oakapple

Three weeks, phooey. Three months or better yet a year. ← I responded on the Bruni & Beyond thread.

This came in the Mercat thread, but I'm replying here as it is more of a meta-reviewing topic, and not about any one restaurant: Three weeks, phooey. Three months or better yet a year. ← As soon as a restaurant throws open its doors and starts charging money, I think it is fair game for critical commentary. But I think we need to distinguish eReviews (bloggers, eGullet, Chowhound, Mouthfuls,....) and traditional print reviews.The reality is that no eReview, on its own, has much influence. No eReviewer is important enough to move the market. An unfavorable eReview therefore has little practical consequence. It will soon be superseded by many others. If the problems are merely opening jitters, this will become readily apparent as more positive eReviews come along. Anyhow, instant eReviews are here to stay, whether you like them or not. These days, the first eReviews often appear literally within hours of a restaurant's opening. That's just the way it is, and knowledgeable restauranteurs are adjusting to it, as they must. Traditional print reviews are another story. They tend to have much longer staying power than eReviews, are much more widely read, and have much more economic impact on the restaurant. Also, most newspapers and magazines will review a restaurant only once. Re-reviews, if granted at all, are usually years apart. The traditional print media should therefore give restaurants time to settle in. The more responsible critics in fact do this, although lately I've seen reviews on Bloomberg after a restaurant was just a week or two old. This is a practice that should be deplored. Frank Bruni is usually the last of the major critics to weigh in — normally after around three months, but don't count on it. Gordon Ramsay at The London opened on November 16, and Frank Bruni panned it on January 31st, eleven weeks later. One must assume that at least some of his five or six visits were paid during the opening month, when the restaurant was just finding its legs. Anyone who thinks critics are going to wait a year is kidding themselves. If they get three months, they're still getting a much more generous cushion than is granted Broadway plays — a medium for which, I believe, the print medium is far more influential than it is for restaurants.

Little Italy on the map, and Little Italy in reality, are two very different things. Most of historic Little Italy (and the neighborhood labeled thus on most maps) has now become an extension of Chinatown. The recognizably Italian section is just 5-6 blocks on Mulberry Street, and a handful of storefronts on side streets. Chinatown, of course, is just the opposite: the recognizably Chinese section is much larger than what any map shows.I'll stand by the statement that, for the typical visiting tourist, and a good deal of the bridge-and-tunnel crowd, the food in Little Italy is perceived to be better than average. That is why the neighborhood has survived in its current state.

Whenever I've been in Little Italy, it's usually overrun with tourists. If the tourists weren't out yesterday, I suspect it was an anomaly. I have to tell you I've taken visitors there a few times, and most are at least intrigued, if not enthralled. Who am I to tell them they shouldn't like it? It may be hard for us to accept, but there are a lot of people for whom the style and quality of Italian food offered in Little Italy is considered good. A lot of these folks haven't even heard of Babbo or L'Impero, much less dined there. I also think that most of Little Italy's restaurants are comparable to the average Italian restaurant in America — in other words, not objectively bad; just average. We object because we want a neighborhood like Little Italy to have great Italian cuisine, and it does not. In this sense it's different from Chinatown, which also has many dozens of merely average restaurants, but also has a few excellent ones — if you only know where to find them. Of course, there's also the tendency on eGullet to decry restaurants that appeal to tourists. Don't forget that Tavern on the Green, One if By Land, and Cafe des Artistes are still thriving. I think that what happened to Little Italy was more-or-less an historical accident, and not the product of any willful decision to turn itself into what it has become. The survival of those places is also an historical accident. A happy accident, but an accident nevertheless. A big difference is that it's hard to find Jewish restaurants anywhere, but Italian restaurants are everywhere you turn.

The website says they do.

I'm always particularly amused by posts that try to stereotype a restaurant's clientele. I was there last night, and both two-tops near me were taken by elderly couples (a category not matched by any of the above). One of the tables cleared, and another 50+ couple came along. There were indeed a number of stroller families too, along with other parties of various sizes that I wouldn't presume to categorize.The restaurant was pretty close to full. When I arrived a bit before 7:00 p.m., I was initially told it would be a half-hour wait; then, they seated me immediately at a wonderful table with a park view. There was a large number of staff on the floor, so they had things working pretty efficiently, with only a few minor glitches. I ordered the marrow bones ($12) and the calf's liver ($22), mainly because I was alone, and I know both of those dishes would gross out my girlfriend. Both are well known Landmarc specialties, so I won't dwell on them. I thought that the veggies that came with the liver were perfunctory (tasted like they'd been in a frying pan too long), but otherwise I was quite pleased. Even better was the half-bottle of Saint-Georges-Saint-Émilion that I enjoyed for $26. One can hardly complain about the $3 blueberry crumble. Two managers came over to see if I was satisfied. In the course of conversation, it came out that this week was supposed to be a soft opening, but they quickly found out that that's impossible. The main dining room, by the way, seats 200, not 300. Two private dining rooms (not yet open) add another 90.

I agree about the lack of a clear template.Except on Saturdays and Sundays, breakfast for most people is more about expediency than anything else — where can I get something decent, as quickly as I can, so that I can get on with my day? I can't imagine that Landmarc's English Muffin for $3 is that much better than the diner down the street, but to get it at Landmarc, you have to go into a mall and up two flights of escalators. The exception is the business breakfast, in which case diners are less price sensitive, and usually want something a bit fancier than Landmarc appears to be offering. Doc referred to the Landmarc business model, a lot of which doesn't seem to readily translate to breakfast (e.g., the wine program). Anyhow, it's not that I'm predicting that the breakfast menu will fail, only that I don't see the same obvious path to success that I can see for the rest of what they're doing. Having said that, I don't really think it matters one iota if, next January, they announce new hours of 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.

If that were true, then there are many other restaurants in this town that would be open for breakfast—but aren't.

I'm not convinced the breakfast service will last. Café Gray originally planned to offer breakfast, and it quickly died. Clearly there's a price point differential between the two restaurants, but I think the location has something to do with it too.

I'm not sure which restaurants are the relevant comparison for Landmarc. One notable point is the huge catchment area that comes from being located directly atop the Columbus Circle subway station, where the 1, A, B, C, and D trains all meet. If you draw a circle around all the places from which you can reach Columbus Circle in 20 minutes, it's an enormous area. Needless to say, it's also close enough to be a pre-Lincoln Center option, and will pull in its share of mall customers. In the original concept of the Restaurant Collection, one obvious flaw was that none of the restaurants was really a spur-of-the-moment kind of place, which Landmarc clearly will be. I also think, particularly because of the wine program, that Landmarc will continue to attract a lot of positive press. The main challenge will be quality control. I think there's a reason that there aren't a lot of great 300-seat restaurants. If they aren't careful, it could turn into another Tavern on the Green.

That is true, of course, but 3–1 is about the lowest odds Eater ever quotes, and if an actual casino offered those odds every time, they'd go bankrupt.

Difficult, but not impossible. Per Se was similarly hyped, and managed to live up to it.

Country and The Modern have been the two best meals I've had in the last year or so — better than Jean-Georges or Daniel.One factor that weighs on my mind: we usually order long tasting menus at these places. That's because, as we've neither the time nor the money to visit these places regularly, we are inclined to think that a tasting menu gives us a broader idea of the restaurant's capabilities. Also, if the chef has a signature dish or two, there's a good chance the tasting menu will include them. I do wonder if I would be as enthusiastic if I ordered the more typical 3-course or 4-course prix fixe.

I was referring to what the customer sees. What the restaurant does behind the scenes is a whole other story. But we are clearly in an age where, at least at major restaurants, pastry chefs are becoming big names --- sometimes on a par with the executive chef. I'm thinking of people like Will Goldfarb, Sam Mason, Alex Stupak, Nicole Kaplan, Jordan Kahn, Pichet Ong. Some of those folks, obviously, have become (or are about to become) leading acts on their own, instead of being the final act in someone else's show.

I usually don't order dessert, unless it comes as part of a prix fixe or tasting menu. But given the effort restaurants put into desserts and the job market for pastry chefs, I have to think desserts really do matter to a restaurant's image and bottom line.

That is a very fair assessment. But it's worth recalling that Gramercy Tavern in its early days was also touted as a four-star restaurant, which never happened. But GT settled in as a very respectable three-star place, frequented more by special-occasion diners than foodies.

I agree with SE and Nathan that Del Posto has a far better reputation (among those "in-the-know" — whoever they are ) than Spice Market. Lape tends to rate just about everything a star higher than everyone else. His four stars are roughly equivalent to Bruni's three.Del Posto got mixed reviews. That means that, whether you love it or hate it, you can find a critic who agreed with you, therefore (purportedly) demonstrating that all of the other critics don't know what they're talking about. Their other restaurants rated two stars or higher are: Jean Georges, Le Bernardin, Per Se, Masa, and Daniel. Surely you're not suggesting that all of those ratings are clueless? This has been picked to death on the Michelin thread, but it turns there's a pretty high correlation between their ratings and those doled out by other critics.By the way, I'm no apologist for Del Posto. I gave 2½ stars (out of four) to my own meal there. I was not ecstatic, especially given the price. I am just pointing out that Del Posto has some legitimate fans. One must be careful about presuming that one's own view is correct, and all of the people who say otherwise just don't know what they're talking about.

This is where I really take issue with Eater's odds sometimes. He had 3-1 odds on three stars. It should really have been more like 1-5 (i.e., a $0.20 payoff on a $1 bet).

This is a natural, typical reaction whenever one's experience doesn't jive with what the critics said.As you implied, critics are usually recognized. Savvy management will ensure that the most polished servers, the most seasoned wine stewards, etc., etc., are assigned to that table. Of course, the major critics pay many more visits than you & I do. And when they visit, they take larger parties and order from more of the menu. So they have much more to go on before issuing an opinion. In the first place, I was replying to the question, "Is it safe to say Del Posto is a failure?" The availability of reservations is one way to test that hypothesis. OpenTable doesn't say who is taking the tables, only that they're not available. I wouldn't presume that just because a restaurant I don't like is full, tourists must be taking all the tables.I can assure you that if you repeat the same exercise I tried — 8:00 p.m. reservation for two people, any day during the next week — the whole Meatpacking District isn't invariably full. To the contrary, a majority of MePa restaurants that are on OpenTable could accommodate you at some point in a one-week window.

Not by any objective definition. It got four stars from Bob Lape in Crain's, three stars from Frank Bruni in the Times, and two stars from the Michelin Guide, so clearly it is not a critical failure.I just checked on OpenTable, and I could not find an 8:00 p.m. reservation for two on any date during the next week. This suggests that they are filling most of their tables, at least at prime times, so it is probably not an economic failure. There are also none of the usual signs of a struggling restaurant, such as a major change to the concept, a chef being fired, or prices being lowered dramatically. Actually, the opposite happened. They lured pastry chef Nicole Kaplan away from Eleven Madison Park. And a bargain Sunday-night menu was discontinued, since they had no trouble filling the place at the regular prices. All that's left is the fact that some people happen to not like it, which you can't calibrate objectively. By all the standards you can measure, Del Posto is not a failure in any sense.

For a high-profile place like Landmarc, there's no such thing as opening quietly.

That's a somewhat lazy label to bestow. Reviews of the enoteca have been mostly favorable, and the main dining room has had its share of good reviews too.

Bruni upgraded Eleven Madison Park 23 months after his first review. He said: That sets the benchmark for the level of enthusiasm required for a re-review two years later. And Bruni has seldom been that enthusiastic. I would add that Daniel Humm was at EMP for about a year before Bruni reviewed him.Bruni reviewed Gilt just fourteen months ago, and Christopher Lee's new menu has been in place only since October. It is safe to assume that, even if Bruni's enthusiasm for Lee at Gilt equals his enthusiasm for Humm at EMP, it will be a while before we see a re-review. My guess, given Bruni's track record, is that he will not have the same enthusiasm for Lee. When Daniel Humm arrived at EMP, the favorable reaction from the foodie community was overwhelming and almost instantaneous. In contrast, there is not yet even one eGullet review of the dining room at Gilt under Chef Lee. (So far, there's one review of the bar menu, and that's it.) Adam Platt reviews Gilt in this week's New York, but he awards the same number of stars he did before. On top of all that, Bruni is often hostile to the "pricey, old-world kind of restaurant" (Platt's description), which is precisely what Gilt is. For all of those reasons, I think it's unlikely that Bruni will think Lee is serving three-star food. Don't hold your breath for that re-review.

You left out Anthos. Besides that, there are new restaurants at the one-star level opening all the time, and plenty that opened previously that the Times never reviewed. It all depends what strikes his fancy.I will be quite surprised to see a Gilt re-review anytime soon. He would need to be persuaded that it deserved three stars, and in Bruni's tenure that seldom happens for this type of restaurant. Oh, and it wouldn't be his first self-re-review; that was Eleven Madison Park. I agree with Rich that Gramercy Tavern is due for a re-review. No other re-review targets are obvious, but as tomorrow's Esca re-review shows, you can never predict where Bruni is setting his sights.

I assume we'll know the true story eventually, but the defense Neroni's spokesperson offered seems unbelievably lame: "If Marco didn’t want anyone signing checks, including Jason, he should have put the checkbook in the safe." If that's the best explanation he can come up with, Neroni needs a new spokesperson.