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Forbes has released its (annual?) All-Star Eateries in New York. These restaurants earned four stars: These restaurants earned three stars: They don't award one or two stars, but a number of other restaurants were listed as "special" (see the article). Obviously their admits more four-star restaurants than the Times does. There are a few strange choices and a few provocative ones—there always are on such lists—but it is always useful to see another viewpoint.

FG, if you hadn't been comped, would you know of its existence? Perhaps you received a press release (was there one?), but I suspect you receive a lot of press releases, and you probably don't believe everything you read. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being comped. I receive those offers sometimes too (nowhere near as often as you), and I happily accept them. But your interest in the place doesn't seem to have arisen until after you were comped.Rather than a "print-media conspiracy of silence," perhaps Waldy simply hasn't done a good job of letting them know about it.

It's important not to confuse "best" with "most innovative". Ssäm Bar is definitely the most innovative restaurant of the last three years, or indeed, quite possibly the last ten. But because no one else has served two-star food in a zero-star environment, Chang's food seems better than it is. If the identical concept were moved into a real restaurant setting—thereby eliminating most of what makes Ssäm Bar unique—everyone would realize that it is simply a decent two-star restaurant.

Sorry in advance for the rambling response.... Yes, the correct title of the essay would be "The 10 best new restaurants that I reviewed this year." I'm not terribly fussed that some of them actually opened in late 2006. For it to be a "true" 2007 list, Bruni would have to wait till about April, so that worthy candidates that opened in November or December would have time to get reviewed. Somehow, a "Best of..." retrospective doesn't make sense in April. I'm also not fussed that Bruni excluded restaurants in Meehan's territory. He can only write about what he knows. And besides, the $25-and-under concept has now shrunk to near insignificance. Nowadays, Bruni can review whatever he wants (Sripraphai, Franny's, Resto, Max Brenner, Katz's Deli, Freemans), with Meehan left to pick up the scraps Bruni doesn't care about. I dined at eight of the 10 restaurants on his list (all but Resto and 15 East). It's not a bad list, given Bruni's limitations. He did not award three or four stars to any new restaurant this year. He should have awarded three to Anthos and Gordon Ramsay, and had he done so, then they would have headed the list—as they should. I would also rank Soto and Insieme higher than Ssam Bar, which would be no higher than fifth on my list. The only restaurant on Bruni's list that I didn't like at all was Park Avenue Summer. I must have caught it on a bad night. I was happy to see Mai House on the list, as it was one of my personal favorites of 2007. However, I can see why it would surprise some people, because it was well off the radar (it is still not full most evenings). I also liked Pamplona, though I realize not everyone liked it as much as Bruni and I did. Hill Country was one of my favorites of 2007, and if it wasn't for the $25-and-under split, I suspect it would be one of Bruni's too. Lastly, I would add Rosanjin, another restaurant Bruni tossed into the two-star scrum, but which clearly deserved three. Toloache got the Dining Briefs treatment because that's all Bruni thought it deserved. (It wasn't in my top-10 either.) BLT Market is arguably as good as some of the entrants on his list, but it too got the Dining Briefs treatment. The exclusion of Tailor isn't glaring at all, because Bruni hated the place. Offhand, I cannot recall any professional critic that especially liked it. Although I think Tailor will survive, Mason opened with the wrong menu, and by the time he started fixing it, the review cycle was over. As for the Kitchen Counter at Beacon, the meal that FG is so excited about is served only one night a week. Whatever its merits, a "restaurant" that serves dinner only on Thursdays is simply not in the same category as all of these others. In any case, the "reconceptualization" of an existing restaurant, however exciting, is not the same as a new restaurant. He has another list called "Impressive Transformations", which is where the Kitchen Counter would have belonged, assuming it belonged at all. If the Kitchen Counter is that good, it will be discovered eventually. I agree with Eater's comment: It must be stated again: there was not one new restaurant in 2007 that Bruni found worthy of the top two ratings on his scale.

But, as Eater notes: I would also note that, for all of his enthusiasm, Bruni rated Ssäm Bar at only two stars. He's not fibbing, though: no new restaurants in 2007 were awarded three or four stars, making Ssäm Bar, by his reckoning, the best of a dull lot.

Of all the suggestions given, Union Square is the most compelling. It's a strong food neighborhood in its own right, and it's within a walking distance of several other great neighborhoods. Now, add to that all the places reachable in 30 minutes or less on the 4/5/6/L/N/Q/R/W trains. Lastly, Union Square has all of the other amenities one looks for in a neighborhood. The Financial District, where I used to live, is not a great food neighorhood on its own — though it is better than it used to be. But if you're willing to get on a train, you're no more than 1/2 hour away from every Manhattan neighborhood mentioned so far, because more subway lines converge there than anywhere else. There are pockets of midtown that are close to great restaurants. But if you're on the west side, then the east side trains are a hike, and vice versa. TriBeCa and SoHo, which some people mentioned, are also terrific neighborhoods, but they are among the most expensive in town.

I think that sort of trivializes what Bruni says, because Ferguson wasn't serving those dishes (or anything really equivalent to them) at GR. After all, at GR Ferguson was the implementer of Ramsay's cuisine, but at A&D he's running his own shop. I don't think GR, at least as originally conceived, was going to really float Frank's boat at any price.Bruni does mention the prices at A&D, and he should, because these days it's rare to find a restaurant of even modestly serious ambitions where there are no $30 entrees.

I predicted two also. My sense is that A&D is offering the kind of "hearty rustic" cuisine that Bruni loves. I also think that its sub-$30 entrée price was designed with Bruni in mind, given that his version of the star system is especially price-sensitive.On top of that, Gordon Ramsay must have thought that Neil Ferguson was capable of running a NYT four-star kitchen. Obviously he proved to be wrong about that, but he couldn't have been that far off. At A&D, you're getting a chef of that calibre, at less than half the price you'd pay at Ramsay's own restaurant.

Now that the review cycle for Insieme is over, where do Marco and Paul spend the bulk of their time?

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.

Labeling probably helps the restaurant. There's a reason why Zagat lists far more Italian restaurants than any other cuisine. If the label were "tough-to-pin-down," it would limit a restaurant's reach.Though I haven't dined at Fiamma yet, it appears to me (from the photos and descriptions) that "Italian" is a more accurate label than any other you could use, and it's not so wide of the mark as to be deceptive. Bruni once again shows his fundamental limitation. He uses the word "fussy" a lot, and it is never a compliment.

I can't help thinking that if it were called La Flamme and had a French chef, it would be two stars, max.

From the beginning, I thought that the criteria — both as to hautness and to cheapness — were somewhat arbitrary.

Moreover, the write-ups on their website are usually a summary of the most recent rated review, even if that review was quite a while ago. If you had looked up Harry Cipriani two weeks ago, you would have found a glowing recommendation derived from Byan Miller's two-star review, which was sixteen years out-of-date.

Actually, they are: it's called the New York Times website. No sensible reader would assume that the unstarred restaurants "suck". As Nathan noted, even being mentioned in the guide is an honor, of sorts. Michelin's position is that every restaurant listed is respectable in its category.Bear in mind the Guide's Eurpean roots. It's a travel guide. In some areas, you could find yourself hundreds of miles from the nearest "starred" restaurant. They are certainly not suggesting that the places without stars are unworthy of your attention. Actually, I think it's inconceivable that anyone would produce a similar list without making a few selections that the rest of us would regard as dubious.

There are also a number of prominent chef changes that he didn't re-review, such as Alain Ducasse and Gordon Ramsay. His blogging is about 80% "non-food" related.

It's safe to assume that the two and three-star places get more scrutiny, as they should. Frank Bruni has acknowledged that he follows a similar system with the NYT 3/4-stars, as he should.We don't know how much time elapses between Michelin visits to one and zero-starred restaurants, but then again, we don't know that with Bruni either. But as Michelin has fewer starred restaurants and more than one reviewer, they are probably doing a better job of it than Frank is. That assumes that the unstarred restaurants received no scrutiny at all, which of course is not the case. Similarly, Bruni visits many restaurants that he eventually decides not to review. The more you expand upon this, the clearer it becomes that their system is pretty much the same as Bruni's (or any critic's), but better.

Nathan, under your theory, one would expect to see some casual three and four-star restaurants. Indeed, if what you're saying is true, there ought to be quite a few of them. But Bruni has more-or-less hewed to the traditional distinctions, stretching the rules occasionally at the two-star level, and arguably only once at the three-star level. I have to conclude there's more to it than the "quality divided by price" algorithm you've suggested.

The New York Times does the very same thing, as does just about every media outlet that awards stars. When Frank Bruni awarded two stars to Le Cirque and The Little Owl in consecutive weeks, could anyone argue that those two ratings were at all comparable? Le Cirque's two stars make sense only against the ratings given to other luxury French restaurants, and The Little Owl's only against other casual Italian restaurants.The breakpoint between one and two Michelin stars? It's the same as the breakpoint between two and three NYT stars. That's why The Little Owl's two-star review sounded ecstatic, but Le Cirque's was the opposite. For casual Italian places, two stars is the maximum, which means that The Little Owl hit it out of the ballpark. For Le Cirque, four is the maximum, which makes a rating of two rather disappointing. There are a few differences between the two systems. Frank Bruni awards more stars in a year than there are in the whole Michelin guide. The Michelin folks say that every restaurant with a star is at least "very good in its category," but Bruni very clearly did not think that Le Cirque was a very good luxury French restaurant. No one would read his two-star review, and believe he was enthusiastic. In that sense, the Michelin system feels more honest. Every one of their stars translates to an enthusiastic recommendation. All they're saying is that EMP, Yasuda, and Felidia are not very good (as opposed to merely good) in their respective categories. I might argue with some of those judgments, but I also argue with some of Bruni's judgments.

That's the last line from Platt's review. Funny thing is that if he didn't like the food, (he actually said he did), I don't get this line. If he did like it as he said he did when commenting on specific dishes, I don't really understand the panning of the restaurant. As I saw it, Platt was complaining about the overall incoherence of the concept, which is a reasonable objection. Like most critical judgments, it's not provably correct or incorrect.It's also worth bearing in mind that Platt hardly ever gives three stars or higher. He gives three stars less often than Bruni. In fact, I can't remember Platt's last three-bagger. So with two being his practical maximum, an awful lot of decent places get one star. Unfortunately, Platt's reviews are full of reminders of how bored he is with the job.

Today, Tailor gets pummeled again, with Adam Platt's one-star review taking up just two paragraphs.

← It seems that the words "Doug Psaltis" and "parted ways" go together more often than not.

Are you suggesting that Cipriani could serve better food than they served to Bruni? Aren't you the one that always argues that there's not much a restaurant can do to change what they do for a critic? ← I suspect there's nothing Cipriani could have done to keep two stars. In a rating system that takes price into account, there's no way to justify two stars for Cipriani, when places like L'Impero and Insieme—which are better, and far less expensive—are at the same level. But had they recognized him, I suspect they could have done better than POOR.

The reason I think it's a yes/no proposition is that there are probably very few people who are going to buy more than one guide. So either the guide you've bought is (mostly) reliable, or it's (mostly) not.In any case, I think the vast majority of even the one-star ratings are reasonable. If you asked anyone else, they'd just make different mistakes.

For someone like me, Michelin's reliability is academic. I've been to most of those restaurants anyway, and have my own opinion. Where I haven't been to them, or where my experience is stale, I follow enough of the sources to have a decent sense of the prevailing consensus.But for the book's target audience—the people who actually use the book for its intended purpose—reliability is pretty much a yes/no proposition. Any intelligent person will realize that a book of that scope probably contains some errors. The question is whether, on the whole, it's good enough to depend upon. In my view, the answer is unquestionably yes. I don't know a single source of its kind that is more reliable. I trust Michelin's ratings more than Zagat. I trust them more than the New York Times, particularly because so many of the Times ratings are woefully outdated. I trust them more than the eGullet message boards, particularly because the interests of eGullet members cover the restaurant universe so unevenly. That's right. Among those sources that assign ratings, there's a pretty broad consensus that places like Per Se and Le Bernardin (and a few others) are at the top of the pack.