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Yes, but the demise of that dining stratum has long been forecast—even Bryan Miller wrote about it, and that was three NYT critics ago. White-table-cloth dining is still here, and it's still thriving. Even if you attribute the demand solely to "luxe tourism and Wall Street" — and I think that's simplistic — neither of those market segments is going anywhere. Obviously, there's a chance we're headed into recession, but there have been multiple recessions since Bryan Miller was chief critic at the Times. Recessions come and go. The demand for high-end dining survives, and I see no reason to doubt that it always will.

There are some dubious statements here. Bruni has been on the job roughly 3½ years. In that time period, I believe more luxury restaurants have opened than closed. You can look up the menus at places like Country, Gilt, The Modern, and Gordon Ramsay, and see that they're about as expensive as Daniel. Prices at the just-opened Adour are about comparable to Bouley, which had four stars till Bruni got his hands on it. And even when Bruni hated these places, his reviews have not been fatal. Mostly, they've been irrelevant. The only counter-example I can think of is V Steakhouse, which clearly wasn't intended to get four stars, but I would class as a luxury restaurant nevertheless. Well, he's got to give three stars to somebody. Surely you're not disputing that the overall arc of Bruni's writing is that he is not particularly fond of that style of dining. He is not a mere dispassionate observer of the current trend; he is a cheerleader for it.

Although we tend to write in absolutes, there's clearly no "never" or "always" with Frank Bruni.But if you substitute "seldom" for "never," this review really does prove the rule. For though he did bestow three stars, it seemed almost grudging:

Today, Adam Platt awards three stars in New York. Just to put that in perspective, since Platt started giving out stars two years ago, he has given 3* to just two places: Del Posto and L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon. Among restaurants that both Platt and Bruni reviewed over the last two years, there are three that got 3* from Bruni, yet only 2* from Platt: A Voce, Country, and Fiamma. Hence, Platt is arguably the tougher grader (despite having a 5* scale to work with), so 3* for Dovetail is rather remarkable.

GT is one of those restaurants I've never tried because of the great difficulty of getting in (on terms that are acceptable to me). I've tried several times, and always failed. I do realize that if I set my mind to eating at Gramercy Tavern—if it becomes my single-minded obsession, and if I set aside all preconceptions about days of the week and normal dinner times—I could probably eat there sometime very soon, maybe even today. I'm just not willing to become obsessed about that; there are enough excellent restaurants where obsession is not required as a ticket to entry.

Town is a much, much (have I emphasized it enough?) more romantic setting than Telepan, and it's a better restaurant too. I agree with the others that if I could only have one expensive romantic meal in New York, Town isn't the one I'd pick. But it's certainly a very good restaurant, and if it comes down to one or the other, Town is it.

Nobody should feel the need to apologize for dining at Sammy's Roumanian. They may do only a few things well — the chopped liver among them — but if that's what you happen to be interested in, Sammy's is the real deal.

I was there last night and had a glass of wine at the bar. (Trivia: I was supposedly the sixth customer; thus I was informed by the fellow who said he was the first.)Though I took only a cursory look, I was impressed at how reasonable the prices were. For instance, the least expensive red wine by the glass was $9. There are plenty of restaurants in town that offer nothing in single digits.

On the current menu, there's a pan-roasted dry-aged ribeye for $140. Has anyone here tried this? How many people does it feed?

It always helps to say what "not too pricy" means to you. Some people think $100 is pricy, and some don't.

Many thanks to Nathan for putting this excursion together. I was dying to try the Bo Ssäm, but you need a big crowd. I would never have been well organized enough to put one together myself, so I was grateful that Nathan did.My blog post on the meal is here. Despite all the photos, I realized later that I'd forgotten to include the excellent desserts. I'll have to rectify that tonight.

Page Six has a mini-report — evidently a friends & family affair, with the likes of Gabriel Kreuther and Michael Romano in attendance.

Really????. All I'm saying is that the review felt lazy, with a lot of padding thrown in that didn't require actually writing about the food, and without telling us anything about Flay that wasn't already rather well known.

Who knows, and who cares? I think the reason for the review is given in this Eater post. Bruni was planning to be out-of-town, and he needed a place he could review lazily, without a lot of thought—something that could be phoned in.

Esca and Del Posto are both on OpenTable, but Babbo is not, which tells me that the first two sometimes have tables to spare, while Babbo seldom does.

Yes, but by those criteria quite a few places could reasonably have been chosen where, perhaps, there was actually something interesting to say. There are many still-busy 1-2 star restaurants that haven't been reviewed in ~8 years. It strikes me as laziness.

A two-star rating doesn't require any innovation whatsoever. But you do have to be fairly consistent in what you produce, which was Mesa Grill's undoing. I am still struggling to figure out the point of this review, but Bruni's star is consistent with my own experience there.

We're in the era of the minor restaurant, because hardly anyone dares open a major one. And the WV does indeed seem to have more than its share of interesting new or "newish" minor restaurants these days. It'll take a while for us to see whether this mini-trend is anything more than a footnote to history.

The majority of business dinners are Monday thru Thursday nights. I have gone on a fair number of those meals. There are some people (though not me) who have them almost every night. The hosts (i.e., the ones paying) are generally less knowledgeable about food than most eGullet Society members. However, they tend to be fairly savvy about wine. Regardless of their food/wine knowledge, they often dine in larger parties and spend lavishly. I can see why a server would love those customers. They aren't necessarily smarter about food, but they come in with big wads of cash. Yes, Friday and Saturday nights attract the B&T and tourist crowd. But they also attract people like me who work fairly long hours and don't have the time (or the energy) for a leisurely restaurant meal after work—at least, not on a regular basis. However, I can see why servers would view me as a less desirable customer. I'm usually not out to impress anybody when I'm spending my own money. I can afford to dine comfortably, but not to order as if money is no object. I might order the big Barolo on a special occasion, but I don't do so routinely. As FG noted, the Michelin star restaurants still showing available prime-time tables on Saturday, February 9th, are simply those not lucky enough to have a steady flow of regulars. If you can book those restaurants for prime-time on Saturday, you can probably book them for just about any night. At most good restaurants I've tried to book, Saturday is the toughest night to get, with Friday running second.

In my original post, I almost considered adding: "not counting Rao's". It seems to be in a category by itself. Any day of the week, any time of day, walk-in or reservation, the average person just can't get in there at all. This is so well known that most people wouldn't even try—never minding the question of whether it is even worth trying. Babbo has its walk-in tables, but if you actually want a reservation in advance at prime times, it seems harder to book than Per Se. I've tried Babbo several times, and have never succeeded. I (or friends of mine) have tried Per Se several times, and have always succeeded.

I'm sure Flay would rather keep his two stars, but I don't think the Bruni review will make that much difference—any more than it did at Harry Cipriani or Max Brenner. I think Eater (predicting zero stars) has the better end of the argument, but one star wouldn't shock me. Either way, with 20,000 other places to visit, I have to wonder: Why?

Between 7 and 9:30pm on a Friday or Saturday night, tons of restaurants are practically private clubs for their regulars. ← Except that Rao's (so I've heard) is like that at all hours they're open, every day of the week.

I echo what Nathan says. For most working folks in this town, Friday and Saturday nights offer the only real opportunity for a leisurely night out, especially at the nicer restaurants where you want to spend a few hours relaxing over your meal.It doesn't really matter to me who is occupying the other tables. That's not what FG's research says.

I always thought of Rao's as practically a private club for its regulars.What I was really trying to ask was, "What's the city's toughest restaurant to book in advance?" Calling around on the day or just showing up are very reasonable things if you're flexible (which we all are sometimes), but that wasn't what I meant. Based on having tried both lately, Babbo seems to be harder to book in advance for a prime time than Per Se.

I stipulated that the ground rule was a reservation. I agree that if you're willing to just show up, Babbo is much easier than Per Se, because Babbo always has walk-in tables (plus dining at the bar), and Per Se does not.I didn't realize that you could walk in and reserve in person, though that option only benefits those who live nearby and can be away from their job at that hour.