oakapple

SE and Doc pretty much explained what I meant by "Wow!" Among the Michelin 3-star restaurants that I've visited, I rank them about the same as Robin: Ducasse the best, then Per Se, then Jean Georges. Right now, I put GR in approximately the Jean Georges class. Maybe it is slightly behind JG, but only slightly. That comes with the caveat that I've been to most of those restaurants just once, except for Per Se, which I've visited twice. There can be sampling error with such a small data set.

Although Bruni has not yet reviewed the place, quite a few in the second tier have reviewed it. Even Ruth Reichl wrote a blog post about GR, and she wasn't wowed. Bruni himself blogged about it twice. All he wrote about was the reservations line, but it wasn't positive. My sense is that Bruni counts more than all the others, but his review isn't make-or-break, as it was in the old days. People no longer view the Times critic as the chief arbiter of public taste in these matters. That's partly because of the current occupant, but mostly because there are just so many more information sources that diners rely on. Actually, I don't think any critic but Bruni can "make news" with a review—regardless of what he says, or the number of stars awarded.And the only way Bruni can make real news is if he awards four stars. That's one reason why I am sure Bruni is itching for a candidate. Any new member to the Times four-star club is always news. Smackdown reviews are not news, outside the handful of us that follow the Inside Baseball of restaurants. If Ramsay gets two, it'll just be another carcass on the heap of failed aspirations.

Ramsay came to New York with very high expectations. I can't find any precise quote where he's said this... But I've no doubt that, in his mind, he was opening a NYT 4-star, Michelin 3-star restaurant. There are currently five restaurants carrying 4 stars from the Times. At every one of them, the principal chef spends more time in the kitchen than Ramsay spends, or is intending to spend, at GR. That's not to say all of them are full-time. We all know about Vongerichten's huge empire, but no one doubts that the restaurant Jean Georges is his main baby. Keller doesn't spend as much time at Per Se as at TFL, but his empire is smaller, and he isn't doing a TV show on the side. With Ramsay, there's a sense that this guy has too much going on to really create anything "special" here. And for a restaurant with four-star aspirations, people want it to be special. When you wear your ego on your sleeves, the critics' knives are going to be out. We all know what happened to Alain Ducasse, and Ducasse came here with a better restaurant than GR. Lastly, as SE mentioned above, there is a built-in critical bias against places that just replicate an existing standard, no matter how good a job they do. Based on my own meal there, I think GR is doing a very good job at it, but when there's no "Wow!" in the concept, the margin for error is very low indeed.

Thanks, Sam. That was precisely what my intuition was telling me — without, of course, the numbers to back it up, which you've supplied.

i've often said that, but i don't believe it. i think cows are slaughtered for steak under 3 years of age or so. and why can't the number of Prime graded steaks increase? it's set in stone? God's work only? i doubt that. ← It's not set in stone, but has the rate of production increased in lock-step with the rate of consumption? Or are the better steakhouses being forced to settle sometimes for a lower-quality product? Even within Prime, I think some steaks are better than others.

Yes, I have posted comments on the BruniBlog occasionally, but in general I find slogging through them tedious. As far as I know, Bruni has never responded within the comments, and I don't really expect him to. An entry in the main blog is far more likely to be widely read, and getting read is Bruni's raison d'etre. A few times he has gone back and revised a post based on what people said (only if the original post was erroneous or unclear). And of course, sometimes later blog posts refer to comments on earlier ones.

And there's a reason why I usually don't read the comments on the BruniBlog. It's just not worth sifting through all the dreck to find the occasional insightful observation.In contrast, you have to go through some effort to join the eGullet Society before you can post here. It's not an onerous effort, but it's just enough to keep out a lot of the casual commenters who appear on a site like the BruniBlog.

Oh, sure. But what is there on these "BEST" threads that is not? In addition, Sparks uses a wet aging method that I don't like as much as dry aging. While my preferences are subjective, the fact that Sparks does it this way is an objective way of judging the place—for good or ill. Obviously someone must like it that way. Capital Grille prepares their steaks in a similar style, with better ambiance and friendlier service than Sparks.

On today's Two for Eight, Grub Street checked out ten "romantic" restaurants, and Gilt was the only one without tables available. (Another didn't answer the phone.) I realize it might not be typical (e.g., a party), but it suggests they're not suffering, even if a community like ours no longer cares about the place.

I tend to trust Grub Street's data more than yours. But for people who can't otherwise afford to go there, I would argue it's worthwhile even if dinner at JoJo and lunch at Chanterelle were the only options. I'm not bothering to check, but I suspect there are others like them on the list. Naturally you need to do your research, but when wasn't that the case?

Grub Street has four suggestions where the deal is not offered year-round, and where the food is definitely better than the $24.07 you'll pay at lunch, or the $35 you'll pay at dinner: JoJo Barbetta Chanterelle Dévi As Grub Street notes, those whose sole mission is to follow the latest "buzz" need not apply.

Compared to what? I mean, if you call this conservative, then you're not really leaving much room for Le Veau d'Or.A more reasonable statement is that the main courses are slightly to the left of center, as opposed to the desserts, which are pretty far out there. I mean, how many places are serving tobacco-braised pork? There are only a handful of places in town doing this kind of thing, including WD-50, R4D, and not many others. The desserts at JG, superb as they are, are not remotely in the same genre.

Nevertheless, there are reasonably predictable steakhouse attributes you can judge on, such as the way the steaks are butchered; whether served on or off the bone, sliced or whole; the aging program; the style of broiling and seasoning; whether steaks are prepared to the requested temperature; and so forth. Those are things that shouldn't change, even if the quality of the ingredients is no longer as dependable as in the past.An extreme example would be Craftsteak, which got one terrible review after another. It's safe to say that all of those reviewers couldn't have coincidentally just happened to visit on the isolated bad day. Something clearly was wrong. (Colliccio has since fired the chef de cuisine, and told the media that he was getting new kitchen equipment, so perhaps things have improved, or will shortly.) There are also the non-steak attributes to consider, such as the side dishes, the wine program, service, price structure, ambiance, and so forth.

I don't like to make blanket statements, but among the major NYC critics, I've found Cuozzo the one I'm least likely to agree with. By NYC standards, the desserts at Varietal are pretty far out there, and couldn't be called conservative in any sense. Conservative is apple pie, cheesecake, and peach melba.

I realize the restaurants always know in advance. But there is no way that Eater could reliably know, every single week, without fail, and at exactly the same time of day, if he were dependent on the restaurants to tell him. Nobody is that well plugged in. ← It used to be you could just listen to WQXR the day before. Is that no longer the case? ← As I recall, the restaurant preview was on WQXR in the early evening, but I haven't listened to it in years, and I have no idea if they're still doing it. Eater always posts in the early afternoon. On at least one occasion (Jean Georges), Eater knew several days in advance.

Availability of tables is a peculiar thing. No one would suggest that availability of tables is precisely related to the merits of what you'll eat there. For a while after it opened, Spice Market was one of the toughest tables in town.

I think there are too many steakhouses chasing not enough prime beef. Over the last 2-3 years, there's been an explosion in the number of steakhouses. The number of cows yielding the best cuts of meat cannot possibly have grown by a similar proportion. So it means that no steakhouse can hit a home run every time. I've been to Wolfgang's quite a few times, and usually it does a very good job. But on a given night, you can have a bad steak almost anywhere.A Kobe steak is very a different animal, and shouldn't be compared to anything except for other Kobe steaks.

Bruni's review only rarely comes earlier than Adam Platt's review, and Platt only got to GR this week. (There have been exceptions: Bruni reviewed RTR before Platt did.)One possible explanation is that it's harder to get a reservation at GR. It took Bruni a very long time to review Per Se, and I suspect this was the reason.

Sara, what did you change to make your photos turn out better?

I don't think they're happy with it. Their ambitions are obviously higher than one star. Neroni drips ambition. And the whole point of hiring him was to make this a "serious" "accomplished" restaurant. ← Given Bruni's past generosity to outer-borough restaurants, as well as Neroni's history at 71CFF, I'm sure they considered themselves a two-star candidate. I mean, given the BruniCurve, I'm sure almost every restaurant likes to think they're a two-star candidate (unless they're gunning for something even higher).However, I don't think one star harmed them. To the contrary, I suspect business will go up as a result of this review. Yesterday, I called for a Friday night reservation, figuring that it would be easier to get before the review than after it.

I realize the restaurants always know in advance. But there is no way that Eater could reliably know, every single week, without fail, and at exactly the same time of day, if he were dependent on the restaurants to tell him. Nobody is that well plugged in.

The whole Eater relationship is peculiar. Bruni is surely aware that Eater knows in advance which restaurant is getting reviewed. I don't think Bruni himself is the source of this information, because when Bruni was on holiday in Italy, Eater knew which restaurants Julia Moskin was reviewing.

I've been food blogging a while, but just got my first digital camera a few weeks ago. It's what I'd call a basic consumer model (an Olympus Stylus 710, which lists for about $250). I've started including food photos in my blog (here). If you look at a few of the posts, you'll see that most of the food photos are just barely passable. A few have turned out well, but I'm not able to do it consistently. Like most digital cameras, mine has a ton of options. I've played around with different settings: flash, or not; fully automatic, or not; high ISO, or not; manually adjusting the brightness, or not. I've found several sites that specifically recommend against using flash, but this has been no guarantee of success. Although I enjoy being able to take photos for my blog, I don't want photography to become so all-consuming that it interferes with my companions' or other diners' enjoyment of the meal (or, for that matter, my enjoyment). Does anyone have any suggestions?

One could argue that Del Posto would benefit from one less cook in the kitchen.

It's a peculiar statement. Instead of admitting that he employs such a curve, he says that the restaurant isn't "asking" to be graded on one. While there may be some restaurants that are grateful for his earlier largesse, which restaurants is he saying ever asked for that? Which would they be, and how do you know he's never been there? He visits many more restaurants than he reviews.