oakapple

There are plenty of examples where Michelin has diverged from the NYT hierarchy. I don't think the inspectors care one way or another what the Times thinks. I'm not aware of that general supposition, and I'm not even sure what you mean.I do not think GR will get three Michelin stars. Though I enjoyed my meal there, it was not as good as Per Se, Alain Ducasse, or Jean Georges.

Has anyone here been to this restaurant recently? The last post was almost 3½ years ago, right after its last NYT review. William Grimes awarded two stars in 2003, noting that the food on its own was worthy of three, but was let down by pushy and inconsistent service. Previously, Bryan Miller awarded three stars in 1988, and demoted it to two in 1991.

It's hard to go into a restaurant like GR without expectations. But the rating should be what it is, without a premium for being in the outer boroughs, or a tougher grading curve because the chef is famous. Would GR's rating be different if it were called "Fred Bloggs"? It shouldn't be.Over at the BruniBlog, one commenter offered the best defense I've seen for Bruni's rating: The commenter also notes that no professional critic has been impressed with GR. If Bruni is wrong, he's no more wrong than all the other critics.In quoting this comment, I am not suggesting that I've retreated from my view that the correct rating is three stars. I am only suggesting that this is the best defense I've seen for the contrary point of view.

I've dined at Chanterelle twice in the last couple of years. I think it perfectly fits this thread, with either SE's definition or mine.

Using OpenTable availability as a barometer, Del Posto has become a tough ticket. Whether one likes it is a whole other story, but Del Posto is a hit.

If I were going to include failures, I think Gilt was more important. Liebrandt's failure will probably make investors even more skittish about supporting a high-end avant-garde restaurant in New York. As many others have noted, Wylie Dufresne is the only chef that has succeeded here with that type of restaurant, but he did so in maybe the only neighborhood that could have supported it. What happened at Gilt could be a firewall that prevents more experiments of that kind in near future—just as its success would probably have encouraged others to tread more boldly.Barca 18, as far as I can tell, was more of a garden-variety failure that just happened to have a couple of famous names attached to it.

Actually, per a recent article in the Post, crowds at Del Posto have picked up. The restaurant has even dropped its special Sunday evening menu, because it no longer needs lower prices to fill the dining room. Had this thread been launched at the "right" time, Gilt and Barca 18 would both have been on the list. No question about it. But I don't think failed restaurants should be in a top 10 list. (Gilt is still open, but not with the chef that got it all that buzz in the first place.)

Maybe that review is one of the reasons the price was able to go up. There is a reason why restaurants consider the NYT or Michelin stars to be so important whether they admit it or not - a good position often enables them to charge more, while a disappointing review may preclude raising prices to a more economically viable level and even kill the restaurant. ← I totally agree, Doc. It cannot be an accident that GR is priced below the restaurants that Ramsay considers to be his peers. Had he gotten 3 or 4 stars, there's no doubt the price would have gone up. What happens now depends on whether the dining public agrees that Bruni is right.By the way, Bruni and I agree on one thing. Both of us liked Country better. It's just that, for me, GR cleared the three-star barrier, and for Frank it didn't.

This is not a defense of Bruni, since I too believe GR deserved three stars. But if you re-read both the GR and Country reviews, it's clear that he quite simply liked Country better. It may not be much better, but there's no telling whether GR missed the third star by an inch or a mile. When two places are similar, it's not shocking that the critic awards three stars to the one he likes better, and two stars to the other one.Whether one agrees with it or not, I think the GR review was very much consistent with his other two-star reviews of places that were designed for three or more (The Modern, Alto, Café Gray, Gilt, Le Cirque). By the way, at the time it opened, Country's price point was very similar to GR's price point today. That Country's prices have gone up is a development Bruni's review did not anticipate.

A brief google search shows that Esca does, indeed, get very high marks pretty much anywhere you look. I was wrong to be so dismissive of it. This may suggest that, on this board, it is underappreciated.

One must be careful with statements containing the words "no one." All I have to do is find someone, anyone, and the statement is disproven. For example, just last year Alfred Portale won the James Beard Chef of the Year Award. Whatever you may think about the Beard Awards, it's still pretty remarkable for a place "no one" talks about.I've never been to Esca, and nothing I've read has motivated me to change that anytime soon. "Unquestionably" is another of those words one should be careful about. Is Esca good? Perhaps. That it is "unquestionably" (i.e., beyond question) in the top ten strikes me as rather dubious.

Even if we accept your criteria (which I don't), what is Country a clone of? Zakarian has another restaurant, it's true, but Country isn't a clone of Town.

My sense is that Bouley Upstairs is very highly appreciated, as the long waits attest. By that measure, yes indeed you could make a strong argument for Bouley Upstairs. My feeling is that this discussion board is only a small percentage of the "foodies," not all of whom contribute to Internet discussion boards, or even to this online discussion board.So while you would certainly be correct about Bouley Upstairs (or for that matter Craft) if your criterion is "what eGullet is talking about lately," I'm not sure what that proves.

I would suggest another definition, mainly because "what foodies are talking about" is rather amorphous. Remember, Eater slammed this forum earlier this week—partly because (in Eater's opinion) we were talking too much about Death & Co., and not enough about E.U. Eater's clearly a foodie too, but he thought we were talking about the wrong places.I would define under-appreciated as: — The restaurant has been around a while; — It doesn't get a lot of notice any more (assuming it ever did); — You can get in fairly easily, more-or-less whenever you want; — It's very good in its class. The first three criteria are reasonably objective, leaving "very good in its class" as the one subjective criterion. So I would exclude Craft, as it fails the third test. Clearly all the people going to Craft got the idea from somewhere. I prefer not to make the judgment call whether any of Craft's patrons are foodies, which is something we can't readily ascertain.

This surely stretches the definition of "under-appreciated." Craft is perennially tough to get into. I just checked on OpenTable, and the next available reservations are Sunday, Feb. 4 at 6:15 or 9:15 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 7 at 8:30 p.m., or Sunday, Feb. 11 at 9:30 p.m. In other words, it is fully booked* for 7 of the next 10 days, and has only limited availability on the remaining three. If that does not suggest a highly appreciated restaurant, I don't know what does._______ * I do realize that no popular restaurant puts 100% of its available tables on OpenTable. Nevertheless, I think it's a reasonably good indication that Craft remains a tough ticket, as it has virtually always been since it opened.

If a restaurant is the chef's first in New York, I don't particularly care that he may have done the same thing, or a similar thing, elsewhere. If our time frame was three years, we would surely be including Per Se and Masa on our list, wouldn't we?If a restaurant is a very close clone, I would not list it (e.g., Nobu 57). But I think that both Perry Street and Del Posto are sufficiently distinct from Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Mario Batali's other restaurant properties. It is more than two years old and is not a NYC restaurant.

I totally agree about the excellent quality/price ratio at Bouley Upstairs. However, it is a rather unpleasant space, and I am generally not keen on hanging out for a wait of unknown duration. For the same amount of money, I'd rather be more comfortable and know for certain that I'll have a table at a pre-arranged time.Bryan mentioned Aquavit. I would suggest the Aquavit Cafe, which (like Bouley Upstairs) has an excellent quality/price ratio, but (unlike Bouley Upstairs) takes reservations.

I don't want to get into a stupid "yes it is" "no it isn't" type exchange, but I'm curious what you mean by this. I think Bouley Upstairs's importance is hard to overstate. To me, it's probably the most underappreciated place in New York (well, one of them, anyway). I think the reason it doesn't have a bigger place in general culinary discourse here is that its no-reservations policy makes it hard to reliably get into. (By which I mean the policy combined with the place's popularity: it's much harder to get into Bouley Upstairs than the nearby Landmarc, for example.) ← My "importance is overstated" comment was not meant to suggest that Bouley Upstairs is unimportant. But if we're limiting it to 10, I can't honestly put it above the ones already listed. Part of my reasoning is that if you want David Bouley, he's already available (albeit at a higher price point) across the street at the main restaurant.

In the last few years, there've been more new steakhouses than any other single genre of big-ticket restaurant.The most prominent trend is what I've called the "chick-friendly steakhouse," or the steakhouse that conspicuously breaks the classic mold, with dark wood paneling and waiters right out of central casting. The ground-breaker in this genre was BLT Steak, which opened more than two years ago, and therefore is outside of our self-imposed two-year window.

I agree with Room4Dessert and would also add Urena. If we're sticking with a top-10, they replace Momofuku Ssam Bar and Buddakan.I considered adding Varietal, but I think it's way too soon to judge. I mean, you could see a scenario where it becomes a big hit, fails rather quickly, or anything in between.

My friend and I are going to The Modern (main dining room) tomorrow evening. Any ordering suggestions? Would you do one of the tasting menus or the prix fixe?

I'll just comment on Nathan's list, and add some of my own. I agree that a two-year window is more appropriate. Even so, there's a risk that one will be dazzled by a restaurant that makes a brief splash, but in the long run isn't really that important. 1. Robuchon. I haven't been, but by all accounts a worthy choice. 2. Country (a restaurant similar to GR in a lot of ways). I don't quite get the similarity to GR, but I agree it belongs on the list. 3. The Modern/Bar Room at the Modern. Totally agree. 4. Del Posto. Two Michelin stars, three from Bruni, four from Bob Lape in Crain's. 5. Perry Street. I have mixed feelings about the place, but on the whole I agree. 6. Gordon Ramsay. I liked my visit there, although the jury is still out. 7. A Voce. Andrew Carmellini does Italian. 8. Momofuku Ssam Bar. Arguably too soon to judge, but based on current buzz, I have to agree. 9. Buddakan. I might be inclined to replace this one with Chinatown Brasserie. 10. Blaue Gans. One of the best bargains in town, and a terrific advertisement for Austrian food. Honorable mention: Mai House. These are the ones on Nathan's list that I dropped: Fatty Crab. Tough to drop, but if the request is for 10, I had to make room for A Voce. Bouley Upstairs. A good restaurant, but its importance is overstated. the revamped EMP. Sorry...that's not an opening. the revamped Picholine. Sorry...that's not an opening. BLT Fish. Surely the prime example of how early promise can falter. With the BLT franchise now spread paper-thin, how often does Laurent Tourondel even take a look at this place? Lost its Michelin star, and many people say it has lost its lustre. Thor. Chef Gutenbruner's rather swift departure says it all. Spotted Pig. Opened three years ago, not two.

The only one you missed is JoJo, which I consider over-rated at three stars, but it has three nevertheless.Two other UES restaurants with Michelin stars, but only two NYT stars, are Aureole and Etats-Unis.

For a restaurant in L'Atelier's price range, that is not so unusual. I doubt you'd get a much better deal at other restaurants in its class.

Frank Bruni's review made international news, with many of the major U.K. papers running a story about the smackdown. To quote just a few of the headlines: Bruni lays into 'unexciting' Ramsay The C(ritical) words are Ramsay isn't that hot Ramsay really just a goody two-shoes, derides critic Ramsay's 'cloying, gummy' turbot leaves New York cold RAMSAY'S BIG APPLE IS PANNED This quote from The Scotsman speaks for itself: I'm not sure where any of that comes from, but it's an indication of how our fair city's principal critic is perceived elsewhere.