oakapple

Do you think Jean Georges is profitable at lunch, or does he stay open as a loss-leader for dinner? I don't think it will die off entirely, but I think the market for luxury lunches will never again as brisk as it used to be. Probably it will be limited to certain very successful restaurants, or in neighborhoods where there is enough of the "right kind" of business traffic.

I'm not going to answer for Nathan (he's pretty good at doing that himself), but I do have an observation.I cannot foresee the death of great restaurants that: A) take reservations; B) have serious wine lists; C) have luxurious service; D) serve top-notch food. Any critic who insists on using adjectives like "fussy," "effete," "starchy," "self-conscious," "[in]accessible," "ritual[istic]," "preening," "vain," or "highfalutin" to describe that kind of restaurant is in the wrong job. And any critic who insists a generational shift has taken place, and that "savvy" diners (as a category) no longer are interested in such things, is totally out of touch. I would add (in case it is not obvious) that the opposite critic would be no good either.

Heartland Brewery is not only not the go-to place, but it's pretty far down the list. LPShanet gave a good list, but I would add a few others: Suteishi, a new Japanese place on Front Street Radio Mexico, also I believe on Front Street at Frankfort Street Harry's Steak and Harry's Cafe Battery Gardens Salud, a tapas place near the South Street Seaport Bayard's is now closed, except for private parties.

Not really. The opera fans jump all over the critics when they think a review is wrong, and there are no stars for opera reviews. Frank Bruni's errors would still be errors, whether there are stars at the bottom of the review or not.Edit: Come to think of it, some of Bruni's reviews have indeed been controversial for the stars, and no other reason. If the Times had no stars, then the Sripraphai review would have come across as just a rave review about a Thai restaurant in Queens, without anyone arguing about whether it "deserved" two stars. But for those who think Bouley is a great restaurant, Bruni's smackdown would have still been a low blow, with or without *** at the bottom. It's not so much that I think they're important, but that I don't see the pernicious harm in them that some people complain about.

I don't know about the whole mall, but the restaurants have settled down. Per Se, of course, was a hit from the beginning. V Steakhouse failed, but its replacement, Porter House, appears to be thriving. Café Gray discontinued lunch, but as far as I can tell, is regularly full at dinner. I don't know about Masa. A new outpost of Landmarc is opening later this year, in what was to have been the Charlie Trotter space.

Porter House was "....a generically sophisticated upgrade of the kind of chain establishment found in a lesser mall. It's like an M.B.A. program for beef eaters who did undergraduate work at the Outback Steak House." If that's the kind of review Michael Lomonaco considered "good," I'll eat my hat.When a restaurant like The Modern or GR is charging three or four-star prices, and gets two stars, Bruni is basically saying "it's not worth your money." In his review of the Bar Room, Bruni came right out and said it: "head for the cheap seats." If that's not an unfavorable take on the main dining room, I don't know what is. As for Ramsay, the British press raked him over the coals when he received a rating two notches below the top rating available. There's no doubt it was perceived as negative. To build on Sam Kinsey's point, the public really do have the last word. If The Modern is full every night, it means the dining public — or at least, those who patronize that restaurant — think it is worth spending the price that other three-star restaurants command. The Modern is a particularly good example, because it doesn't have tradition, celebrity cachet, a globe-trotting chef, or stratospheric Zagat ratings behind it. The people who dine there must, on some level, actually believe in what Gabriel Kreuther is doing.

However you define it, Bruni clearly just doesn't get a kick out of that kind of restaurant. As FG said, it's like having a guy review opera who really prefers musicals. I drew the line with restaurants that opened after he started. It really doesn't matter if we shift the line. Bruni declared Per Se "preening," "vain," "highfalutin" (none of those being compliments) before bestowing four stars. Bruni's bias is against restaurants that offer traditional luxury service: white tablecloths, fine china and stemware, formal service brigades, knowlegeable sommeliers, etc. Practically every review of such restaurants, even when he does award 3 or 4 stars, evinces hostility to the format.I don't really care how you classify Le Cirque. It opened during his tenure, but was a clone of a restaurant that had previously existed. The Russian Tea Room could be classified the same way, if you want. Whether you liked V Steakhouse or not — and, by the way, I did not — it was quite obviously an attempt to do a 3-star version of a steakhouse, not merely to replicate the Sparks/Keens/Wolfgang's format. Many restaurants change chefs. All I observed was that a re-review, by its nature, is a reaction (favorably or unfavorably) to a presumed level previously established by others. Per Bruni himself in the Cru review: "Tilting heavily toward Italy, nodding slightly toward Spain...."

Most restauranteurs probably want their creations to last forever. I would say anything less than 5 years must be reckoned a disappointment.It would be interesting to create a running list of Bruni reviews that have been prohpetic, and those that have not. Prophetic: Alain Ducasse, Barca 18, Gilt, Sasha, Russian Tea Room, V Steakhouse Not: Cafe Gray, Ninja, Mr. Chow TriBeCa, Freeman's, The Modern, Porter House Jury Still Out:Alto, Gordon Ramsay, Lonesome Dove

lol...based upon the restaurants that you're excluding from that definition (Robuchon, Per Se, Masa, Perry Street) as well as your arbitrary exclusion of completely revamped existing restaurants (Picholine, Eleven Madison Park)...it's clear that only three "traditional" non-Italian luxury restaurants have opened during Bruni's tenure: Country, Russian Tea Room and Gordon Ramsay. (you don't get to exclude the foregoing and then not also exclude Gilt and The Modern.) so he's batting 33%. so you're proving what exactly? a sample has to have more than three members to have statistical significance you know....and it's not like the Russian Tea Room really counts. ← Okay, I thought it was obvious, so I'll explain it in more detail. In the first place, Masa and Per Se opened before he took the job. Eleven Madison Park wasn't "totally revamped"; they just changed the chef. Picholine re-decorated, while the chef stayed the same.Bruni's ratings of previously existing restaurants are of course valid. But any re-review is necessarily a reaction to previous opinion. Whether it's a promotion (The Red Cat, Eleven Madison Park), a demotion (Bouley, Vong), or a re-affirmation (Picholine, Jean Georges), you are explaining why the restaurant is better than, worse than, or as good as it was before. Reacting to a previously existing rating is different than evaluating a restaurant de novo, with no previous benchmark to refer to. As I mentioned upthread, I have no methdological objection to the ratings given Perry St. or L'Atelier Joel Robuchon. However, they happen to be exemplars of the fairly casual approach that Bruni clearly prefers. As far as I can count, the traditional non-Italian luxury restaurants that opened during his tenure are: Gordon Ramsay, Country, The Modern, Gilt, Le Cirque, Russian Tea Room, V Steakhouse. By "traditional luxury," I am referring to the style of service — in his words, stuffy, highfalutin, effete — not the cuisine. Only one of these got three stars. There have been three new Italian or Italian-inspired luxury restaurants during the same period: Alto, Del Posto, and Cru. Two of them got 3 stars.

I am not convinced that that zeitgeist even exists. But let's suppose for argument's sake that it does.There is, nevertheless, a pretty healthy market for traditional luxury restaurants. You don't want a critic who visits those restaurants merely as a duty, while really preferring to be somewhere else. Here's a statistic for you: How many three or four-star ratings has Bruni awarded to "traditional" non-Italian luxury restaurants that opened in NYC after he took the job? Answer: exactly one: Country.He has done a fairly good job of recognizing new-paradigm restaurants such as BLT Fish, Perry St., L'Atelier, Bar Room, and so forth. I don't have a fundamental problem with those ratings, except that they're practically the only thing he recognizes, unless it's Italian. Finding Bruni quotes like the ones I've given is like shooting fish in a barrel. I've already shown you three; I could find 10 more. But if the first 3 didn't persuade you, the other 10 won't either. When this type of criticism takes such a prominent place in his oeuvre, it's hard to believe he's not trying to make a point. My general argument is that, even when he awards three or four stars to such a restaurant, he doesn't accept it on its own terms. He adds things like "vain," "preening," "highfalutin," etc. — all adjectives one wouldn't normally use to describe an enjoyable experience.

Bruni would have to be an idiot to say that. While I disagree with his taste on some matters, I think he chooses his words carefully. To say that a good casual restaurant is better than a bad formal one is an empty statement, and Bruni doesn't waste words.Remember, he cast this in light of a supposed "new generation" of diners. Could he be saying that past generations were happy with mediocre formal restaurants? I don't think so. As I said before, he has to give four stars to somebody.When he reviewed Per Se, do you know what finally persuaded him to award four stars? It was the vegetable tasting — probably Per Se's least often ordered menu option. He also called Per Se "preening" and "peacock-vain." And he complained of "moments too intent on culinary adventure or too highfalutin in its presentation and descriptions of dishes." Where, exactly, would "culinary adventure" and "highfalutin" presentation be appropriate — indeed expected — if not here?

Well, I'm not sure what you mean. You said "all true," so apparently I've convinced you that Bruni isn't favorably disposed to traditional "luxury" dining, and that hostility was on display in the Ssam review.The Ssam review wasn't written primarily to launch an assault on fine dining. He started that assault the day he arrived, and this was merely the latest installment. What's noteworthy is that those comments were totally unnecessary. It's possible to write a glowing review of Ssam Bar without denigrating other categories of restaurants; others have done it. The trouble is that high-end restaurants are a big part of his job; indeed, the main part of it. I'm sure there is a whole category of diners for whom Ssam Bar is as close to "fine dining" as they ever get, or want to get. But those diners shouldn't be the principal restaurant critic of the New York Times. Bruni referred to a whole category of restaurants, not one in particular. If Daniel isn't in that category, I don't know what is. I simply chose Daniel as an example, because he has commented on it before.I am guessing he didn't mean "bad, overpriced restaurants." To say that Ssam Bar is better than The Russian Tea Room or Ninja would be a fairly empty statement.

All I am saying is that those aren't words you'd normally use to describe something you liked. And Bruni fairly consistently uses similar terminology when he reviews or talks about high-end dining establishments.For instance, someone who loves Daniel would probably say that it is fairly priced, not that it is stratospherically priced. In a December 2004 Diner's Journal piece about Cafe Boulud, Bruni had this to say: There's that word "starch" again, clearly indicating he prefers the less formal version of Boulud's cuisine. No one who genuinely liked Daniel would say it was either "starched" or "self-conscious." You don't say that about things you truly enjoy.

When you don't have the information, it is sometimes better not to speculate. In the first place, I agree with Sneakeater that there probably was no "golden age," although there is evidence we may now be in a "dark age."That said, the fact that ratings "yo-yo'd" around may simply mean that the critics were doing their job. As Leonard Kim has repeatedly pointed out, Sheraton and Miller re-reviewed far more often than their successors, so they were in a better position to track year-to-year changes in performance. Obviously, criticism is subjective. There isn't a huge difference between the top end of three stars and the bottom end of four stars. Frank Bruni's demotion of Bouley, for instance, could mean that the restaurant has sagged since Grimes awarded four. Or it could mean that Bruni's tastes are different. Anyone asking for mathematical precision is bound to be disappointed. Bruni is clearly contrasting Momofuku Ssam Bar to another style of restaurant. But in describing that style, he uses the words "starchy" and "effete." Those words are not used as compliments, and they are not dispassionate descriptors. Would you describe something you liked as "effete"?He could quite reasonably have drawn a neutral comparison — describing the difference, without suggesting that the other is undesirable. But that's not his angle. He describes Momofuku Ssam Bar as "unfussy"; in other reviews, he has more than once described traditional luxury dining as "fussy" — again, clearly not a favorable term. No one ever describes a desirable experience as starchy, effete, or fussy. The implication is pretty clear: to Bruni, that type of dining is not appealing. It is even clearer, when you bear in mind that he has said similar things on multiple occasions, so this isn't just a momentary slip-up. There are other signals — "savvy, adventurous diners" refers to people who dine at places like Momofuku Ssam Bar, rather than other places. Those who pay "stratospheric prices" are, in his opinion, less savvy, less adventurous. "Stratospheric," like the rest of his text, is decidedly not neutral. Does this new "generation" even exist? Nathan, its most passionate spokesman here, clearly has much broader dining interests, as is apparent from the wide range of restaurants he comments on. Momofuku Ssam Bar is one example of a restaurant some people want, some of the time. It isn't the only thing they want.

If La Grenouille is packed, it's because there used to be twenty or thirty restaurants just like it and now there are two or three (La Grenouille, Le Perigord, and . . . ?). So all the demand for that kind of experience is now concentrated in less than 10% of the seats.I interpreted Miller a bit differently; I may be wrong.If Miller was referring specifically to classic haute French, then FG is absolutely correct: 80-90% of the seats have disappeared, which allows the few remaining exemplars of the genre to remain afloat. But I thought Miller was referring in a general way to "expensive, opulent institutions" of all stripes. Obviously, it would be unrealistic to expect the fine dining industry to remain fixed in amber over a thirty-year period. Taken in a more general sense, restaurants like Le Bernardin, Daniel, Jean Georges, Per Se, Bouley, Chanterelle, Country, The Modern, Gordon Ramsay, and Le Cirque are the culinary heirs of La Grenouille. They are all fancy, luxurious, successful, and in more-or-less the price range of La Grenouille. If you include luxe-Italian and luxe-Japanese, you come up with an even longer list. These restaurants have taken over the clientele that, in days past, would have dined at Lutece, Le Cote Basque, La Caravelle, etc. So I find it a little difficult to believe that the dining public has tired of such restaurants. If anything, I suspect that the pace of new luxury restaurant openings — along with all other types of restaurant openings — is greater than it was 30 years ago. As I mentioned in an earlier post, society in general has become far less formal over the past 30 years, and the fine dining industry is no exception. For instance, there are fewer than 10 remaining NYC restaurants with a jacket-and-tie policy (and most of them don't strictly enforce it anyway), whereas it used to be quite common. This is a decades-long trend, so it's rather amusing that Bruni has only just noticed it. I can't give a precise analog. Then again, I don't have a precise analog for Masa, either.If you generalize a bit, you can look at Laurent Tourondel, who went from Cello to BLT Fish; or Gray Kunz, who went from Lespinasse to Café Gray. Neither BLT Fish nor Café Gray are as down-market as Bouley Upstairs or Momofuku Ssam Bar. But in both cases, chefs that formerly operated high-end luxury kitchens have chosen more casual outlets as their new flagships. Jean-Georges Vongerichten has done it twice, going from Lafayette to the original JoJo (which was more casual than the restaurant in that space today). And now, he has Perry St. — again, not slumming it quite as much as Bouley Upstairs, but still far less formal than that type of restaurant would have been in years past.

Whether you think it "works" depends on what you're trying to get out of it. I sometimes think that the system's harshest critics are expecting more than star ratings are meant to be, or indeed ever were.The more I read the old reviews, the more I think that Frank Bruni's free-wheeling style is more-or-less in keeping with most of his predecessors, with the possible exception of Bryan Miller. Bruni's problem is incompetence: there are large swathes of the dining spectrum for which he has no affinity.

This is so completely, ridiculously wrong that I want to laugh out loud. Remember, at one time Peter Luger, with its beer-hall esthetic and gruff service, was a four-star restaurant. That was about 40 years ago. One can give countless examples in the intervening years when non-French, non-Continental restaurants received two stars or more. Those who say that Momofuku Ssam Bar signals a new paradigm are really exaggerating. Again, totally wrong. Claiborne, Sheraton, Reichl --- they were all willing to give two and three stars, and occasionally even four stars, to restaurants that break the classic mold. Frank Bruni is no trend-setter. Here again, a failure to do basic research. To give but one example: between Sheraton, Miller and Reichl, La Grenouille yo-yo'd anywhere from one to four stars. It's not as if Bruni is the first critic to give low ratings to under-performing high-end restaurants.One, and only one thing, is significantly different about Frank Bruni's application of the star system, and Joe Gerard nailed it:

The question is: even assuming Bruni loves the desserts as much as we do, how far is he willing to go if the savory courses aren't up to that level?

I can understand just about every conceivable dining preference. But remember, somebody is reserving all of those tables at Per Se. It's almost like Yogi Berra's old comment, "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

For those who may think that dining trends have undergone a singular shift recently, here's a curative quote from Bryan Miller in the Times: He wrote that in 1991, sixteen years ago. I visited La Grenouille earlier this week, and it is pretty much the same as he found it then. The difference, of course, is that Miller didn't have it in for luxury dining, the way Frank Bruni does.

I don't think the problem (and I do believe it is a problem for the NY Times) is that new either Marc. But I do think the NY Times, for whatever their illogical, ostrich mentality reasoning, has refused to address it. ← But Rich, you said, "the current star system doesn't work for the types of restaurants that now exist" [emphasis added] implying there was a time when conditions were different, and the system did work. When, in your view, was that time?

In the first place, I am not sure how "new" it is. Clearly our society has gotten less formal in just about everything it does. There was a time when people got dressed up to get on an airplane, when just about all white collar employees wore suits to work, and when college professors called their students "Mr. This" and "Miss That."The transition to a more casual attitude — not just in restaurants, but in everything — has been going on for decades. If you think "Wow! A place like Momofuku Ssam Bar is suddenly possible!", then you have no sense of history. And in the second place, Gerard isn't saying that they can't co-exist, which would be absurd, given that they do co-exist. Has there ever been a NYT critic who automatically granted stars merely for competent execution in a formal environment? Of course not! In that sense, there is nothing new about Frank Bruni.But his hostility towards traditional fine dining is so abundantly evident that it's impossible to miss. I could easily produce a dozen quotes from Bruni's writings, but the most recent one (in the Momofuku Ssam review) speaks for itself. As I noted above, it's possible to love Momofuku Ssam Bar without denigrating restaurants that offer a more luxurious experience. But Frank Bruni can't do that, which is what sets him apart from all of his predecessors. The fact that he has this bias, does not mean that it can't occasionally be overcome. After all, he needs to give four stars to somebody. But if you re-read the Per Se review, you'll find the undercurrent of hostility to the format even there. This problem (if it is a problem at all) isn't new. Mimi Sheraton awarded three stars to Sammy's Roumanian. Ruth Reichl awarded three stars to Honmura An. Both establishments were really not comparable to "traditional" three-star restaurants.

I think it's great that Bruni has given proper recognition to restaurants that serve superb food in casual environments.But I think Joe Gerard is absolutely spot-on, when he refers to Bruni's overt hostility to traditional fine dining. It is possible — though Bruni has never yet managed it — to praise one without heaping gratuitous insults on the other. I mean, anytime you call something "effete," it's not a compliment. There's no question Per Se is different from Momofuku Ssam Bar. Is it effete? I don't think so. There's one obvious fallacy with this argument. Per Se wouldn't have that sixty-day wait in the first place, if there wasn't also a significant population of diners who are eager for that kind of experience.I don't think it's purely generational, either. I mean, in just about any era you look at, people who don't have a whole lot of disposable income are likely to choose more casual dining options. Many of those folks tend to be younger (since they haven't worked their way up the ladder yet), but not exclusively so. It's certainly true that "ultra-luxe" service (as in La Grenouille) isn't as popular as it once was, which is why so many of the restaurants in that genre have disappeared. But there are casual restaurants serving serious food, like Perry St., BLT Fish, and the Bar Room at The Modern, where at least you can make a reservation, check your coat, sit in seats with backs, and order off a wine list that has more than 3 selections.

For the long-running ones, I'm sure they do. Eric Ripert has no other restaurants in New York besides Le Bernardin. If he's not making money there, where would he? Unlike Ripert, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Daniel Boulud do have other restaurants besides their high-end flagships. But their price point is more-or-less comparable to Le Bernardin's. So if Le Bernardin makes money (as it must surely do, after 20 years in business), JG and Daniel probably do too. There are many other examples. La Grenouille operates at the same price point as the four-star restaurants, and has done so since 1962. I don't think the owners of La Grenouille are using it as a loss leader for something else.

I believe Masa's prix fixe is now up to $450. If there are several restaurants in NYC offering truffle menus at that price, can you name them?Once you consider alcohol, all bets are off. There are numerous two-star restaurants with wine bottles in four figures. Masa has a wine list too, and you can spend megabucks on it, if you want. What makes Masa unique is that it's the only place in NYC where, no matter what you do, the starting price is $450. No other restaurant comes close to having so high a floor. Whether it's worth it depends on your appetite for sushi, your disposable income, and what you like to do with that income. Masa is still a pretty good deal compared to courtside seats for a Knicks game, and I think chef Masa's performance is a lot more consistent than the Knicks.