Reviewing the Reviewers in NYC - 2009

[Ochowie]

Bruni's Charles review is just plain painful to read. Ow.

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Umm seriously. What the hell was that? Did Maureen Dowd guest write for Bruni on this article? This was just plain terrible.

[BryanZ]

It really wasn't any different than his review of the Waverly Inn, which I suppose is no excuse but at least he was trying to make the best out of what's clearly a bad situation.

Edited April 15, 2009 by BryanZ (log)

[docsconz]

Actually I thought it was one of his most entertaining and informative yet!

[daisy17]

Actually I thought it was one of his most entertaining and informative yet!

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me too.

[dscott]

Actually I thought it was one of his most entertaining and informative yet!

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me too.

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Loved it.

[Pan]

Actually I thought it was one of his most entertaining and informative yet!

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me too.

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Loved it.

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I liked it, too. It was funny.

[oakapple]

It really wasn't any different than his review of the Waverly Inn, which I suppose is no excuse but at least he was trying to make the best out of what's clearly a bad situation.

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I think what it says is that the current restaurant scene bores him — hence, the selection of a restaurant that did not really cry out to be reviewed, coupled with a format that was meant to entertain more than inform.

[docsconz]

It really wasn't any different than his review of the Waverly Inn, which I suppose is no excuse but at least he was trying to make the best out of what's clearly a bad situation.

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I think what it says is that the current restaurant scene bores him — hence, the selection of a restaurant that did not really cry out to be reviewed, coupled with a format that was meant to entertain more than inform.

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Marc, just because the restaurant was doing its best to appear exclusive, doesn't mean that it wasn't review worthy. It was that very aspect that begged for a review. I haven't been to this restaurant so I have no idea how accurate Bruni's review was or wasn't, however, it had a ring of veracity to it. I think that the review was also timely in its beating up of pretension and a desire for snobbish exclusivity, two traits that are very much out of public favor at the moment. Perhaps that is a bit opportunistic on Bruni's part, but I think his reviewing style here was quite original and seemed to fit the subject.

Edited April 16, 2009 by docsconz (log)

[oakapple]

I think what it says is that the current restaurant scene bores him — hence, the selection of a restaurant that did not really cry out to be reviewed, coupled with a format that was meant to entertain more than inform.

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Marc, just because the restaurant was doing its best to appear exclusive, doesn't mean that it wasn't review worthy.

As far as I can tell from a quick google search, it was ignored by all of the other pro critics who publish weekly reviews (Platt, Richman, Restaurant Girl, Cheshes, Sutton, Cuozzo, Sietsema, DiGregorio, Tables for Two). Maybe I missed one, but it clearly wasn't one of those places (like Corton or the John Dory) that every critic knew they had to visit. That's what I mean by "did not cry out to be reviewed". Certain places are so newsworthy that they can't be ignored, and the Charles isn't in that category.

The pro critics spend an awful lot of time copy-catting each other, so in a way it's good to see that rare review when a critic goes out of his way to point out something the others had missed. But as Bruni himself once said, it's somewhat counter-intuitive to call attention to a place, for the purpose of telling people to avoid it. That is why, from a purely journalistic standpoint, I think the zero-star reviews should be confined to the places that must be reviewed (e.g. Secession), and the Charles clearly wasn't such a place. Since he can't review every restaurant in town, he ought to use his infrequent "discretionary" reviews—those he has a choice about writing—to call attention to restaurants that are worthy of it.

So my sense is that this review was more about a bored critic finding a way to have fun, rather than telling us something we needed to know. Mind you, if he's going to review an unimportant restaurant, finding a fun way to do it is probably the best approach.

Edited April 16, 2009 by oakapple (log)

[Fat Guy]

I remember, in November, Charles was THE place on the mind of just about every local food writer I know. The night I was there I saw Alan Richman (who wrote about it here), Kate Krader from Food & Wine (who mentioned it here), Ben Leventhal and Lockhart Steele from Eater, and a couple of others I can't remember -- maybe Gael Greene or someone of that stature. It was a real food-media bonanza in there. I think everybody came because there was tremendous interest in the place, and few wrote about it because it was so utterly unremarkable. And I think Bruni's piece would have been appropriate in November or December of last year, if not so annoyingly written. But in April 2009, it's an anachronism.

[weinoo]

In today's NY Times Dining Briefs cloumn (click me) Julia Moskin reviews the "uptown" 'inoteca.

Of course, as I've discussed before, I really like 'inoteca, from the service to the food. And Ms. Moskin's review is generally favorable as well, but what I take issue with is a statement like this:

By the time you’ve been instructed in how many pieces of bruschetta your group needs ($3 each, $19 for 9), translated all 12 toppings (best: fig mascarpone; worst: broccoli rabe), and evaluated the menu of spiedini (grilled skewers), you will be tempted to suck down the entire cocktail list.

But the drinks I tried were oversweetened, and the all-Italian wine list turned out to be a better source of solace.

First, if you sucked down the entire cocktail list, you'd be dead. Second, which drinks did you try and what makes you a cocktail expert? Now, we all know Ms. Moskin's a food expert, because she cooked everything in Mastering the Art, but has she made every drink in, for instance, Wondrich's Esquire Drinks?

By the way, what wine(s) did you try, and how much did they cost?

Then she dashes off a statement like this:

Too many plates rely on fat for flavor: nuts, olive oil, pork and cheese weigh down the menu, and there’s a separate list of fritti, deep-fried items ($8 to 18), that sound better than they are.

Well, I don't know how many times we've all heard the mantra that "fat is flavor" and in my opinion, nuts, olive oil, pork and cheese all taste pretty good. Especially they way they're used at 'inoteca.

And by the way, what fritti did she try, and how did they sound better than they were? Can we get a real food critic reviewing the restaurants, please.

[oakapple]

By the time you’ve been instructed in how many pieces of bruschetta your group needs ($3 each, $19 for 9), translated all 12 toppings (best: fig mascarpone; worst: broccoli rabe), and evaluated the menu of spiedini (grilled skewers), you will be tempted to suck down the entire cocktail list.

But the drinks I tried were oversweetened, and the all-Italian wine list turned out to be a better source of solace.

First, if you sucked down the entire cocktail list, you'd be dead. Second, which drinks did you try and what makes you a cocktail expert? Now, we all know Ms. Moskin's a food expert, because she cooked everything in Mastering the Art, but has she made every drink in, for instance, Wondrich's Esquire Drinks?

I think you're being too hard on Ms. Moskin. After all, it is a Dining Brief. She didn't say she sucked down the whole cocktail list, only that you'd be tempted to. It was just a way of saying that, in her opinion, the menu required too much explanation. I am not saying the comment is true—I'd have to dine there to assess that—but I think it is reasonably clear that she is using humor to explain what was wrong, not seriously suggesting that you ingest every cocktail on one visit.

Needless to say, in modern times we have not had a critic who was an expert on every food, every cocktail, and every wine. No one needs to be an expert, or to have made every drink, to say that to their own taste the drinks were too sweet. (To put it differently, if I think something is too sweet, no purported expert is entitled to inform me that I should have liked it.)

By the way, what wine(s) did you try, and how much did they cost?

Even in longer reviews, the critic practically never lists all of the wines s/he tried.

Then she dashes off a statement like this:

Too many plates rely on fat for flavor: nuts, olive oil, pork and cheese weigh down the menu, and there’s a separate list of fritti, deep-fried items ($8 to 18), that sound better than they are.

Well, I don't know how many times we've all heard the mantra that "fat is flavor" and in my opinion, nuts, olive oil, pork and cheese all taste pretty good. Especially they way they're used at 'inoteca.

That could very well be, but all it tells me is that you tried the same food and had a different reaction to it than she did.

And by the way, what fritti did she try, and how did they sound better than they were?  Can we get a real food critic reviewing the restaurants, please.

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This wasn't a review. It was a "Brief," which in the Times format is a quick fly-by of restaurants deemed not worthy of a full review—in this case, because it is a near-clone of another restaurant downtown. Edited April 29, 2009 by oakapple (log)

[weinoo]

This wasn't a review. It was a "Brief," which in the Times format is a quick fly-by of restaurants deemed not worthy of a full review—in this case, because it is a near-clone of another restaurant downtown.

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Point taken.

[Fat Guy]

As we come to the end of Bruni's tenure at the Times, it's probably worth pausing -- as he has -- to consider the Danny Meyer/Union Square Hospitality Group empire from a multi-restaurant perspective. Taking the recent Union Square Cafe and Eleven Madison Park reviews separately is one thing, but the choice to review the restaurants back to back -- to, in effect, give one of Union Square Cafe's stars to Eleven Madison Park -- seems to say that Bruni feels a duty to put the House of Meyer in order. If that is his goal, he has failed miserably at it. If it's not his goal, he hasn't failed at it -- he has simply made a mess of the house that will be extremely awkward for the next critic to sort out.

To my mind, the USHG restaurant that comes closest to delivering a four-star experience is The Modern, which currently carries two stars. That's not to say it definitely is a four-star restaurant. The Modern and Gabriel Kreuther have probably not yet reached their four-star potential and being saddled with two stars from the New York Times can't help because despite the declining relevance of those stars they still hold sway. But to say the Modern is anything less than a three-star restaurant is to me just nutty. The Bar Room at the Modern, which has three stars, is or was excellent but more of a one-star establishment serving some dishes that go above and beyond its rating. I'm not sure there's anything in Bruni's tenure that says more about his anti-fine-dining inclinations than the two/three-star split for the Modern and the Bar Room.

Union Square Cafe is now down to two stars, which is and long has been a defensible rating for that restaurant. I don't really agree with that rating, but it's not crazy. However, I think Bruni's notion of slippage, which I suppose gets him around the stare decisis problem, is not correct. If anything, based on my dining experiences there, the restaurant has improved under Carmen Quagliata. I'd still be inclined to give Union Square Cafe three stars, though. It falls into the category of restaurants that, I think, overachieve enough to merit an extra star. So while the food at Union Square Cafe may be fundamentally two-star food, it has been tweaked to such an extent that nobody else is really doing that kind of food that well. In addition, the service ethic at Union Square Cafe is pretty impressive, as is the overall experience. So I see no reason to alter the three-star rating.

Three stars for Gramercy Tavern makes sense. There was a time when I thought Gramercy Tavern might be the first American four-star restaurant. That seemed like the opening proffer. And I love the restaurant. But I don't think at this point Gramercy Tavern strives to be a four-star restaurant. It's a little confusing that the Modern and the Bar Room have been reviewed separately, because Gramercy Tavern also has a restaurant within a restaurant (the Tavern at Gramercy Tavern) with a completely independent menu that does not carry a separate rating.

As far as I recall, Tabla and the Bread Bar at Tabla have not been reviewed by Bruni. Not that I think there's a change in rating called for there, but certainly Tabla has undergone significant change since it was originally reviewed. I think it's still a three-star restaurant but with different justifications now. When is the last time Tabla was reviewed anyway? Two critics ago? If memory serves, and it may not, Tabla was reviewed by Ruth Reichl upon opening and has not been re-reviewed by Grimes or Bruni. I think Grimes may have penned a lukewarm Diner's Journal on it, when Diner's Journal was still a newspaper column, but maybe one of our resident Times experts can confirm or deny that.

Blue Smoke got a star from Eric Asimov when he was pinch hitting for Grimes, I believe.

Which leaves Eleven Madison Park and its four stars. It does seem that enough credible people (I don't count Bruni among them) think that Eleven Madison Park deserves four stars that the notion deserves serious consideration. And I haven't been there recently enough to comment on the restaurant's internal trends. But I'm relatively un-ready to accept the notion of four stars for Eleven Madison Park. Luckily, if there is one restaurant operator who will live up to an overly generous review instead of exploiting it, it is Danny Meyer.

So this is how, I think, Bruni has left the Danny Meyer universe:

Eleven Madison Park - 4

Gramercy Tavern - 3

Bar Room at the Modern - 3

Tabla - 3 (from another critic)

Union Square Cafe - 2

The Modern - 2

Blue Smoke - 1 (from another critic)

Am I missing anything?

The list to me seems absurd on its face, with The Modern being the most bizarrely inaccurate of the ratings.

[ulterior epicure]

I agree that The Modern has been misplaced on the Meyer shelf. The food, I think, is very "three-star-like" in terms of creativity, having a registered "voice," and the quality of execution. Now, if they could only close that gap in the walls so that the din from The Bar Room doesn't drown out my meal.

[oakapple]

So this is how, I think, Bruni has left the Danny Meyer universe:

Eleven Madison Park - 4

Gramercy Tavern - 3

Bar Room at the Modern - 3

Tabla - 3 (from another critic)

Union Square Cafe - 2

The Modern - 2

Blue Smoke - 1 (from another critic)

Am I missing anything?

The list to me seems absurd on its face, with The Modern being the most bizarrely inaccurate of the ratings.

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If you erase The Modern from the picture, Bruni has basically gotten it right, or at least arguably right. If you strike The Modern and the Bar Room from the list, what you've got there is the same rank order I myself would assign to those restaurants. If USC deserves three stars, it's nevertheless at the lower end of three; if EMP doesn't deserve four, it's nevertheless at the higher end of three.

So we're left with The Modern, which is the most egregious error of his tenure, and the one most likely to be promptly altered by his successor. If I were Sam Sifton, my first review would be to take a star away from the Bar Room and give it to The Modern. I don't expect Sifton to do that, but I don't expect him to remain silent about the place for long.

Edited August 16, 2009 by oakapple (log)

[Fat Guy]

If you give him credit for the two ratings he wasn't responsible for, the picture looks a little more complete and less ridiculous. However, when you consider that he reviewed Eleven Madison Park three times and Tabla never, and gave three stars to the Bar Room but never even reviewed Blue Smoke, it's a pretty weak list, with 2 out of 5 (aka 40%) of the ratings he gave being nutty and 2 others (another 40%) being stretches. Combine that with the rushed "midnight appointments" of the most recent reviews and it's a pretty weak oeuvre.

[oakapple]

If you give him credit for the two ratings he wasn't responsible for, the picture looks a little more complete and less ridiculous. However, when you consider that he reviewed Eleven Madison Park three times and Tabla never, and gave three stars to the Bar Room but never even reviewed Blue Smoke, it's a pretty weak list, with 2 out of 5 (aka 40%) of the ratings he gave being nutty and 2 others (another 40%) being stretches. Combine that with the rushed "midnight appointments" of the most recent reviews and it's a pretty weak oeuvre.

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I do give him "credit" for Tabla, in a weak sense, because I am confident that he visited every restaurant that had three stars from his predecessors, likely more than once, and the decision not to re-review them amounted to a de facto endorsement of the existing ratings. There was no reason to re-review Blue Smoke, as there has been no intervening event that would invalidate Asimov's review, and it is not the kind of place that "demands" a review every so often, the way a 3 or 4-star place does.

The EMP review that should not have been written was the first one. It still had the same chef as when his predecessor reviewed it (Kerry Heffernan), and he kept the rating the same (two stars). The second review made perfect sense: a new chef and a higher rating. And I don't have any issue with the third, given the premise that it had improved to the point where it deserved four stars.

By the way, this was not the first time a Times critic reviewed three restaurants during his or her tenure. Believe it or not, Mimi Sheraton reviewed Sammy's Roumanian (a far less important restaurant) three times. There were probably other times it happened. Sheraton and Miller routinely reviewed two restaurants a week, which offered a much greater opportunity for spot checks of existing places.

For what it's worth, these are the restaurants I know of that had three stars from a prior critic, and that Bruni did not re-review:

Aquavit

Chanterelle

Craft

JoJo

Gotham Bar & Grill

Kurumazushi

La Grenouille

Nobu and Next Door Nobu (but he did give 3* to Nobu 57)

Sushi Yasuda (but he did give it an unstarred re-visit in Dining Briefs)

Tabla

Veritas (probably his worst omission)

I am not counting Sammy's Roumanian, which I suppose is technically a three-star restaurant, as that was Mimi Sheraton's final rating, and it was never reviewed again. However, the Times no longer displays that rating on their website, so clearly they do not stand by it, as they do for all of the other places.

Edited August 16, 2009 by oakapple (log)

[Fat Guy]

Danyelle Freeman out at the News. This recap from the Times chronicles the steady thinning of the ranks of NY restaurant reviewers:

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/200...er-critic-gone/

[oakapple]

Danyelle Freeman out at the News. This recap from the Times chronicles the steady thinning of the ranks of NY restaurant reviewers:

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/200...er-critic-gone/

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You could argue, though, that the amount of information available is still better than it was ten years ago, notwithstanding this loss. And Freeman is going to continue writing basically the same reviews on her website.

[Fat Guy]

That there's more information available now seems simply to be a fact. The internet makes it so. More information, greater diversity of opinion, less concentration of opinion in a few voices. There may be a question regarding the quality of information, but quantity isn't really up for dispute. However, on the narrower issue of professional newspaper and magazine restaurant criticism, we are clearly seeing a decline.

[slkinsey]

How does the number of restaurant and magazine critics covering NYC compare to, say, 20 years ago? I wonder if we're seeing a contraction due mostly to the fact that the interest in fancy restaurant dining is on the decline for economic reasons and, also of course, because newspapers and magazines are going out of business in droves due to the internet.

[Fat Guy]

I wonder if we're seeing a contraction due mostly to the fact that the interest in fancy restaurant dining is on the decline for economic reasons and, also of course, because newspapers and magazines are going out of business in droves due to the internet.

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The latter strikes me as the most comprehensive explanation. There may be specific reasons why specific critics were retired, but overall it seems to be a cost-cutting thing. And the cost-cutting measures are further justified by access to so many alternative sources of information.

Interest in fancy-restaurant dining may be on the decline, but interest in dining overall is surely on the rise. And plenty of the less fancy places (as well as the fancy ones that still open every season) are reviewable. It's just that the audience for that particular niche has evaporated. There's also the larger issue of the underlying importance, relevance or lack thereof of restaurant reviews. When Steve Cuozzo stopped writing proper reviews, he did it not because he lost his budget (he's still writing a column, and still has a lot of decisionmaking power as executive editor of the Post) but because he said traditional reviewing was no longer a meaningful activity. Restaurants are ever-changing, anonymity isn't possible, reviews are boring, etc.

I think short-term something like this is great for the reviewer at the top of the pyramid -- in this case the New York Times reviewer. The professional print reviewing power is becoming increasingly consolidated in one person. New York Magazine is a distant second but seems to have a stable critic position. If the trend continues over time, however, it will spell the end of those positions too. Unless the surviving outlets push farther away from a food focus and make the reviews more about entertainment and the personality of the critic.

The Times list also doesn't mention some less recent changes, such as the elimination of New York restaurant reviews at Gourmet.

[oakapple]

How does the number of restaurant and magazine critics covering NYC compare to, say, 20 years ago?  I wonder if we're seeing a contraction due mostly to the fact that the interest in fancy restaurant dining is on the decline for economic reasons and, also of course, because newspapers and magazines are going out of business in droves due to the internet.

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I'll echo what FG said: there is no shortage of "reviewable" restaurants. My perception is that so-called "fancy" restaurants have not declined in any greater proportion to the fraction of the dining scene they occupied previously. In any era, those restaurants were in the minority. Of course, what constitutes "fancy" has changed. La Grenouille was once one of many of a similar kind; it's now the last bastion of its species.

The Times has responded by taking its main reviewing position downscale. In relation to his predecessors, Frank Bruni has reviewed a much higher proportion of restaurants that would formerly have been considered $25 & Under places. I have never gotten the sense that he was under budget pressure to do so. He went where his interests lay.

The real trend is that print is dying, and it's carrying printed restaurant reviews down with it. If a newspaper is going to make cuts at the margin, restaurant reviews become an obvious candidate. It's a much more expensive position to maintain, because the meals have to be reimbursed. Film critics go to press screenings, book reviewers get pre-release copies for free, and music critics get press passes, but restaurant critics have to pay.

I think short-term something like this is great for the reviewer at the top of the pyramid -- in this case the New York Times reviewer. The professional print reviewing power is becoming increasingly consolidated in one person.

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Even before this development, the Times critic had outsize importance. Most restauranteurs felt that Bruni's review was more crucial than the others put together. Whether that was true or not, they certainly perceived it that way.