oakapple

also cause he only ordered one non-Japanese item at Bouley Upstairs. ← What he would have thought had he ordered differently is unknown. What he'd think of a restaurant he's never been to is unknown. I've been to R4D, and for one thing, it failes the "cheap" test. For dessert, it's on the expensive side.

Even with all of his expertise, I don't think he can say that. In the same concentrated period when he's made multiple visits to MSB and sampled virtually all of the menu, I don't believe he's done the same with every other restaurant that could make a plausible "best-in-New York" claim.Steve can speak for himself, but what we probably have here is exciting, innovative, bracing, cool, but not necessarily best. It's more like "the girl I want to date is the very pretty girl that just came in and sat at the end of the bar ... that is, until the next very pretty girl comes in." MSB is hardly the first example of a relatively casual restaurant that got stars for excellent food and minimal service/ambiance. It's not as if this restaurant came out of nowhere, and suddenly the star system can't accommodate it.And even if MSB was the first of a kind, you don't change the system for one restaurant. I do agree with Rich — and have always agreed — that the Times should give separate ratings for food, service, and ambiance.

I think he's also nailed that there is no new paradigm --- just a one-of-a-kind very good restaurant. There is no other example that everyone agrees with.

What makes Masa newsworthy is the high minimum price. Even if you drink tap water, you can't get out of there for under $450 a head. There is no other restaurant in New York with a minimum even remotely close to that. And if another one opened, whether the cuisine was Japanese, French, or Transylvanian, it would be big news. (I'm not sure if there's any cuisine other than Japanese for which the market would bear that price.)People who spend over a grand at Ducasse are doing it mainly with wine. And once you start ordering wine, the sky's the limit. At Veritas, the minimum food price is just $76, but the online wine list shows several bottles over $10,000, and scores of them over $1,000. The same would be true at any of the city's major wine-centric restaurants. Even at Otto, which has no main course over $15, you can order a $375 Barolo. I think Frank Bruni noted once, that although Masa's stratospheric minimum food price stands alone, there are no wines on its list that compare to the top-priced wines at places like Ducasse, Cru, Veritas, Per Se, etc. When you talk about "most expensive" restaurants, you really need to confine it to the food. Once wine enters the picture, you can spend a ton even at many modestly-priced restaurants. The ratio between the least and most-expensive wine on most restaurants' lists is usually at least 10:1, and it can be 100:1 or 1000:1.

You need to re-read the reviews. The major critics weren't impressed with the food. I'm not saying the critics were right, only being honest about what they said. I'm assuming that business hasn't been up to expectations—else, why make the move? So what I'm saying is that I think it will be a long slog to get people more interested in the restaurant than they are now.

I could easily believe that Emett will be an improvement on Ferguson. My real question is whether anyone will pay attention. The media have, in a sense, "moved on," and it will be hard to overcome the spate of bad publicity that attended the launch (much of which was probably not Ferguson's fault).

Eater reports that Neil Ferguson has been removed as chef de cuisine at Gordon Ramsay. One of Ferguson's deputies, Josh Emett, replaces him. The press release tries to put a good face on it: "We are thrilled with the level and caliber of work Neil Ferguson has achieved at Gordon Ramsay at The London." But everyone will know the reasons for this move. One wonders how much of a real difference Emett could make. It is very difficult to get the critics' attention a second time. Gilt offers an example of this. Chris Lee replaced Paul Liebrandt, and most of the critics have totally ignored the place. The replacement of Ferguson is arguably a lot less significant, given that the prevailing concept of the restaurant is, at least nominally, still Ramsay's.

Exactly. The real subject of this thread is "underappreciated on eGullet." There are numerous restaurants, including Casa Mono, that are very highly appreciated...just not here.

I agree. If I don't have a good time eating - a restaurant is a failure in my opinion. Have any of you dined at a restaurant on the basis of a Bruni review and been entertained - had a good time? It's funny. I haven't been in NY for a few years - but we had the most fun at DB&D last time. Read about it in a review from who knows where - and the review said it had a limo outside where you could have a cigarette when it was cold. Sounded like fun to me - so I went. It was fun - and the food (at least then) was really good to boot. So have you ever found a place you liked this much on the basis of a Bruni review? Robyn ← There have been places where I had a good experience after following a Bruni recommendation. Examples that come to mind include Oriental Garden, Keens Steakhouse, and The Orchard. I'm sure there have been others.That's not to say that I had never heard of any of these places. But it was the Bruni review that made me think, "I've got to try that." I have usually not been disappointed when I followed his recommendations, although I am selective about when I do that.

The interview, on its own, certainly doesn't. I mentioned it, only because it is yet another place where he uses "fussy" in that particular context. None of them are significant on their own. It's only when you look at his larger body of work that the correlation becomes apparent.

Yesterday's Village Voice has an article about what Frank Bruni would choose for his last meal. His choices won't come as a surprise to anyone who reads his reviews: a porterhouse steak; toro-stuffed maki rolls, like the ones they serve at Masa; and "some buttery taglierini with heart-of-season white truffles shaved over it. Just like you'd get in the Piedmont region of Italy, which is one of my favorite areas in the world for eating." To me, the notable quote is: Here, yet again, we find one of his favorite derogatory words—fussy—used to describe extraordinary technique.His comment, taken literally, doesn't foreclose the possibility of "extraordinary technique" that isn't fussy. But he has used that word over & over again in this context. It cements my view that Bruni doesn't really enjoy the restaurants that serve this type of food. What others find "extraordinary," he finds "fussy." He can't eliminate those restaurants from his job description, but his visits aren't a labor of love. His heart is elsewhere.

That would be relevant if this restaurant was particularly dependent on foot traffic. I don't think that was the case here. Hardly any restaurant that opened this year had a better PR/press campaign. People knew about it, which was plainly evident by the difficulty of getting a reservation in the first couple of months. Given that about 70% of NYC restaurants either fail or change hands within 5 years, just about everywhere in town could be called a restaurant graveyard in that sense.

Obviously there is no alternative universe in which we can test that hypothesis, but I think that "bad location" is often used as an excuse for "bad execution." Lonesome Dove had no trouble pulling in diners when it opened. I suspect that many of those diners found inconsistent execution and poor service—as I did, and as most critics did—and chose not to become regulars.I mean, it's not as if he opened at St. Nicholas Avenue and 145th Street. The restaurant was extremely easy to get to, in a safe, popular, prosperous, and heavily populated neighborhood. It was near numerous subway lines, and within walking distance for anyone in Chelsea, Flatiron, and Union Square — fairly hip areas that are home to a wide variety of extremely successful restaurants. To paraphrase Frank Sinatra, if you can't make it there, you can't make it anywhere.

Does Bruni ever do a review you don't approve of? I agree. Two stars was entirely predictable, based on his past performance. But it reads like one star to me. I wouldn't over-interpret the ad. All restaurant critics are, in a sense, reporters too. That doesn't make Bruni a great critic, but it doesn't disqualify him either. There's no slideshow this time. He doesn't do one every week.

I'm afraid I just don't get this. There are many successful restaurants in a five-block radius of that location. And the fact is that New Yorkers will travel to quite inconvenient locations (which this wasn't, by any means) if the restaurant is great. Even Love himself concedes that the service was not acceptable when the place opened. He may have fixed it later on, but not before it was panned by virtually every critic in town.

Frank Bruni approaches his job very much like an "investigative reporter," so I don't mind the Times describing him that way. Actually, it shows that they realize exactly what they've got. If the man in the job is not really qualified to do restaurant criticism, it makes a bundle of sense to highlight what he does well.

I don't know how to test these hypotheses. Most three-star restaurants are one-of-a-kind. (Indeed, that may be one of the defining characteristics of three-star restaurants, though clearly not the only one.)Both The Modern and Gordon Ramsay have been described as austere. Bouley is clearly an original, but these days there's nothing uniquely "TriBeCa" about serving three-star food in surroundings that lack traditional formality. Danube? Well, you have me there. I can't think of a precise analogue. But I don't particularly see why it wouldn't have succeeded in East Midtown. This is a fair point, given that a new Montrachet will be starting mostly from scratch, much the way the new Russian Tea Room did.

Tim Love emailed me a few days ago to complain about my review of LD. He felt the review was misinformed in all respects except the poor service, which he insisted had been fixed. He also complained that people reviewing the restaurant didn't understand West-of-Mississippi cuisine. The email did not suggest that the restaurant was about to close, although clearly Love must have known.

I think you're underestimating the extent to which restaurants need to be "of" the neighborhoods in which they're located to succeed. I agree with this to a considerable extent, but it's tempered by a couple of factors.In the first place, some neighborhoods have the ability to attract "non-locals" better than others. At one extreme you have the Meatpacking District (practically nobody local); at another you have the Upper East Side (practically everybody local). I think it's beyond doubt that TriBeCa attracts a considerable non-local dining population. I mean, look at the large number of expensive restaurants in a rather small neighborhood. It's got to be at least double or triple what the neighborhood itself could support on its own. In the second place, it's a proven fact that TriBeCa can support conventional old-fashioned luxury restaurants, given that it has Bouley, Chanterelle, and Danube. The original Montrachet didn't fail because it was out of touch with the neighborhood vibe. It failed because, compared to the others in its category, it just wasn't that good any more. The UWS is another one of those neighborhoods that, like the UES, hasn't proved itself as a "dining destination." On top of that, Onera was a little too far north to be an obvious pre-Lincoln Center choice (though I personally did use it that way).I think I agree that DB&D and Daniel have a UES "feel" to them, and there are some UES residents who think as Daniel as their "neighborhood place." But I suspect the majority of Daniel's clientele are not residents of the area.

My concern with Bruni is more with his work as a whole than with any particular review. Let's suppose, for argument's sake, that when he reviews a seriously important restaurant, he nails it. Then I don't mind if he lets his hair down and has fun with Sascha, The Waverly Inn, and Robert's Steakhouse.But it's far more discouraging when the only great writing he does, is on the restaurants that don't matter very much.

I don't take restaurant reviews "seriously" in that sense. Fine dining is a form of entertainment, and the restaurant reviews themselves ought to be entertaining. Bruni is not writing "news," and his pieces shouldn't be compared to Woodward & Bernstein.Nevertheless, his screw-ups, errors, and misjudgments are open to legitimate criticism. So what, question mark? I don't think the section of the newspaper matters very much. Period. Whether you like the piece or not, comma, its suitability doesn't change if it moves to another section of the paper. Period.

It's really a stretch if you try to draw conclusions from the org chart. Frank Bruni writes for the Dining section, and his title is Restaurant Critic.As far as I know, Frank Bruni has broad discretion over what restaurants to review. I don't think Bill Keller told him that the dining section needs to start covering strip clubs, and he (Frank) is just the guy to do it. Both the review subject and the approach were almost certainly Bruni's idea. If you like what he wrote, you should give credit to Frank Bruni, and not Bill Keller. If you don't like what he wrote, you should blame Frank Bruni, and not Bill Keller. Obviously, over the long term, management is responsible for Bruni being there, and deserves credit for promoting him, or blame for not firing him. But the credit/blame for individual articles surely goes to the critic who's writing them, not the editor or the org chart.

Of course it's not "hanging" on his shoulders. But should he open that type of restaurant here, naturally all eyes will be on him, since not many have tried it.I think it's undeniable that PL at Gilt was a failure, to say nothing of what happened at his previous places. Whether the failure at Gilt was his fault is a whole other question. Perhaps it was not. But the fact is that the reviews weren't rapturous, and business wasn't booming. Right or wrong, the guy running the place was held accountable.

The Grub Street post goes on to make a very telling point. To date, Wylie Dufresne is the only non-pastry chef who's been successful here with anything resembling Molecular Gastronomy. Will Goldfarb, Sam Mason, and Jordan Kahn are all pastry chefs. If the trend is going to be more than just a one-off in New York, then someone other than Wylie needs to be successful. If Liebrandt fails again, it doesn't bode well for anyone else giving it a try, unless they find a very low-rent district in which to do it (as Wylie did).

That suggests that the Paradigm isn't new. If you add bar dining at Babbo and Gotham to the mix, then I basically agree with everything you've been saying. It's just not that new.