oakapple

What's the toughest table to book for prime time on a Saturday evening? (Ground rule: it has to be a restaurant that takes reservations.) Obviously I haven't tried every conceivable place, but for the moment my nominee is Babbo. At 10:00 a.m. every morning, they start taking reservations for the numerical date one month in advance. I have tried several times. You cannot get through in the first hour. When you finally do, the only tables available are 5:30 or 10:30 p.m. My most recent experience with Babbo is (it seems) typical. After 15 minutes of trying, all I got were busy signals, except for twice. At 10:02, a recording informed me that Babbo's rezy line was still closed. At 10:08, I got through, but after traversing several layers of menus, a recording informed me that due to high call volume I would now be disconnected. Per Se is, of course, a tough table. But you do get through in a reasonable amount of time, and apparently their switchboard has the capacity so that you don't get disconnected. Given the rather significant difference in the size of the two restaurants, Babbo is, in relative terms, the tougher table to get. Any other experiences?

That's consistent with the prices people are talking about. It's not conceivable that Ducasse would plan a restaurant without having a particular number of stars in mind. Some of his folks might say that they're not in it for stars, and some gullible listeners might fall for that, but I don't think it's reality.

i can assure you they are not. ← The prices posted upthread tend to support chefboy's assertion that this isn't intended to be Michelin 3* establishment. However, chefboy's statement that "Ducasse is not going for michelin stars" — implying he would be pleased with zero — is ludicrous.

The website, http://www.adour-stregis.com/, now counts down the days, hours and minutes to opening. There is still no menu or indication of price.

Anyone who accomplishes the latter stands a very good chance of accomplishing the former, especially when his name is Alain Ducasse.

Yes, I think Craftsteak has improved considerably after early stumbles. The front lounge is just fine; the service and menu are identical to the main dining room.

Historically, the website has been irregularly updated, and I recall past occasions when the prices were wrong. I am sure the $110 was just a typo.

Oh, I imagine that too. I just thought it was a peculiar thing for a wine bar not to have figured out in time for opening.

The latest buzz seems to suggest that Ducasse is indeed aiming at three Michelin stars. There is a heavily PR-massaged piece in this week's New York that certainly suggests the place will be dripping with luxury. The job qualifications mentioned in an ad this month on Craigslist, also point at the high end.In a shameful blog post yesterday, Ed Levine took it as given that Ducasse is aiming at three Michelin and four NYT stars, and proceeded to make the case that the world doesn't need any more restaurants like that. I haven't seen a menu yet, and the restaurant's website is still hidden behind a password firewall. It is reservable on OpenTable, however. According to FloFab, service begins on January 28th.

I tried it out as a walk in on Tuesday, the first night (report here). It was really just a stop-in for drinks, so we tried far less than Nathan did—only one pâté, in fact. On the strength of that small sample, all the raves seemed justified. I was dismayed to find so few wines by the glass, and I thought the available selections were rather pedestrian. For a purportedly wine-centric restaurant, I am surprised they could do no better than that. But they could be serving pepsi and orange juice, and if the rest of the charcuterie is this good, they will have plenty of my business.

It's not so much a matter of complaining as acknowledging it for what it is. That's also a pretty wide range. These days, $40 is perhaps one step above the "cheap eats" category, whereas $80 is trending towards "expensive" (not quite touching it).

If you want to dine at Momofuku Ssäm Bar, and have the food that is purported to be the best cuisine to have debuted in NYC in the last three years, it is not going to be a cheap meal. The only thing you can say in its favor, is that it will be much less than you'd pay at an actual three or four-star restaurant. On the other hand, you will have to put up with considerable inconvenience, namely, the other amenities that make three and four-star restaurants cost what they do. I think most diners, if they have the choice, prefer to have those amenities, or at least a subset of them, which is why you haven't seen a dozen more Momofuku Ssäm Bar clones popping up all over town.

But to call Jean Georges as "child friendly restaurant" is a big stretch, at least as that term is normally understood.

He isn't entirely allergic to good service—otherwise, Momofuku Ssam Bar would have three stars. But he doesn't like things that he finds "fussy" (or other synonyms that he routinely uses), which most normal people would associate with traditional luxury service at places like Fiamma and Del Posto.

I have not found any use of the word "fussy" by him — and he uses it a lot — in which it sounded like an attractive attribute. For instance, in the Del Post review, "The ceremony surrounding main courses can indeed be fussy...." It is willfully ignoring the context to suggest that Bruni is at all pleased by this. The clear implication, I think, is that the restaurant succeeds despite these distractions, which he finds utterly unhelpful.

Oh, true enough; he has to give three or four stars to somebody. But usually it's because they have managed to overcome his aversion to a set of traits that he invariably calls "fussy". It is always a drawback to him. ← I agree that it usually is...but not always. see the Del Posto review: ← This isn't the Del Posto thread, but I think that review amply supports my point. The traditional trappings of a luxury restuarant are never appreciated or desirable to Frank. They are inconveniences, distractions, and needless "fussiness" that he will tolerate if the food is good enough.

I'll bet the high chair at Per Se is in pretty deep storage.

My girlfriend and I had our first Bite Club dinner last night, for New Year's Eve. Daniel and Alicia turned out a wonderful menu, one of the best we've had on such an occasion. They have a great thing going, and I hope it will continue to prosper. My blog post about it is here.

I don't recall if this was mentioned upthread, but the 11:00 p.m. closing time, which is unusual in New York, was a concession to the local community board.

Adam Platt's year-end round-up is out today. I usually find Bruni more reliable, but this time it's Platt who came up with the better list. Here's his top ten: There's a really long piece called "Where to Eat 2008". It's a strong, wide-ranging round-up—again, better than Bruni's. For instance, he seems to be aware of the positive changes at Gordon Ramsay and Le Cirque, both of which Bruni has ignored.But despite having a wider rating scale—five stars, as opposed to four—Platt's highest rating awarded this year was two stars, again confirming that 2007 was a rather dull year. But Platt seldom seems to really love anything. I cannot recall the last time Platt awarded three stars. And unlike Bruni, Platt seldom posts re-reviews.

He not only implied it, but said so straight out. In his opinion, that's what "a new generation of food enthusiasts" wants — not the first time he has said so, either. Now, I've no objection to the straightforward observation that 2007 was a year dominated by "low budget homey small scale places," a fact obvious to anyone paying attention. But I think his analysis of the underlying reasons is naive and simplistic.

It's an important distinction. You might walk into Gramercy Tavern just for a drink, but it's not what the restaurant was built for. The lower level at Tailor very clearly was built for that.

I don't think the market is anywhere near saturated. As long as these places keep opening and succeeding, there will be more of them. It's the same reason that we keep seeing new steakhouses: they almost never fail. I also sense that these places are comparatively easy to open. I mean that only in relative terms, as against the time, effort, expense, and risk of opening a full-service restaurant. In contrast, the past couple of years have been fairly slow for high-end luxury restaurant openings. Frank Bruni thinks it's because people don't want fine dining any more. He is wrong: just try to book a last-minute table at Per Se, Gramercy Tavern, Gotham Bar & Grill, Cafe Boulud, Babbo, etc., etc.. The problem isn't lack of demand; there is more of it than the existing places can handle. But investors are scared of the up-front expense and risk of opening a place that takes years to plan and could quite easily fail. There's no such problem for a serious cocktail bar or a steakhouse.

Yes, but most consumers do indeed form an opinion—educated or otherwise—after one visit to a restaurant. You could easily browse this site, and find thousands of posts written after one visit. There are probably dozens on this thread alone. No restaurant can expect that all of its patrons will pay multiple visits and try the whole menu before they tell their friends what they thought about it. Like most food bloggers (and eGullet Society posters), I am writing about my dining experiences. And I dine out, not as a job, but for fun. Like most consumers, I visit restaurants that interest me, and "order normally".Indeed, I probably wouldn't have bothered with a second visit to Ssäm Bar, but for the levels of ecstasy in this discussion. I wondered, "Did I miss something?" My second trip left me with the same opinion: pretty good, but not orgasm-inducing. Although it is rather inconvenient for me to get there, I will probably pay a third visit at some point, if only because I cannot believe the comments here could be utterly without foundation, even if, to date, I haven't seen the merits in it that others have. What I find remarkable is that I am being criticized, not because I think Momofuku Ssäm Bar is bad, but merely because I find it "only" very good.

Actually, I've dined there twice. One of those visits was the one you mentioned; the other, I was with someone else, and we ordered 5-6 things between us, which we shared. So no, I'm not basing my opinion on "exactly two dishes." And I'm not saying the place is bad, either: two stars means "very good". I'm just not totally smitten, the way some people are.Having said that, restaurants are judged every day by their entire menu, not merely the best 50% of it. I mean, it's not as if I went into Peter Luger and ordered the salmon.