Bruni and Beyond: NYC Reviewing (2006)

[Sneakeater]

Not to start a fight (and in a spirit, I hope, of comradeship), I think you're being a bit unfair, ewindels.

You've admitted that you like certain restaurants for reasons not necessarily going to food quality (i.e., Landmarc -- another restaurant that you often have to wait a long time to get seated in, BTW). It seems to me that if people like a place like Freeman's for reasons going beyond the strict quality of the food, it's kind of unfair of you to say that your non-food reasons for liking one place are better than their non-food reasons for liking another. Even Bruni admitted in his review that the room at Freeman's is amusing and kind of cool; he even remarked that he smiled every time he entered. I think that that's what draws the crowds there; not blind obedience to some mass status directive. (Which is why I also would distinguish Freeman's from the Asian and Meatpacking Multiplexes: to me, those places seem much more cynically "packaged" than this rather low-key place -- and aimed at a completely different crowd.)

And in anticipation of a rebuttal that the food at Landmarc is much better than the food at Freeman's, I'll note that the prices at Landmarc are a good deal higher than at Freeman's. That may not matter much to you or me -- but it does to the younger crowd Freeman's is designed to cater to.

I'm not trying to defend Freeman's as a really good place. I think it richly deserved its "Satisfactory". I just don't think it's fair to tar its partisans as a bunch of ignorant sheep.

Edited September 20, 2006 by Sneakeater (log)

[lexy]

… and I think we often don't consider this when critiquing the restaurant reviews.  heck, I read them religiously long before I moved to NY...just to keep abreast of culinary trends in NY...and I know I wasn't unique in that respect

←

Very true. I'm a Canadian living in England who's been to New York all of twice, probably for a total of four days. I read the NYT dining reviews occasionally just to see what's trendy and new in the restaurant scene.

[Nathan]

put it this way:

with the Friday/Saturday caveat that I noted above, the only similarity I see between the crowds at Freeman's and in the MP is that both are young.

(but, being 31 perhaps I am perhaps coming at this from a different angle....I suppose everyone in their 20's and 30's can look alike)

[matteohamlton]

let me tell you my experience at freemans. I wasn't even going there for dinner. My wife and I just left a dinner party in SOHO and decided to stop by freemans to see if the chef that set up the original menu was there. We arrived late and the host catwalked across the floor to greet us with a glass of wine raised in his hand, a trucker hat on and a courdory jacket with patches on the sleeves. I'll never forget that. "Wow i said. You guys are busy. How long is the wait?" The host replied, "longer than we are open." Holly shit, did he just say that? In reply I said, "well we're not here for dinner, we just came by the see a friend, she is the chef here. the host replied, "name dropping will not get you a table." Okay i said, "is Tavvo here? I know him from a restaurant where i used to work. I am a chef and he was one of the regular customers there". Ohhhh. He replied. "you're a chef, you know the chef here and you used to work with her! let me get you a seat at the bar he said". No, no. Just tell the chef that i was here. and if you can remember my name, tell Tavvo i stopped by............they never got message. I do wish them luck though. It looked like a fun place..........

[ewindels]

It seems to me that if people like a place like Freeman's for reasons going beyond the strict quality of the food, it's kind of unfair of you to say that your non-food reasons for liking one place are better than their non-food reasons for liking another.  Even Bruni admitted in his review that the room at Freeman's is amusing and kind of cool; he even remarked that he smiled every time he entered.  I think that that's what draws the crowds there; not blind obedience to some mass status directive.  (Which is why I also would distinguish Freeman's from the Asian and Meatpacking Multiplexes:  to me, those places seem much more cynically "packaged" than this rather low-key place -- and aimed at a completely different crowd.)

And in anticipation of a rebuttal that the food at Landmarc is much better than the food at Freeman's, I'll note that the prices at Landmarc are a good deal higher than at Freeman's.  That may not matter much to you or me -- but it does to the younger crowd Freeman's is designed to cater to.

I'm not trying to defend Freeman's as a really good place.  I think it richly deserved its "Satisfactory".  I just don't think it's fair to tar its partisans as a bunch of ignorant sheep.

←

Sneak, no offense taken in the slightest: I relish these lively and frank exchanges!

I think you may have misunderstood the point of my rant… er, post. I don’t think the people visiting Freeman’s, or the MP district, or Park Avenue South, are concerned with the quality of the food. Nor can I comment on the quality of the food at Freeman’s over Landmarc (or any place else), as I abandoned my party to their wait and went home. (The wait also is not my issue). I don’t think they’re concerned with the food at all. This is just as true a herd mentality, no matter what location or demographic it’s aimed at. The party who invited me to Freeman’s was much more concerned with what they understood to be a high celebrity quotient (Maggie Gylenhaal! Vince Vaughan! Zoe someoneorother!) then with what was on the menu, or whether there was a menu at all, and that was patently the case with majority of the rest of the crowd waiting to get in.

And it is just this demographic, which ranges across an enormous spectrum of ages and cultures and personas, from glitz to grunge, whose attention the Times seems to be desperate to capture. Hence the recent focus on restaurants and venues where the quality of the food is way down the list of priorities, although I think this is also due to the fact that a lot more of these sorts of places seem to have sprung up recently.

It makes no difference whether it’s the siliconed and botoxed crowds in the meatpacking district or the carefully calculated down-market look of the LES: what these folks want from a night out is validation, affirmation, a boosting of their personas from a concept of glamour (which takes many forms). I say unequivocally that you could serve the majority of customers at any of these places Styrofoam dredged from a sewer, but as long as it’s overpriced (a relative term depending on the place), served in an aggressively distracting venue with the appropriate soundtrack pummeling in the background, and enough booze to sufficiently stun the brain and the palate, not only won’t they care, they’ll rave about it. The reason people go is not for the food, but because of the frisson they expect from the venue and their fellow diners. You may or may not be able to get a good to excellent culinary experience at some of these places (e.g. you can eat quite decently at Spice Market), but they’re not there to eat – they are there to be there. Bruni’s review yesterday confirmed that.

It just seems a shame to me, as I used to view the Times as catering to more “serious” tastes (I cannot conceive that William Grimes would have reviewed Bette). Maybe that’s an illusion on my part.

I’m probably not expressing this as clearly as I’d like. The very memory of some of these places gives me migraines… But let the vitriol flow!

[oakapple]

And it is just this demographic, which ranges across an enormous spectrum of ages and cultures and personas, from glitz to grunge, whose attention the Times seems to be desperate to capture.

←

If that is indeed the the reason for the review, it seems awfully peculiar that the reviewer would have gone "down market" only to trash it.

[Sneakeater]

as long as it’s overpriced (a relative term depending on the place),

←

This is nitpicking, but I don't see how you could call this particular place (Freeman's) overpriced relative to anything. Even Bruni complimented them on their fair prices.

[Sneakeater]

I personally think we should be saving our vitriol for the David Burke Hawaiin Bikini place.

Although with luck it won't be there long enough to require much.

Edited September 21, 2006 by Sneakeater (log)

[oakapple]

I personally think we should be saving our vitriol for the David Burke Hawaiin Bikini place.

Although with luck it won't be there long enough to require much.

←

I don't wish failure upon any restaurant, even if it's personally not my culinary taste. Given the scenery, I may just try this place anyway, even if they're serving prison food.

[Sneakeater]

When you add the blatant sexism, though . . . .

I mean, if some new restaurant opened that featured African-American servers dressed up as slaves serving old-style southern food to white patrons, well, a lot of us might wish it failure apart from any culinary reservations.

(I think this was food-related, but if the moderators think it improperly blundered into politics, I apologize.)

[Nathan]

ewindels: I agree with everything that you say (when you put it that way), except for this aside: "(I cannot conceive that William Grimes would have reviewed Bette)."

He would have. There is some serious cooking there, with a decent decor. Agreed that clientele isn't there for the food but....

heck, Grimes reviewed Cafe de Artistes!

[ewindels]

I don't wish failure upon any restaurant, even if it's personally not my culinary taste. Given the scenery, I may just try this place anyway, even if they're serving prison food.

←

I couldn't agree more: this was a bit that I left out of my screed... er, rant... er, post. These places are keeping a lot of people employed and generating what I would assume/hope are significant amounts of revenue for the city, so I say mazel tov. And no one's forced to go to them (though I am occassionally pressured by friends and colleagues). So I say, the more the merrier!

Nathan, I wonder about Grimes and Bette (had Bette opened during his tenure, when there was so much else going on, I really can't see him spending his time on it, but that's just my impression). My own experience there left me highly unimpressed, and I didn't even pay! I will however happily concede that the truffle fries are a shameful and decadent thing that everyone should sample at least once.

[oakapple]

It just seems a shame to me, as I used to view the Times as catering to more “serious” tastes (I cannot conceive that William Grimes would have reviewed Bette).  Maybe that’s an illusion on my part.

←

Grimes still had to file 52 reviews a year, and there weren't 52 new Temples of Haute Cuisine for him to cover. Even Grimes went downmarket at times. Café des Artistes, by the way, is still better and prettier than a lot of restaurants that get a star from the Times.

Referring to David Burke's new Hawaiian Bikini place,

When you add the blatant sexism, though . . . .

I mean, if some new restaurant opened that featured African-American servers dressed up as slaves serving old-style southern food to white patrons, well, a lot of us might wish it failure apart from any culinary reservations.

←

Slavery is illegal; sex is not. Edited September 22, 2006 by oakapple (log)

[Sneakeater]

I don't even see a place like Bette as being that downmarket. It was sort of a major opening, with a lot of publicity. I wouldn't go there myself on my own time, but if I were a professional restaurant reviewer I can see how I might feel constrained to review it.

I don't agree that reviews should only be done of places the reviewer (or the people who read eGullet) likes or respects or even expects to be good.

[oakapple]

On his blog, Bruni has now posted a response to the question, "Why bother reviewing a zero-star restaurant, particularly Freemans?"

In summary, Bruni says:

* He agrees that zero-star reviews ought to be rare. They are, however, worth printing on occasion, if only to show that one star means something.

* The number of stars isn't the sole measure of journalistic importance. A restaurant as popular as Freemans is part of the NYC dining scene, for good or ill. Freemans is attracting big crowds, not all of them regulars, and diners deserve to know what they're in for.

* There's no clear consensus as to what is relevant. For instance, I thought that Mr. Chow TriBeCa fell into the category of "restaurants too prominent to ignore," but after he gave it zero stars, some readers asked why he had bothered.

[Nathan]

to his credit, Bruni posted a response on this subject, here:

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/

edit: I see oakapple beat me to it.

Edited September 22, 2006 by Nathan (log)

[Sneakeater]

* He agrees that zero-star reviews ought to be rare. They are, however, worth printing on occasion, if only to show that one star means something.

←

I know I'm sounding like a broken record on this, but I think it isn't just to show that one star "means something", but also to show what it means.

As Bruni said:

But the definition of one star as “good” would quickly lose any meaning if the review space didn’t occasionally present examples, and reviews, of restaurants that fall below that mark. That argues for zero-star reviews from time to time.

The point being, you need to have occassional reviews of restaurants that miss the one-star mark in order to show what the criteria for one star are (I mean a genuine one star, not a smack-down of a failed two-star). I think the comments in the Freeman's review about the food being too technically simple were meant to serve that purpose.

OK, I'll stop repeating this.

[Sneakeater]

You don't usually look to Jules Langbein's Bruni Digest for substantive analysis. But she said what I was trying to say in defense of Freeman's and its clientele (to be clear, I was defending them against ewindels, not against Bruni) so much better than I did that I thought I'd quote her (in part):

My point is, Manhattan is squeezing out its mid-priced restaurants, and I love Brooklyn, but sometimes you just want to wear a party dress and go to the Big Island. Freemans’ popularity isn't a perverse result of its hidden locale. Freemans is crowded because people without a ton of cash can have a rich night out in a place full of character. And the artichoke dip is nothing to shake your Osetra tin at. Which doesn't mean it deserves a star.

http://brunidigest.blogspot.com/2006/09/fr...music-died.html

Edited September 25, 2006 by Sneakeater (log)

[daisy17]

It would appear that New York has officially run out of restaurants for the Times to review. Da Silvano? Are you kidding me?

[Nathan]

actually, why not?

as I pointed out above...there haven't been very many high-profile summer openings (there never are):

The Tasting Room will get a review sometime soon. L'Atelier needs about another month or so.

Porterhouse, STK and Lonesome Dove will get their reviews in a couple months.

I don't think I'm missing anything notable here.

Bruni specifically stated in the review that he also looked at Il Mulino and another old-school Italian place as possible reviews. I'm surprised that he didn't choose Il Mulino instead of Da Silvano...but I don't find it a travesty either.

[daisy17]

I'm not sure that I have the answer to that - you have a good point - but I find it hard to believe that if he's going to re-review a restaurant he couldn't find something more relevant than Da Silvano. His recent Felidia review made sense to me. This does not.

[Nathan]

oh, I agree with you. like I said, Il Mulino would have made more sense...

but, I'm basically saying that yes, they actually have run out of restaurants to review....temporarily...later this fall there will be plenty to review.

[Nathan]

one other thought:

before one starts suggesting an overlooked neighborhood spot as deserving a review...take Freeman's as a lesson in being careful what you wish for.

sure, Little Owl was clearly good enough to get at least one if not two stars. but many other "neighborhood joints" would get "satisfactory" ratings...do you think they really want them?

and even some better places...sure, Grocery is good enough to get a star or two...but they're probably better off without a review poking a hole in their #1 ranking in Zagat.

Edited September 27, 2006 by Nathan (log)

[Sneakeater]

Grocery only got reviewed (back in the Grimes days) as a response to its bizarre Zagat's rating.

[Eatmywords]

Ehh, looks like another Freeman's w/a sprinkle of parmesan. Do we need two weeks of "why is this place so packed when the food is pretty blah"? Maybe I could rationalize a look-back if he had a revelation or two. Wait, the buffalo mozz is really good. Wow!

And if half the menu disappoints (and execution unpredictable) how do you bestow even one star?