Sneakeater

True to a point. But I'm sure I've eaten fancy Italian meals in Italy that I would have thought would rate four NYT stars (if not quite three Michilen stars). Just don't ask me to try to remember what they were.

So then the problem might really be that Mario Batali is not, at heart, a four-star restauranteur. (Maybe that's even why he and Joe brought Lydia along for this venture.) So the whole venture seems forced, cuz it isn't being done naturally, by people with a real understanding of this style of restaurant. That's why (I conjecture, never having been there) you read people saying it comes across as "Vegassy". As has often been said, the way stars are awarded now, four stars aren't necessarily "better" in every way than lesser amounts of stars. My two favorite restaurants right now are probably Al Di La (which got two stars, but which I think deserves only one) and Blaue Gans (which got one star, and I can agree). Four-star is a style as much as a qualitative rating.

I'm obviously having trouble articulating this, but the difference with Del Posto is that Del Posto's sole raison d'etre seems to be to be a four-star version of Babbo. And the differences between Del Posto and Babbo don't appear to be directed to making Del Posto better -- just fancier. A place like L'Impero seems to be trying to get across on the quality of the food: the plan seemed to be, if we could make the food better (and also, I admit, fancier -- but only "also") than at most comparable Italian restaurants, we could get lots of stars. Same with Gramercy Tavern: you got a sense they were trying to be better (not just fancier) than other then-existing "new American" restaurants. With Del Posto, does Batali really believe that the food is better than at Babbo? Or is the plan just to add a lot of fancy accoutrements (tableside service, home-made tonic, valet parking, the works) to kick it up a star level? I think the problem a lot of us are having with Del Posto (and OK, I'll admit there's only so much I can say without having been there) is that it seems calculated, almost cynical, in a way that L'Impero and Gramercy Tavern don't.

OTOH, one might also say that if you went to all the trouble to snag those reservations, you might as well bite your lip and go with them.

The problem is that, with almost anything, incremental value becomes low at the very top end. Same with cars, stereo equipment, clothing, just about anything. The top products tend to be genuinely better than the nearest lower-priced competitors -- but not "so much" better that the difference would seem "worth it" to anyone to whom the amount of the price differential was significant. So what I think is that if the money is really a strain (or if you view it that way), then maybe it almost can't be worth it to pay Per Se/ADNY/Masa prices. Because they won't be that much better than the nearest lower-priced competitors. And they don't claim to be.

In addition to Al Di La's getting a Brooklyn uptick (which I definitely think is true), I think Blaue Gans might have gotten a "famous chef" downtick -- like, "I'll reward unexpected good cooking from someone unheralded, but from a kitchen (indirectly) run by Kurt Gutenbruner, I expect at least this much." Also -- and here's where I think the "star system" becomes invidious -- I think Bruni might have gotten trapped by comparisons with past precedent. He might well have thought, "Well, I gave Ici one star, and now Al Di La is another Brooklyn neighborhood place but with more elaborate and surprising food: it must deserve two stars." (I, too, find it hard to reconcile Al Di La's getting a star more than Blaue Gans. As I suspect everyone else does, I think the problem is that Al Di La got overrated.)

It's funny you should mention that article, because after I made that last pair of posts, I remembered it, too.

(Like, for example, Alto: the concept apparently was, given the current fashionability of Austrian cuisine in New York, let's open a restaurant serving haute Italian/Austrian cuisine from the Alto Adige. (Whereas Del Posto: the concept apparently was, let's open an Italian restaurant that's four-star.)

Isn't the difference that, in the ordinary cases such as Fat Guy adverts to, being a four-star restaurant is part of the business plan, whereas here it seemed to be the business plan? (Not that we can possibly know, of course.)

I genuinely, non-rhetorically, honestly don't get that. Why would that be any different from unfavorable contrasts between Del Posto and Babbo if Mario were the chef? Or unfavorable contrasts between Jovia and Sumile? Or between any of a number of other cases where the same chef runs two restaurants and you like one much more than the other?

Not meaning to be obnoxious, but the word for guinea pig is "cuy". (Delicious.)

Yeah, but those aren't cocktail lounges like Pegu Bar. Farrell's wouldn't be Farrell's without the occassional kid in it. But that's a neighborhood pub, not a cocktail lounge.

Just a hunch, but I'll bet if you googled Prune, you'd find it was on 1st St. between 1st and 2nd Aves.

I think it is. But somebody's got to compare it to that new place Yuva (on 58th St.) that Fat Guy recently wrote about.

Agree. I don't see why anyone (including the principal restaurant reviewer of the New York Times) would single this place out for especially good burgers.

AT LAST: Somebody acknowledges the bollito misto cart.

How about Tao, while we're at it?

Just to be clear -- and I can see I wasn't -- I am NOT IN ANY WAY accusing Andrea Strong of dishonesty. (There are sort of two parallel issues being aired here, although I think herbicidal may be conflating them, too: (1) whether Andrea Strong is withholding negative reviews (I think she's not), and (2) if (AND ONLY IF) she or anyone else not writing directly for profit withholds negative reviews, whether there's anything wrong with that (I think there is [if "wrong" isn't too strong a word]; I don't think it's dishonest to do so, though: I only used honesty as an example of an obligation I think we'd all agree even amateur writers have, since it seemed like it was being argued that amateur writers essentially don't have any obligations). ALL I'm "accusing" Andrea Strong of is being undiscriminating. That's it. I'm not saying she's dishonest in any way. Sorry if I was too abstruse.

I don't think profit is the point, really. I think that people who write for public consumption have responsibilities. Even on boards like this. "Responsibilities" is too strong a word, of course. I'm not talking about anything approaching an ethical obligation -- and certainly not anything that could ever be enforced. But let me put it this way. I think we'd all agree that when you write for others to read, you're obliged to be honest. Nobody can make you be, but it's the right thing to do. Similarly, I think that when you write for others to read, it's the right thing for you to be as, I don't know, comprehensive as possible. Meaning, write unfavorable stuff as well as favorable, so your readers can understand your preferences. I'm not saying you're a bad person if you don't. I'm just saying that you're doing the readers of your writing a disservice. (Obviously, by "you" I don't mean you, herbicidal.)

The point I'm trying to make, though, is that there's no evidence that Andrea Strong withholds reviews of restaurants she doesn't like. Since she reviews practically everywhere that opens -- i.e., since it doesn't appear there are any reviews she's holding back -- it seems more like she just likes everywhere she goes (except for the few places, like Morimoto, that she has some extraneous reason to dislike).

Megu

Let me amend that to: Po is fine, but in my opinion, if you're eating only two dinners in Manhattan, spending one of them at Po would be NUTS.

I post about some of my meals. I don't post about others. Why isn't she allowed the same leeway? ← 1. Because she writes about just about every significant new place that opens. So it's hard to see what leeway she's exercising. 2. If you want to be of use as a critic (of anything), I don't see how you can post only favorable reviews. How can anyone else gague their tastes against yours if they don't know what you don't like, and why? (I think this goes even for posters on message boards, let alone pros like AS.) And don't you sometimes (often?) find unfavorable reviews to be even more useful than favorable ones?

You'll get in to Del Posto. Read to the end of the thread. That place is EMPTY. I love Lupa. Po is fine, but if you want the Mario Experience, remember that Mario sold out his interest in it years ago.

You're right: I should have said my friends were surprised how "decent" it was. I didn't mean to imply they thought it was actually good. As for a current scene, I'd say go with Morimoto over Del Posto. It's hard to see how much of a scene there would be at a restaurant that, as far as you can tell from the posts here, is usually empty.