the windows a couple of weeks ago. I am not sure if this city's current generation of critics will be able to appreciate it, or if they'll walk in the door laden with cynicism. But you can't eat décor. The question is whether Bouley can still get it done in the kitchen, especially when juggling so many projects at once. I've had the tasting menu at the current Bouley a couple of times—not the "surprise" menu that PaulaJK referred to. It is obviously very good, but I've never been transported. Service, too, always seems just a step behind what a four-star restaurant should be about.

I can't conceive why they would. Two of DM's other places (Gramercy Tavern and The Modern) are starred. On the Michelin thread, numerous people mentioned sub-par meals at 11MP. That doesn't comport with my own experience, but obviously it does happen.

If your argument were, “Michelin doesn’t get Japanese cuisine,” I might be in your corner. Frankly, if I were looking for Japanese cuisine anywhere, a guide published by Frenchmen isn’t the first place I would look.But you are making a much broader-based argument—suggesting, in effect, that their whole operation is a fraud, and that they really do not make the visits they claim they are making. That is where I disagree with you. I agree with the specific complaint that the inclusion of JB over Sushi Yasuda is incomprehensible.

I would be more sympathetic to that view if somone could produce a few European visitors[*] who relied on the book, and were puzzled. Otherwise, we run the risk of being indignant on the behalf of people who may not exist.Four years ago, when the NY guide first came out, some folks here said that The Spotted Pig would never get a star in Europe. And then it was pointed out that Michelin has given stars to gastropubs in Europe, too. [*] I prefer the term "visitor," because tourism is only one reason why people travel. It also avoids the pejorative connotation that food board participants tend to have in mind when they refer to "tourists."

Where did you see that it is opening this week?

Here's another data point that I think is relevant. At the end of last year, Adam Platt and Frank Bruni each produced a list of the ten best new restaurants of 2007. If you need to refresh your memory, they're here. And what's notable is that they agreed on only 6 out of 10. So, even limiting themselves to restaurants they'd reviewed in a calendar year, there was 40% disagreement. (Some of the disagreement, though not all, is probably attributable to a difference in which restaurants they considered eligible.) Now, back to the Michelin stars. I suspect that if you asked any two competent people to assign stars using their system, and in roughly the same proportions, there would be anywhere from 20–40% disagreement. And I suspect that almost any such list would include, or fail to include, at least a few places that some of us would believe were utterly wacky. With that in mind, the number of alleged errors on this list is pretty low. The alleged "mistake" most often complained about is Eleven Madison Park. Yet, there are a fair number of people (more than just 2 or 3) who point out bad experiences they've had there. If it could happen to food board participants, it could happen to Michelin inspectors. Mind you, there's a huge difference between an outright error and an honest difference of opinion. If I were in charge, Chanterelle would have a star. But there's enough controversy about that place that I can't honestly say, "Chanterelle wuz robbed." I've never been to Jewel Bako, mainly because I believe what I read about it on food boards. But the misrating of one sushi place on an eclectic list of 42 restaurants doesn't come close to being sufficient to invalidate the whole guide.

By my count, there are at most 2 or 3 ratings in the book that the "entire world food community" thinks are incorrect. There may not even by that many. It certainly is not enough to justify the accusation that their entire process is corrupt, given the scale of the book.

Well, if it's better than the Times or Zagat, then it's the best we have. The worst you can say is that it could theoretically be better, but you're comparing it to an abstraction that does not exist. As I understand it, the inspectors don't write the text that you see in the book, and I agree this is a problem.

Here's another way of looking at it. On any list of 42 restaurants, I would expect about 20% disagreement simply because restaurant ratings aren't an exact science. That means there'd need to be more than about 8 clear errors before I would begin to suspect something afoot more than just normal difference of opinion between competent specialists. Well: on the current star list, there are only two places that lots of people say don't belong: Jewel Bako and Public. And I can only think of two places that lots of people feel are wrongly excluded: Eleven Madison Park and Sushi Yasuda. So the error rate (if we call those errors) is only about 25% of what it would need to be, before I would begin to worry about serious incompetence. There are tons more that are arguable, but that's just horse racing. For every foodie who says that the demotion of Babbo was a crime, there's another who says, "Thank goodness they finally got wise about Babbo."

Well...yeah, it seems you are suggesting a conspiracy—that is, to claim one thing while doing another. By the way, where exactly have they published the "claim" that you are now saying is fabricated?

I totally agree with Nathan. There are a few of Michelin's ratings I disagree with, but there are a few of everybody's ratings I disagree with. It's not possible to come up with 42 places that all foodies will believe are correct. But when I disagree with Nathan, for instance (and as he knows, this happens rather often), I don't doubt that he has actually visited the places he writes about.

Bryan, if we might ask, how much extra did they charge you for this “extended” tasting menu? Gilt under Liebrandt may well have been the best restaurant to open in New York since Per Se. Unfortunately, it opened right into the teeth of the Bruni–Platt era, and its overall excellence was not recognized by the city's two most prominent critics. It may also have been a tactical error to open with prices at the Jean Georges level right out of the gate. Drew Nieporent is too canny to repeat that mistake. Still, in tough economic times it's refreshing to see that restaurants like this can still make an appearance. I suspect that Liebrandt will become more adventurous over time after Corton settles in and makes a name for itself. Gilt was gunning for four stars, but this is much more of a three-star concept—not that we can take that for granted as long as Bruni and Platt are still around.

Well, I've only been once, and Masa served us. I don't know if we just got lucky, or if it was because I told them it was my g/f's birthday. Given that you're a regular, if you asked to sit in front of Masa next time, I'm sure they'd honor the request.