Bruni and Beyond: NYC Reviewing (2004)

[sammy]

I've got to say I think Sammy has nailed it.

[rich]

The type of cuisine represented by Babbo can never get four stars, at least not to my way of thinking. And when I say "the type of cuisine represented by Babbo" I am not talking about Italian cuisine in general. Because it is extremely easy for me to imagine a four-star Italian restaurant. I just can't imagine a four-star Babbo. A restaurant like San Domenico, if it simply did what it does but did it much better, with more vitality, better ingredients, a nicer dining room, etc., would be a four star Italian restaurant serving four star Italian cuisine.

But Steve, you qualify the "four star" comment by saying "not to your way of thinking" and therein lies the problem with stars. Bruni was very clear in what he thought a four star restaurant should be, but other NY Times reviewers haven't been as clear. Therefore it's impossible to gauge which way their subjectivety slanted.

No critic can ever be expected (nor would it make sense) to explain their subjective "star" system in every review. So why not do away with the stars and just give a text review?

Edited June 10, 2004 by rich (log)

[Lesley C]

I once was at a dinner with a high-powered New York food magazine editor who told me, after hearing me rave about Babbo, that in fact it was more of a "pick up joint."

I never bought that magazine again.

[Bux]

The type of cuisine represented by Babbo can never get four stars, at least not to my way of thinking. And when I say "the type of cuisine represented by Babbo" I am not talking about Italian cuisine in general. Because it is extremely easy for me to imagine a four-star Italian restaurant. I just can't imagine a four-star Babbo. A restaurant like San Domenico, if it simply did what it does but did it much better, with more vitality, better ingredients, a nicer dining room, etc., would be a four star Italian restaurant serving four star Italian cuisine.

But Steve, you qualify the "four star" comment by saying "not to your way of thinking" and therein lies the problem with stars. Bruni was very clear in what he thought a four star restaurant should be, but other NY Times reviewers haven't been as clear. Therefore it's impossible to gauge which way their subjectivety slanted.

No critic can ever be expected (nor would it make sense) to explain their subjective "star" system in every review. So why not do away with the stars and just give a text review?

Let me go back to what a professional culinary journalist posted here: "implicit in the review was an acknowledgement that babbo chose to be a three-star restaurant and was happy with that and god bless'em."

When Fat Guy said "my way of thinking," implicit in that comment was that Fat Guy thought like a professional culinary journalist who was familiar with the way NY Times (and to a great extent Michelin) stars have been awarded by various reviewers over the years and have been seen by chefs, restaurant owners and serious diners, versed in dining in great restaurants as well as reading reviews, over the years.

I've heard professionals speak of upcoming restaurants by asking if it's going to be a two, three or four, star restaurant. When they ask that question, they're not asking about the food as much as the ambience and when they get to the food, they ask in terms of style more than quality. How many starts a restaurant earns may be a subjective decision on the part of the reviewer. What it's aiming to be, is--to those who understand the lingo of the star system--far more objectively understood. There may have been a discrepency in the stars awarded by the last half dozen Times reviewers, but they all would have understood what Babbo's aims were almost as soon as they entered the door. The problem with the stars may not be as they're awarded, but as they're seen by an audience that hasn't learned their meaning. The subjectivity is great, but not nearly as great as you make it out to be.

As I recall the music was not the reason Babbo's limit was three stars, it was emblematic of the reason. Silence would be the most easily recognized clue a restaurant might be aiming for four stars in New York.

[russ parsons]

I've heard professionals speak of upcoming restaurants by asking if it's going to be a two, three or four, star restaurant. When they ask that question, they're not asking about the food as much as the ambience and when they get to the food, they ask in terms of style more than quality.

yeah, what he said. i think in general four-star restaurants are a category of restaurants, not necessarily a grade of restaurant. we've talked about the variety of critics the NYT has used over the last couple of years, but can anyone give an example of a four-star restaurant that didn't fit that very specific mold? quiet, serious, distinguished, exalted? i'm just asking because i don't know.

[mongo_jones]

i think in general four-star restaurants are a category of restaurants, not necessarily a grade of restaurant.

russ, that's a very succinct, pointed way of putting it. cuts through a lot of the tendentious aspects of the discussion. i hadn't thought of it that way. i don't see why the times (or any other outlet that uses a star system based on the same principles/rhetoric) can't just say as much (or little).

by the way, i was in los angeles for 3 weeks last month--among the other pleasures of our return was reading your stuff in the food section 3 of the times 3 weeks in a row. especially the piece on the farmer's market which made our return to boulder so much more difficult.

[robyn]

Just a quick follow-up question.

Does anyone believe the current NY Times star system is relevant in today's more casual society?

It is. I don't know what your goal in dining is - but my goal (at times) is to get the best possible food in the best possible surroundings.

I can live with lots of different kinds of music or atmosphere - as long as whatever is going on isn't so loud that I can't hear the staff explaining the menu or my husband talking to me.

But - in addition - I want space! I'll give you a "for example" We had dinner at Cafe Boulud one night - in one of the tables along the side wall. The tables were small and tight as (fill in the blank). And then the 2 guys next to us (obviously lawyers) start talking about a case in Florida - and the judge and lawyers in that case - in very graphic (unflattering) personal terms. And my husband and I raise an eyebrow - because we happen to be lawyers - and the case and the people they're talking about - well we know everything about them. Now mind you - we live in Florida - and here we are in New York hearing all this stuff at a New York restaurant. If I wanted to hear the latest gossip about Miami lawyers - I would have stayed home and gone to my local bar. I don't need it to intrude on a very expensive meal. Anyway - we let these guys prattle on for a while - and then we told them who we were - and that their very public discussion wouldn't go unreported back home. Boy - were they pissed.

Anyway - in my opinion - any place this can happen isn't a 4 star restaurant. When I am paying big bucks for a meal - I want excellent food - excellent service - in lovely surroundings - and a modicum of privacy. Robyn

P.S. Having just returned from a week of fine dining in London - I can only say that 3 out of the 4 starred Michelin restaurants I ate at were better than anyplace I've dined at in the US in recent years - with the exception of ADNY (which was more Europe than NY). Not that I have an overwhelming amount of experience. It's just that when you go to most NY restaurants - no matter what food is being served - almost everything is too hurried - too cramped - the dining simply isn't pleasant.

P.P.S. Mea culpa. I'm braindead tonight. At dinner - my husband reminded me that we had a world class meal at Le Cirque 2000 in New York (and it was Italian) - and one at Nobu too. Not recently. Probably 5 years ago or so. As for the atmosphere at Nobu - it might have been unusual because we were a party of 12 and had a really big private table in the back of the restaurant.

Edited June 11, 2004 by robyn (log)

[robert brown]

Many articles, including the restaurant reviews, in the Dining section serve two purposes: One is to be about what they purport to be; the second is to play the role of booster of gastronomy or food in New York. This, I believe, explains what accounts for what looks like to me as impending star inflation.

There have been two consecutive restaurant reviews that tease us with the notion of awarding four stars to types of restaurants that never have received four stars. But for some tables instead of a only a sushi bar at Masa, and The Black Crowes (maybe he was thinking he was served Mason Black Crows) that disturbed the Sultan’s visit to Babbo, we would have two more New York Times four star restaurants (a 40% increase). If you want to take the Masa review literally, then we have 5-1/2 four-star restaurants, which would include that Japanese restaurant that Bruni thinks should be in the top echelon one of these days.

As I have written here before, allocating stars is an attempt to say everything about a restaurant without saying anything. I also think that restaurants are intrinsically unsuitable vehicles for the kind of rhetoric the Times and other print outlets apply to them. Taking all of the above together, it boils down to, in my opinion, that you should take these reviews, especially this allocation of stars business, with one large grain of “sel de mer”.

[Fat Guy]

I think there's a fine line between being a booster and being a champion of excellence, and it's possible and appropriate to be a little of each so long as you operate within the boundaries of credibility and independence. That's often the case with all sorts of arts critics. I agree that when boosterism pushes us into a grade inflation situation, that's good for nobody. Too many people are walking around New York thinking our restaurants are better than they are. Then again, too many people are walking around New York (and watching New York from elsewhere) and trying to put the square peg of our restaurants into the round hole of the Michelin system and concluding inferiority where they should be seeing a certain type of diversity of approaches.

The arrival of ADNY and Per Se truly creates, in my opinion, a new category of New York restaurant. In my lifetime only Lespinasse under Kunz was possibly in that category of places that were oriented towards the spacious, slow, super-duper-luxe scale of Michelin three-star dining and the meticulousness, complexity, and raw power of that kind of cuisine. This is going to create a problem, as the four-star category becomes bifurcated. It is possible that the best solution would be to create a five-star category for these two places. Otherwise it becomes very difficult by comparison to see the others as four-star restaurants.

I think it is inevitable that we will have a Japanese four-star restaurant, and I don't think that will represent a departure from the current system. While it has been oft repeated that the French places have the fix in with the Times system, I believe the reality is simply that right now only the places that happen to be worthy of four stars are the French-influenced ones. Nobody has yet built the Asian four-star restaurant (although, if I am not mistaken, there was a Chinese four-star in the 1970s?). I've been to restaurants in Asia, such as at the Conrad in Singapore, where I could easily see the potential for a New York Times four-star review of a similarly organized restaurant in New York. I'm not sure if anybody here has been to the gorgeous luxe Chinese place at Bellagio, but if you have maybe you can see the argument for that kind of place being a competitor in the four star category. Likewise, the scope and scale of Japanese places in New York has been pushing towards that sort of four-star aesthetic. It doesn't sound as though Masa has quite hit it, but it could be done. Ditto for Italian, and I think Frank Bruni just loudly announced to the world: Put a few million dollars behind a better non-dinosaurish version of San Domenico, don't play any music and I'll give you four stars. And it is only a matter of time before someone like Danny Meyer builds the first four-star American restaurant. I am thinking a lot these days about Modern, which I suppose will inevitably be at the French end of the New American spectrum, but I think it will be American in ways that differentiate it from the current four stars. I'm not sure what the game plan is there in terms of the level of luxury, but I hope it's ambitious.

[robyn]

Apropos of "star inflation" - I'll add that in a city like London - which is every bit as big as New York - there is only 1 3 star Michelin restaurant in the city proper - and 2 others near the city. And you're not talking large numbers when it comes to 1 and 2 star restaurants either.

By the way - I don't remember a Chinese restaurant at Bellagio. Must be relatively new (or perhaps I missed it - you could eat in that hotel for a week and not try everything). Robyn

[Fat Guy]

The restaurant is called Jasmine and has been there at least five years, I think. There's information on the Bellagio site, including a dining room photo that gives you and idea of the level of refinement we're talking about:

http://bellagio.com/pages/frameset_noflash.asp

On another point, Frank Bruni's first Diner's Journal has appeared:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/11/dining/11JOUR.html

I'm very glad that Bruni doesn't hide his cards here the way Grimes feebly used to do. He gives strong and opinionated first impressions. Way to go.

[Bux]

I think it is inevitable that we will have a Japanese four-star restaurant, and I don't think that will represent a departure from the current system. While it has been oft repeated that the French places have the fix in with the Times system, I believe the reality is simply that right now only the places that happen to be worthy of four stars are the French-influenced ones.

I'm not sure a Japanese four star restaurant is inevitable, but it's certainly not unlikely. I wouldn't bet against it. I don't disagree about your view of the reality either, but I think there's probably more than could be said about why the four star candidates have all been French. Of all the western European countries, France is the one that first developed a restaurant cuisine that departed so far from what was cooked in homes. Russ said that "four-star restaurants are a category of restaurants." I think that's true and it's a category that was developed in France and the best examples have remained French for a long time. Per Se is not a French Restaurant, but in terms of the haute cuisine it serves, it could just as well be one.

[Fat Guy]

And they certainly called the precursor restaurant the French Laundry.

I don't mean to say it's a freak accident that all the four-star places are French or heavily French influenced. France has the stuff.

As well, there is certainly an element of stare decisis upon which you can rely when putting a zillion dollars behind a French restaurant; you don't have those assurances when you fund an Austro-Hungarian place, even though that area of Europe can lay a heavy claim to importance in the restaurant arena.

And certainly the risks are higher when you go Asian. There is perhaps not a sufficient customer base in New York that would pay four-star prices for, say, Chinese food. But with Japanese, the base is clearly there -- the biggest ticket restaurants in town, at least foodwise, have long been Japanese, and the cuisine itself and the forms surrounding it have the kind of global clout to demand being rated in every available category of the scale. I just don't think a tiny sushi bar like Masa has exactly gone after that segment, despite its luxe prices and ingredients. I'm not sure Masa gave a moment's thought to the issue of stars -- why would he? At a restaurant that small and idiosyncratic, you're operating in a whole different universe.

[Bux]

On another point, Frank Bruni's first Diner's Journal has appeared:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/11/dining/11JOUR.html

I'm very glad that Bruni doesn't hide his cards here the way Grimes feebly used to do. He gives strong and opinionated first impressions. Way to go.

I think there's a fine line between being a booster and being a champion of excellence, and it's possible and appropriate to be a little of each so long as you operate within the boundaries of credibility and independence. That's often the case with all sorts of arts critics.

Did you write about boosterism before or after you read Bruni's first Diner's Journal?

Bruni: A butterfly is about to happen, in a neighborhood spreading new wings.

I'm not sure that neighborhood itself isn't Mothra or some other monster, but I think he handled his very positive upbeat, some might say "boosterish" closing well enough and with credibility. I believe you were the one who also mentioned that one could read a lot about Bruni's thoughts and ideas well beyond his opinion about Babbo in the Babbo review. Here again are his reasons why an award of stars might be antithetical to the purpose of a Diner's Journal column and why new restaurants usually don't make good candidates for full reviews. I like his enthusiasm, as I see it in this column, for restaurants. One senses an enthusiasm for the process of developing a restaurant and perhaps even for the inherent risks of dining out. He makes me want to eat there and yet not hold him responsible if I get a lousy meal. It's kind of the essence of a non consumer's report. I like that. That I like that in a reviewer, may mean he's in for a hard time from the public.

[mongo_jones]

On another point, Frank Bruni's first Diner's Journal has appeared:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/11/dining/11JOUR.html

i'm a little confused by this:

"Mr. Pelaccio last caught diners' attention at Chickenbone Cafe on the south side of Williamsburg, a section of Brooklyn still suspended in mid-metamorphosis."

now, i'm not a regular reader of the times so this is probably merely an uninformed set of questions but wasn't bruni stationed in italy until he took up this gig? how is it that he speaks of what this chef did at his previous establishment? or does it not seem to anyone else that this is an odd sentence for a reviewer very recently arrived in town to make? or is he in fact not so recently arrived? there were similar constructions in the babbo review as well.

i like bruni's reviews but his cutesiness with language is already beginning to wear on me--there's a certain college composition paper feel to some of it. and with all the lepidocteric metaphors one can't help but remember that moths also emerge from chrysales.

[robert brown]

If deciding to give a couple of restaurants five stars isn’t star inflation, then what is?

My guess as to what this star teasing business of the last two weeks is tied to is this “b.s.” pronouncement you read all the time that “New York is the restaurant capital of the world”. The people at the Times food section figure that with the “Restaurant Collection” in the AOL-Time Warner Building and so many restaurants opening up in the meat packing district and other parts of town, we need to up the number of top-rated restaurants or, as they are starting to say, restaurants that for all intents and purposes are four-star restaurants even if they are awarded four question marks and three stars.

I’ll go along with the dictum that New York is the ersatz restaurant capital of the world.

[Fat Guy]

If deciding to give a couple of restaurants five stars isn’t star inflation, then what is?

Star inflation = giving restaurants more stars than they deserve

Creating a new category for restaurants that raise the bar = not star inflation

[robert brown]

Wasn't it Shun Lee Dynasty that had four stars at one time?

[Fat Guy]

I think it was a different place, Uncle something or other. I'll look into it.

[robert brown]

Doing so would diminish the remaining four star places in the minds of all those people who need stars as crutches. That's what happened when Gault-Millau decided to separate some of the 19s when they gave others of the them 19-1/2. Maybe we should call it "star dilution" which is a result of inflation.

[Fat Guy]

That's how I see it. You can deflate the value of four stars by adding a fifth, thus compensating for the inflation. Then you get a new chance to make the system right.

As for four-star Chinese restaurants, apparently there were three in the 1970s according to this reference on CuisineNet from a few years ago.

New York chef and restaurant consultant Eddie Schoenfeld, who currently oversees food service at ABC Carpets' Parlor Cafe, adds that when the Chinese cook with garlic, they create a taste and odor that is a far cry from the sweet, slow-cooked Western style. "The Chinese have a much quicker way of cooking garlic. It provides a more raw garlic taste -- like the taste you get fresh out of a bulb," says Schoenfeld, who in the '70s was the maitre d' at the New York restaurant Uncle Tai's Hunan Yuan, which was the third Chinese restaurant to ever receive four stars in the New York Times.

[Fat Guy]

Also, it occurs to me, we often hear discussion implying that there has never been a non-French four-star restaurant. We even hear it in the New York Times. Perhaps that conventional wisdom needs to be amended in light of its apparent inaccuracy. The true picture seems to be that, in the past 20 years, the French have pushed everyone else out of the category. That's not only the accurate rendition, but also the more interesting story.

[Jason Perlow]

That's how I see it. You can deflate the value of four stars by adding a fifth, thus compensating for the inflation. Then you get a new chance to make the system right.

As for four-star Chinese restaurants, apparently there were three in the 1970s according to this reference on CuisineNet from a few years ago.

New York chef and restaurant consultant Eddie Schoenfeld, who currently oversees food service at ABC Carpets' Parlor Cafe, adds that when the Chinese cook with garlic, they create a taste and odor that is a far cry from the sweet, slow-cooked Western style. "The Chinese have a much quicker way of cooking garlic. It provides a more raw garlic taste -- like the taste you get fresh out of a bulb," says Schoenfeld, who in the '70s was the maitre d' at the New York restaurant Uncle Tai's Hunan Yuan, which was the third Chinese restaurant to ever receive four stars in the New York Times.

It would seem to me that in the early 1970's, the bar for determining what a four star restaurant is in the NYT was much lower. I can't imagine a four star Chinese restaurant today in NYC, even with the more specialized regional cuisines that are now avalaible. You would need service, atmosphere and not to mention food and ingredient quality that matches places like Le Bernardin, ADNY, Daniel, and Jean Georges. That just doesn't fit with what most chinese dining experiences are -- even from the standpoint of what chinese cuisine IS, which for the most part is served family style and focuses on hearty and value, even at the high levels at places like Grand Sichuan, Joe's Shanghai or Wu Liang Ye. In Hong Kong and Singapore you do have some very high end places, but still, they would never pass for what the NYT calls a four star now.

Which restaurants that were deemed four stars by the NYT in the 70's still exist today? Or still have their 4 star rating?

[Pan]

On another point, Frank Bruni's first Diner's Journal has appeared:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/11/dining/11JOUR.html

I'm very glad that Bruni doesn't hide his cards here the way Grimes feebly used to do. He gives strong and opinionated first impressions. Way to go.

I have a similar reaction to the piece. I thought that was another terrific review - or, in a way, a pre-review of a place that it sounds like he'd like to give more chance to grow and polish its delivery before doing a full, star-rated review. The article functioned as a very effective and unambiguous teaser.

[Pan]

What it's aiming to be, is--to those who understand the lingo of the star system--far more objectively understood. There may have been a discrepency in the stars awarded by the last half dozen Times reviewers, but they all would have understood what Babbo's aims were almost as soon as they entered the door. The problem with the stars may not be as they're awarded, but as they're seen by an audience that hasn't learned their meaning.

That's all interesting and I see that it's pertinent, but the problem is that this is what the New York Times says about their stars:

WHAT THE STARS MEAN

(None)|Poor to satisfactory

*|Good **|Very good

***|Excellent

****|Extraordinary

I don't understand exactly why anyone should be faulted for thinking that a New York Times reviewer actually means what the Times says the stars are supposed to mean, even given this slight disclaimer:

Ratings reflect the reviewer's reaction to food, ambience and service, with price taken into consideration.

Frankly, until I read and participated in discussions about the meaning of the stars on this site, I assumed that New York Times reviewers actually meant what the key above says. If the reviewers actually mean something else, shouldn't the key be changed to reflect that? We can't expect lots of (let alone the majority of) "uninitiated" people to figure out exactly how the star system means something other than what the Times says it means, can we? I say we can't.