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This may seem repetitive: but thanks, as always, to Leonard Kim for his detailed analysis. One point about Frank Bruni: Because he came in as the ex-Rome bureau chief, there was a pretty obvious question whether he would favor Italian restaurants. With our antenae already alert to that possibility, it didn't take much for our suspicions to be triggered. Of course, there is more. Of Bruni's five 3-star Italian reviews, two (40%) were essentially unnecessary, because they were re-affirmations of existing ratings, and nothing had really changed at the restaurant that particularly demanded a re-visit. I am not saying he must always have a reason, but the fact is that with re-reviews there usually is one. I am also pretty sure he has never demoted an Italian restaurant.

I totally agree that there's no evidence of sexual bias in Bruni's reviewing. On a few occasions he's made sly allusions to his own orientation, and in the Robert's Steakhouse review it wasn't sly at all. But Adam Platt frequently quotes his wife (nothing sly there either). Nothing wrong with that. Not by me. I thought the Esca and Rosanjin reviews were among his best ever, and both are within the last two months. But I do think he is getting worse. Or perhaps it only seems that way, because he's failing to get better.

My perception—at the moment, not backed by statistics—is that Bruni chooses more Italian restaurants to review, and then gives them higher average ratings, than a more well-rounded critic would do. Call it bias, prejudice, or inclination. Bruni, an Italian-American who worked extensively in Italy, seems to have a particular affinity for Italian food, and understands (or thinks he understands) it better than other cuisines. I totally agree there. I would use statistics for what they are able to tell. No statistics can help us make sense of the Alain Ducasse and Bouley reviews (to give but two examples). Clearly: otherwise, we'd all be Bruni-lovers. It may well be that no critic would actually satisfy all of us. But there seems to be a consensus here that Bruni is singularly incompetent, even if we might not agree precisely which of his transgressions offends us most. That may very well be. Then again, maybe it was the sear on the meat at Crafsteak that first caught his eye. Realizing he couldn't justify a full review so soon after the original one, he had to find something to partner it with, and Craftbar was the obvious choice.

You have got to be kidding. Basically, Colicchio is searing the steaks a little better than he did before. That's enough to get Craftsteak a re-review after ten months, but Gilt (which actually did change dramatically) just gets a few paragraphs in "Dining Briefs." The reason isn't difficult to discern. Bruni likes steakhouses. He doesn't like fine dining. So a major fine dining restaurant gets the minimal coverage that he can get away with. A steakhouse gets a re-review because it's searing the meat a bit better than last time. What a joke!!!

We've gotten a little distracted here. We're trying to figure out the parameters for a statistical analysis. "Four-star aspirations" are not statistically measurable. We think we know what the recent ones are. But when comparing Bruni to Grimes and Reichl, who's going to go through the old reviews and figure out which restaurants had four-star aspirations?By the way, I can't think of a single new restaurant since Per Se, excluding re-reviews, for which Bruni appeared to be even close to awarding four stars. It would take some reading between the lines, since he never comes right out and says, "This would have been X stars, but for...." Remember, the question was about Italian restaurants. But in any event, since there have been only six four-star reviews of Bruni's tenure (about 3% of his reviews), I doubt it's going to make much of a difference.

I said it was subjective, didn't I?No, I wouldn't call Bouley Upstairs an Italian restaurant. What I did say is that there are restaurants straddling the border, about which reasonable minds can differ. Whatever you may call Little Owl and The Orchard, both have Italian chefs in the kitchen, and Bruni's reviews mention that background in each case. As I noted upthread in the discussion about women chefs, Bruni can't give the stars unless the restaurant exists. Over a period of many years, all NYT critics have agreed that there were no Italian four-star restaurants. In that category, there's nothing to compare him to.The four-star set is also statistically problematic because there are so few of them, so getting a meaningful sample is difficult. Bruni has reviewed only one restaurant in that category that wasn't previously reviewed by another critic: Per Se. Re-reviews are a somewhat different animal, because you're operating within a baseline established by someone else. By the way, although Bruni did not give Del Posto the four stars Batali wanted, his three stars were higher than most other critics thought it deserved. I don't know a way to express that statistically, but we all know it to be the case.

The two biases I perceive are:1) Higher percentage of Italian restaurants reviewed 2) Higher average ratings given Italian restaurants than other types of restaurants I think both of these things are objectively ascertainable. The only conceivable argument is precisely what constitutes an Italian restaurant, given that so many restaurants these days straddle culinary borders. For instance, I'd put both The Little Owl and The Orchard in the Italian category, though they're not exclusively so. We could check for an Italian bias against the rest of his reviews, or againist Grimes's & Reichl's reviews. The check for an anti-tablecloth, anti-French/Continental bias might be another day's work, but I don't want to presume on Leonard's time. For the purposes of this study, I would leave four-star reviews out of the picture. Since no NYT critic has given four stars to an Italian restaurant, we can assume the relevant population is zero.

well...it is the first west coast Batali restaurant (discounting his dad)....and it's been very positively received there. ← I'm not suggesting the trip was utterly without merit.But I think he has to be called on it, when A) He is already known to have a pronounced Italian bias and a Batali bias; B) He flies out to L.A. on the paper's dime, pays multiple visits to a pizzeria—and apparently dines nowhere else. ← do you really think the NY Times wasn't going to send someone to check out Batali's first restaurant elsewhere? ← As I said, "I'm not suggesting the trip was utterly without merit." That's despite the fact that Batali was basically only a consultant, and doesn't seem to be the primary creative drive behind the place. It's not a Batali restaurant the way Babbo is a Batali restaurant.

well...it is the first west coast Batali restaurant (discounting his dad)....and it's been very positively received there. ← I'm not suggesting the trip was utterly without merit.But I think he has to be called on it, when A) He is already known to have a pronounced Italian bias and a Batali bias; B) He flies out to L.A. on the paper's dime, pays multiple visits to a pizzeria—and apparently dines nowhere else.

There's plenty of bias against women chefs, but I don't think it's coming from Bruni.In the first place, I'm not aware of any plausible three or four-star candidate with a woman chef that has opened during Bruni's tenure. He can only award the stars if the restaurants exist. The real argument is at the two-star level, since every restaurant these days is a two-star candidate. That's McNally's real beef, since I'm sure he never saw Morandi as a three-star restaurant. But given the widespread critical complaints about Morandi, you can hardly blame Bruni for not loving the place. So if McNally is serious, he would need to tell us which restaurants Bruni rated below the critical consensus. If enough of them have women chefs, then maybe there's a real pattern there. But I doubt it will be more significant than Bruni's bias in favor of Italian restaurants—a bias from which McNally benefited, as the Morandi review could very easily have been zero stars. Question to Leonard Kim: Is Bruni's pro-Italian bias statistically significant?

In today's review Frank Bruni probably arrives at the correct ratings for Craftsteak and Craftbar (** and * respectively). But isn't it just typical that this is only the second re-review of his tenure, and it's a steakhouse? Meanwhile, today's Critic's Notebook covers a pizzeria in Los Angeles. Apparently a damned good one, but an Italian restaurant nevertheless. Put Frank on the steakhouse and Italian beat, and leave the rest of the restaurants to someone else.

Bruni has biases, no doubt about it. His most obvious bias is in favor of Italian restaurants (his Morandi smackdown notwithstanding). He's also biased in favor of steakhouses, Asian restaurants, and casual restaurants. As I have remarked before, among restaurants that opened during his tenure, he has awarded three stars to only one conventionally formal non-Italian restaurant: Country. Every other three-star award has been: Italian, a re-review, or comparatively casual.

Count Grub Street's Mister Cutlets as the latest one to perceive a trend where there is none. Yesterday, he called the James Beard Awards "a Referendum on Haute Cusine." And after David Chang won the Rising Star Chef award, Cutlets gushed, "last night’s ceremony officially ushered in a new era in fine dining." Oh yeah? Well, in the "Best Chef: New York City" category, Chanterelle's David Waltuck was the winner, beating Wylie Dufresne, among others. In the "Outstanding Pastry Chef" category, Le Bernardin's Michael Laskonis was the winner, beating Room 4 Dessert's Will Goldfarb, among others. For "Best Restauranteur," it was Thomas Keller, who is nearly as "haute" as they come. For "Best New Restaurant," it was L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, beating "Momofuku Ssäm Bar," among others. Obviously David Chang has heartily earned his award, and I congratulate him. But I hardly see it as haute cuisine's death knell, considering that the old school prevailed in four other categories. (I am counting only those categories where the winner was a chef with business in New York.) Of course, it is wonderful that a place like Momofuku Ssäm Bar exists. But why must the success of a new kind of restaurant be heralded as the demise of others?

Last week, Eric Asimov of the Times reported (on his blog) that "a significant offering from the cellars of Montrachet" — and he interprets this to mean just about everything worthwhile — will be auctioned off. Details are available here. This appears to suggest, either that the rumored Drew Nieporent–Paul Liebrandt collaboration won't be in the old space, or that it won't be the same kind of wine-themed restaurant that Montrachet was. Whatever it is, it surely won't be called Montrachet.

I agree with a lot of what Sneak wrote. There's a full review on my blog, but I have a few comments: I agree: no interior design awards here. I'm afraid I just don't get this. Oh, it's worse than that. You can't drink at the bar either. I have to think it's part of his deal with the hotel: where the hotel has its own bar, often the hotel restaurant does not.I also agree with Sneak that the wine list is a work in progress. They'll strike you that way, because they are: by my estimate, about $10pp higher for a 3-course meal. Canora is clearly aiming at a higher level here. It'll remain to be seen whether he's succeeded. For the record, I gave it the same 2½ stars I gave Hearth. It's interesting that Sneak compares it to A Voce, as the very same comparison occurred to me too. The food at Insieme is probably about comparable to A Voce (based on one meal, anyway). But I found the space at A Voce distinctly unpleasant, and the service very spotty. Service at Insieme was pretty close to flawless.

It would be a tough case to make. The life expectancy of a new restaurant—reviewed or not—is not that great. There are a number of restaurants that have thrived even though Bruni panned them, and there are a number of restaurants that have closed even though he loved them.I suspect that most Bruni reviews, even the less-than-rapturous ones, are good for business. It would be hard to measure, but I'll bet that even Max Brenner got busier this week, even though it's tough to imagine a more negative review.

It's worth noting that the Times gave it two stars, and without looking 'em all up, I think it received a number of other very favorable reviews. I wouldn't put it all on Michelin.

Just a brief word about Petrosino's arc: $25 & Under in January 2003, a 2-star Bruni review in September 2004, closed in February 2006. Whether deserved in Petrosino's case or not, it's something Bruni should do more of. It's also yet another example of a little Italian place that got two stars from him—a genre in which he specializes. Little Owl doesn't count at all: its full review came just two months after the place opened. There's no dispute that Bruni tracks all the new openings, and reviews the ones he finds worthy. The Modern doesn't count, either. Like Little Owl, it was reviewed within the first few months after it opened. We all know he does that. Esca was probably one of the top 5 best-written reviews of Frank Bruni's tenure. Obviously it was a restaurant that already had a pretty high profile (as all of Batali's restaurants do), but he raised it even higher. Outside of Italian restaurants, the Rosanjin review seems to stand alone.

Obviously, any restaurant that's still in business past its 1st birthday has been discovered by someone. I prefer FG's formulation — a place that deserves more attention than it has lately (or ever) had.Considered that way, I think it's fairly certain that such restaurants exist in Manhattan, though obviously the outer boroughs are more likely. Mind you, I'm not suggesting that there's an undiscovered major restaurant lurking out there. But New Yorkers do travel for "non-major" restaurants — Nathan and Sneakeater being the obvious exemplars. I mean, from (say) Times Square, there are an enormous number of restaurants in a 30-minute travel radius. Sorry, but I don't accept that they've all gotten precisely the amount of "buzz" they deserved. I don't know about you, but for me, part of the adventure is discovering places not recommended by other people's publicity blurbs. Are you suggesting that you've never tried that, or if you did, that you never had a positive experience? Now, imagine that was your full-time job. You don't think you'd ever find anything?

Well, I did give one example upthread. But at a broader level, you didn't answer my question: Is it your contention that everything worth discovering has already been highly publicized? That someone paid to work at it full time couldn't find anyplace worth covering, that people like us don't already know about? I know this will surprise you, but you've convinced me. On a second look, it seems Bruni has had enough opportunities to hit a fair ball in this area, and except at El Bulli, he's struck out.I would add that I personally think WD-50 deserves the upgrade to three stars. To be sure, it doesn't have the traditional formality of a three-star restaurant, but that clearly isn't a requirement these days. If A Voce and Del Posto and Perry St. and the Bar Room are three-star restaurants, then so is WD-50.

IMO, of restaurants that have opened in the last 3 years, The Modern offers the best case for four stars. That the present critic has awarded only two is truly a disgrace.

Cru is doing just fine. Just check for reservations on OpenTable, and you'll see how hard it is to get in at prime times.

I just re-read that review, and you have a fair point. Unreserved rapture was given only to El Bulli. There was much he liked at Alinea, but it seemed more respectful than truly adoring.Whether he "got it" I can't say, since I haven't been there myself.

I think he's quite good at some of it...not so good at some of it. He's very good on Italian, pretty good on steakhouses and Asian cuisines in general, pretty good on "new paradigm" food, not so hot on classic French and downright poor on molecular/avant garde. He appears to understand Italian better than anything else, but it leads to a lack of balance. A number of Italian places have been rated a star higher than most other people thought they deserved. Obviously, there's room for opinion about any given restaurant. But when it keeps happening with Italian places, you've got to wonder. It also disturbs the balance of the so-called "body of work" when one cuisine is over-rated.I agree: pretty good on steakhouses, reasonable on Asian. His not-so-hots include pretty much all of Europe, except for Italy. I'm not sure there are enough New Paradigm examples to say he's good at it per se. At times, but he's also turned out some howlers. That's an interesting one. He absolutely loved El Bulli and Alinea. No stars, of course, since they're out of his territory, but he did love them.During his tenure, only one relevant example has opened in New York: Gilt under Liebrandt. (I'm assuming that Liebrandt broadly fits the "molecular" pattern.) Sure, he didn't like Gilt, but you can't draw conclusions from a sample size of one. And sure, he hasn't granted WD-50 a re-review. But there are lots of places not granted re-reviews.

I'm not suggesting it is. After all, just last week he wrote a review very nearly as negative as this one (Morandi), though it managed to squeak by with probably the most unenthusiastic one-star review ever. Until I got to the end, I was very sure I was reading a zero-star review. I am surprised to hear you say so. On the theory that "all important restaurants have a 'foodie buzz'" (to which several here seem to subscribe), I would have thought the very absence of comments was telling in itself.