oakapple

I haven't seen any recent reports. A couple of weeks ago, on a Saturday evening, it was perhaps 50-60% full. However, it was still early days, and the staff claimed that they were deliberately spacing things out, so that the kitchen wouldn't get overwhelmed while they're still wearing training wheels.

I don't think any one review would do that, but perhaps a succession of them would. Boulud isn't likely to make radical changes before the Bruni review comes out, but he might be kicking some ass in the kitchen if the staff isn't getting it done.

I don't consider them the same restaurant either. But I was responding to Nathan's original comment that: In fact, there are quite a few places where there is either no bar menu, or it's not the same as the dining room.

What about The Modern Bar and Aquavit Cafe? Unless, you consider them to be completely different restaurants from the dining rooms. ← You can get the Bar Room's menu at the bar, but you can't get the Modern dining room menu at the bar. Aquavit is similar.I believe likewise at Adour, Bouley, Café Gray, Chanterelle, Country, Danube, Gilt, Gordon Ramsay, La Grenouille: either no bar at all, or a different menu at the bar. There are probably more. ← Le Cirque and the Four Seaasons too.

What about The Modern Bar and Aquavit Cafe? Unless, you consider them to be completely different restaurants from the dining rooms. ← You can get the Bar Room's menu at the bar, but you can't get the Modern dining room menu at the bar. Aquavit is similar.I believe likewise at Adour, Bouley, Café Gray, Chanterelle, Country, Danube, Gilt, Gordon Ramsay, La Grenouille: either no bar at all, or a different menu at the bar. There are probably more.

Practically every restaurant serves something at the bar, but there are a number of upscale places (not just the four-stars) where it's not the same as the sit-down menu.

As we saw it, Adour was charging three-star prices for very boring food. I have only one data point to go on, but at this point I would recommend any other three-star restaurant in town—Eleven Madison Park, for instance.

The comparison to Kefi surprises me. Kefi is super casual—no reservations, credit cards not accepted. I think Dona is at least one level up from that (or is meant to be).

Well, my tastes in that department are about as far opposite of Bruni's as can be imagined, and I thought Adour was boring. My sense is that if a sentimental softie like me didn't really like it, I can't imagine Bruni liking it.

I've dined at Public twice, and found it mediocre both times. I've not yet tried the Monday Room, but it's on my list (based on eGullet recommendations).

I thought that Bruni's enthusiasm was more-or-less consistent with his past three-star reviews. Until I know otherwise, I'm going to assume the enthusiasm is justified. I think Bruni knows that three-star restaurants are destinations by definition, which means that neighborhood becomes a lot less important.I do think he has a clear Italian bias. There's ample evidence to justify that conclusion. But I don't see the evidence for an UWS bias. I stopped keeping track!!

Some people may have forgotten, but Spice Market got enthusiastic reviews from pretty much every critic in town—not just Amanda Hesser. I think that if the positive reviews start coming in (they don't need to be as rapturous as Spice Market got), diners will go to the restaurant. But I do agree that the default assumption in that neighborhood is that the restaurant isn't serious.

I don't think the BLT Market concept is any more of a gimmick than any of the other restaurants in town that wear the same concept on their sleeve. If anyone else opened a high-profile new restaurant in that genre, Bruni would review it. So I think it's wrong to say, "Well, it's just another BLT." Despite the shared letters, it's a departure for Tourondel, even though others obviously have opened similar places.

Actually, Bruni thought that two BLT's ago—with BLT Prime. The menus are on the websites (www.BLT______.com). I don't really see much similarity between them, except that BLT Prime is pretty close to BLT Steak.

That, I must say, is the Craft premise. When it works, you don't mind spending all that money, because it's so mind-blowingly good. But when it fails (as it clearly did here) you're still left with that astronomical bill.

I'm a fan, but obviously it depends what you're comparing it to.

On top of that, about the worst thing that can happen is that FG asks them to take down the photo. It's not the kind of thing you sue over.

The short ribs are $41 at Café Gray. I assume he considers it to be one of “Kunz’s Greatest Hits,” and he’s going to charge what the market will bear. He may have a sweetheart deal on rent, but the place had a very long gestation, and he has an expensive renovation that has to be amortized.

It's easy to forget, but Jean Georges was considered innovative in its day — not as far "out there" as El Bulli, but not classic French cuisine by any means. Obviously the edge has worn off a bit, because Vongerichten has stopped innovating. But there's a huge difference between JG and La Grenouille.

That's true at many restaurants like that. Many of their clients are looking, quite simply, for classic food executed well. Critics had the same complaint about Gordon Ramsay. I ate at Veritas recently, and had a similar reaction. (I looked back at reviews a decade ago, and that's what they said then.) La Grenouille once had four stars for classic food executed almost perfectly. The execution may have slipped since then, but the concept is still the same.

The only one that can match it, at least in recent history, is Compass. I don't think yet another ADNY re-review could have been justified at that point—the larger error was demoting it in the first place. But as Steven Shaw and I have often said, the telling point is that he took no note of the change in any of the various ways he could have done so.

Yes, I do recall the Diner's Brief on Gilt (there was one on GR also). Recall that I was replying to an earlier post about re-reviews, which neither got. Ducasse did not attract so much as a mention in any of the various forums in which Bruni had the opportunity, and allgedly not even a visit to the restaurant either.

It's not quite that black-and-white. Sometimes a restaurant is re-reviewed even though there has been no chef change. Sometimes there's a chef change, and it goes unnoted. At the three-star level, Oceana is an example. It's well known that Bruni paid no notice to the chef change at the original Alain Ducasse after he demoted it, and the restaurant staff stated that he never even visited. Le Cirque got its re-review after a chef change (well deserved), but Gordon Ramsay and Gilt did not. Gilt under Chris Lee is, for all intents and purposes, a brand new restaurant. Gilt under Lee is far more important from a culinary perspective than a good dozen-or-so places Bruni has reviewed since the change took place—even if he believed that the original two star rating is still correct. GR is arguably a bit different, since it is still technically Ramsay's restaurant, even with a different executive chef, but it is the only Michelin 2-star that doesn't have at least three NYT stars. Michelin has its limitations, but for that type of cuisine, I think they have a better understanding than Bruni.

Unfortunately, I don't have a good feel for the number of places that closed from 1999–2003, versus the number that opened. But until someone shows me, I would remain skeptical that the luxury segment contracted during that period. I also wonder if we mean the same thing by the terms we're using. I referred to "luxury dining," you referred to "formal dining". They might not be the same things. It's indisputable that the number of jacket-and-tie places has gone down, but each generation re-defines formality. Formal French restaurants have been replaced by other kinds of luxury, but I see no evidence that the demand for luxury itself (in modern guises) has diminished. Consider Adour, for instance. There's no question that it would have been a jacket-and-tie place 30 years ago. But leaving aside the dress code, it simply has to be considered part of the luxury segment. Only the top 1% or so of the population, or perhaps even less, would even consider eating at such a place.

I thought he found it a minus. He called it a "restaurant...that exists to be absurd" and noted that he's "not calling for the spread of such establishments." How often does a critic award three stars, while calling the restaurant absurd and noting that he doesn't wish to see any more like it? I'm not even sure what the absurd part is? Other than the top hat-shaped ravioli, what he described was more-or-less the trappings usually associated with luxury dining, wherever you do it. But as I noted above, more luxury restaurants have opened during Bruni's tenure than have closed. That doesn't sound like a diminishing market to me. I agree that it's a segment more likely to be vulnerable during economic swings. But economic swings are always temporary.