Bruni and Beyond: NYC Reviewing (2007)

[Nathan]

the Modern began serving lunch on November 20, 2004.

The Bar Room began serving dinner on January 5, 2005.

since Bruni's first review included dishes in the Bar Room...I think the November 20, 2004 date counts.

edit: to be precise, the Bar Room at the Modern began serving lunch on November 20, 2004.

Edited April 24, 2007 by Nathan (log)

[oakapple]

the Modern began serving lunch on November 20, 2004.

The Bar Room began serving dinner on January 5, 2005.

since Bruni's first review included dishes in the Bar Room...I think the November 20, 2004 date counts.

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What's your source? Several NYT articles said that The Modern (dining room) would open in January. On January 1st, Fat Guy wrote, "the fine dining part, to be clear, will not be open for awhile longer."

The opening (of the dining room) was evidently delayed, as on February 2, 2005, R. W. Apple wrote in the Times that the main restaurant would be opening the following Monday. It would be most surprising if he said that, and in fact it had already been serving lunch for 2½ months.

The bar room began serving in January. I found no source with an earlier date. But there is no doubt that the two stars Bruni ultimately awarded were primarily a reflection of his experiences in the main dining room, which wasn't open till February, three months before the review. (His subsequent three stars for the Bar Room was surely the first case in NYT history when the casual café attached to a fine dining restaurant was separately reviewed and rated.)

Further confirming this, if you re-read the actual review, you'll find that his first visit was not till February, and that he was seated in the main dining room on that occasion (though he clearly tried the Bar Room later on). From Bruni's other writings, it is very clear that when a restaurant starts serving in November, he does not wait till February to begin his visits. Once the main dining room (the principal subject of his review) was open, he began visiting almost immediately.

Edited April 24, 2007 by oakapple (log)

[oakapple]

Today, in the first major change to the reviewing format in many years, the Times introduces Dining Briefs. Here's the explanation:

This week, the Dining section introduces Dining Briefs, short reviews that include first looks at new restaurants, quick updates on places that have been reviewed or overlooked, and critiques of bars and lounges that offer noteworthy drinks and food. The feature will provide an informed opinion on places around New York City that are worth consideration even if they don't receive a full review in Frank Bruni's Restaurants column or in $25 and Under. Dining Briefs will alternate every other week with $25 and Under.

The effect is that $25 & Under gets less space (as I believe it should), and there's room for more reviews of other places. This is a step in the right direction, but only a baby step. Perhaps the new editor, Pete Wells, is proceeding incrementally. Or perhaps this was the best he could do.

The three places covered in Dining Briefs this week are categorized as "Revisits" (Gilt—Frank Bruni), "New Places" (Natsumi—Pete Wells), and "Bars" (Barcade—Peter Meehan).

Although Bruni is much happier with the new Gilt than the old Gilt, no star rating is given. If you look for Gilt on the search engine, it's still the old review that comes up. (Perhaps they'll update the search engine; we'll have to wait and see.)

Edited April 25, 2007 by oakapple (log)

[Fat Guy]

I think it's an excellent idea. As with any such plan, it involves compromise, but it's intelligent compromise. And we can hope it's part of a larger plan to reorganize the review content. It's just too bad that structural improvements will never be able to save the reviews from the reviewer.

[slkinsey]

It seems like the effect of this change is: more Bruni, less anyone else.

[Fat Guy]

It seems like the effect of this change is: more Bruni, less anyone else.

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That's the misfortune of it. The structural change makes a lot of sense, yet the content still has to sink to the level of the content provider.

[Dave H]

Although Bruni is much happier with the new Gilt than the old Gilt, no star rating is given. If you look for Gilt on the search engine, it's still the old review that comes up. (Perhaps they'll update the search engine; we'll have to wait and see.)

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My sense is that, while Bruni certainly likes NewGilt more, better (to him) execution of less ambitious food equals still a two star rating. The to-be-sure paragraph ("Not all of Mr. Lee’s efforts pay off...") makes that fairly clear. "Revisit" will presumably be the dumping ground for re-reviews that keep the same stars.

[oakapple]

Although Bruni is much happier with the new Gilt than the old Gilt, no star rating is given. If you look for Gilt on the search engine, it's still the old review that comes up. (Perhaps they'll update the search engine; we'll have to wait and see.)

←

My sense is that, while Bruni certainly likes NewGilt more, better (to him) execution of less ambitious food equals still a two star rating. The to-be-sure paragraph ("Not all of Mr. Lee’s efforts pay off...") makes that fairly clear. "Revisit" will presumably be the dumping ground for re-reviews that keep the same stars.

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I wouldn't leap to that conclusion. You could easily find statements like "Not all of X's efforts pay off..." in three-star reviews.

The reality is that Bruni doesn't have time to pay the required half-dozen visits to every restaurant that might conceivably warrant a re-review. Today's capsule review may have been based on as little as one visit. The other reality is that the paper has limited space for re-reviews, and Gilt was reviewed in full just last year.

Obviously, by default, what you say is true: "Revisit" means that the restaurant keeps the stars it has. But it doesn't mean that he actually sampled enough of the menu, on enough occasions, to reach a considered judgment on the matter.

[ned]

A restaurant is not a play.

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Brilliant. Can you explain in what sense it's "fair" for one to be reviewed on its opening night, and not the other?

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I think Sam (and with his background he's well positioned to do so) does an excellent job of differentiating the contexts in which different endeavors may be critiqued.

It's appropriate to review different things in different ways. 

Plays, for example, are usually extensively workshopped and previewed.  So, by the time they open, they should be largely worked out.  It is, of course, possible to rehearse and refine a piece of staged theater without the need of having customers (aka, an audience).  Therefore, it's more appropriate to review the opening night performance of a play.

In practice, whether a play's opening night is the reviewed performance will depend on the length of the run.  If it's a scheduled run of 40 performances of Macbeth with Liev Schreiber at Shakespeare in the Park, the reviewers may choose to wait a while and may not review the opening performance.  If, on the other hand, it's a scheduled run of 6 performances of Verdi's Macbeth at the Met, the opening performance will be reviewed.  If the opening performance weren't reviewed, the run might be almost over by the time the review found its way into print.

Restaurants, on the other hand, aren't set up to have a limited run.  They also don't have the luxury of 3 months of workshopping, previews and a "pre-run" in Toronto.  They also are not working within a known, extensively interpreted repertoire and tradition like opera performers.  They also work in a milieu in which having an audience changes everything, and they have a limited opportunity to work with a "practice audience" (3 days of F&F doesn't cut it).  This makes it more appropriate, IMO, to wait a while before reviewing a restaurant.  Give them a chance to rehearse.  Reviewing a restaurant on opening night (or very early on) is like going to see a performance of a newly-composed opera that's only had one rehearsal.  The perormers are going to settle in and get better, the composer might make some changes (Madama Butterfly was extensively revised three times after its premiere), and so on.  So, to review the opera, the performers, etc. on the second rehearsal isn't meaninfgul.  One could say the same thing about reviewing a restaurant in the first month.

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My interest isn't in fairness. It's in accurately representing and critiquing the topic a critic sets out to cover. If, as is common for the NYT, a large bulk of reviews cover a restaurant in its nascency--and I strongly assert that a three month old restaurant no matter who's at the helm is in its nascency--then they fail to accurately represent the state of affairs whether they be good or bad. It's a blinding obsession with the new that irks me. Reviews like the one of the four seasons are all too infrequent. I'm headed to WD-50 tonight for the first time in a couple of years. I've been to a lot of newer restaurants that I shouldn't have been to in the interum. I'm certain that a review of WD-50 now would find it a much more nuanced, cohesive organsim than it was when it Grimes saw fit to critique its interior design shortly after its opening. Now is a great time to devote some serious focus to WD-50. And there are many other restaurants about which one could make the same case.

I recognize that to some extent what I am advocating would be a policy change. The convention of the three month review is kind of like a high-risk press release for those restauranteurs whose reputations demand it (the review of Jean George's steak house comes to mind but there are many many such examples.) I'd rather that the NYT was blind to the PR/corpomaniacal bltizkrieg that we all suffer when certain types of restaurants are opened. Why bother with Morandi for example. It's doing fine. It will be mediocre or better than that or great and if it becomes an institution like Balthazar did then maybe consider it down the road.

That's enough for now.

[Fat Guy]

It would be great if the NEW PLACES section of Dining Briefs provided the impetus to delay the full reviews. But it probably won't.

[Nathan]

come on!

restauranteurs would be appalled at what you suggest, Ned!

many places don't make it a year let alone three years!

they need reviews to survive.

and, for the reasons I pointed out, the distinction between theater and dining reviews is absolutely fallacious.

what you're really asking for is completely doing away with the review system.

as I've said before, the Times critics clearly see themselves as writing for the benefit of the public, not for the benefit of restauranteurs.

[Fat Guy]

Ned's point is that premature reviews don't benefit the public.

[Nathan]

agreed. but three months isn't premature.

[Fat Guy]

Well, no, but I do think there's a chronological tension between value-as-news and value-as-criticism. For news value, you want to review asap. For the most valuable criticism (in the context of a restaurant), you would want to wait a year or more.

[Nathan]

Well, no, but I do think there's a chronological tension between value-as-news and value-as-criticism. For news value, you want to review asap. For the most valuable criticism (in the context of a restaurant), you would want to wait a year or more.

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in an abstract sense, yes.

but in reality, neither the dining public nor restauranteurs are benefited by waiting a year. Wylie had significant money behind him (and PR)...he didn't need reviews early on.

most restaurants do.

most theatrical productions get sharper as time goes on (about the tenth performance is perfect). but they need reviews right away to survive.

most restaurants aren't much different.

Edited April 26, 2007 by Nathan (log)

[Fat Guy]

That illustrates the fallacy of serving a constituency rather than serving the cause of good criticism. The public wants early reviews. The restaurants want early reviews, except when the reviews aren't good, in which case they say they don't want early reviews. But early reviews are not actually good reviews. It's just like tipping. Tipping is a stupid system. But customers demand it, servers demand it and restaurants demand it. So nobody is going to change it without some broader vision, like Thomas Keller has.

[Sneakeater]

But in a way that's the difference between serious criticism and newspaper reviewing. Serious criticism of performing arts gets published in journals and special-interest magazines and is not necessarily tied to openings. But newspapers print news. They HAVE to serve a consituency rather than the cause of good criticsm.

Edited April 26, 2007 by Sneakeater (log)

[Sneakeater]

I guess what I'm saying is that the kind of restaurant criticism FG is talking about COULD exist (in one of the magazines, maybe). But not in a newspaper.

[Nathan]

I agree with both of you.

[Sneakeater]

The existence of web archives has kind of messed this up, but the whole point of newspaper reviewing at least used to be that it's disposable but current.

That's what newspapers do (did?).

You wouldn't look to even the best newspaper movie reviewer for the kind of in-depth (and non-current) criticism you'd find in the film journals. It's just a different hing.

I'd argue the same for newspaper restaurant reviews. They should mainly be current (i.e., "news"). Serious, in-depth criticism should have other venues.

[slkinsey]

and, for the reasons I pointed out, the distinction between theater and dining reviews is absolutely fallacious.

I hadn't intended to respond to your earlier counterarguments, because I thought it might draw the conversation off-topic, but I might as well revisit to point out that I disagree and why...

I can assure you that the vast majority of professional theatrical productions are not extensively workshopped and previewed.

3 days of F&F is more like it.

The big money/writer/actor productions that do have extensive previews and rehearsal are equivalent to a major new restaurant by say Thomas Keller or Jean Georges...who can certainly afford months of previews and rehearsal.

I suppose it depends on the level of the professional theatrical production ,and of course the vast majority of professional theatrical productions are not reviewed in the pages of the New York Times. I'd say that a Broadway-level play likely to get a significant Times review (something like, say, "Copenhagen" or "Wicked" or "Frost/Nixon" or "Denial") was very likely workshopped and revised as it was written, possibly pre-run in some other city depending on budget, and had a rehearsal period far more extensive than 3 days of previews with the paint still drying on the set. Fairly commonplace for a staged play would be something like a "short" four to six weeks of rehearsal and perhaps as many as ten previews before exposing the play to the press. Musicals, because they cost so much more, are likely to have a more involved process.

In addition, comedic productions require a live audience before they can be polished.  You simply don't know what all the laugh lines are until a live audience is reacted.  This is immensely important in terms of pacing and ensuring that you don't talk through an audience response.

Yes, I know. I've done many, many, many performances of comedic works. I've also seen plenty of restaurants go into operating with paying customers. And I can tell you that the adjustments that must be made to account for audience response in a staged comedy are so trifling in comparison as to be hardly worth mention. In a restaurant, the customers are almost like a part of the cast.

Ultimately these are all just examples. The larger point is that there are lots of huge differences between what goes into putting together a theatrical performance or art show or whatever, and opening a restaurant. Those things make it more appropriate, and often necessary, to review the theatrical production on opening night, whereas with restaurants there are many factors which argue in favor of waiting. With restaurants it might be ideal to run a brief "early look" shortly after opening and then reserve a full review until 4-6 months down the road.

[Nathan]

we agree on the larger point.

on the tangential one: most professional productions are not Broadway musicals. most professional productions are not by Stoppard or Mamet.

most major professional productions (i.e. something by Adam Rapp or the like) don't have the luxury of weeks or months of previews and rehearsal.

just as most restaurants are not opened by JG, Chodorow, Hanson or Meyer.

Edited April 26, 2007 by Nathan (log)

[slkinsey]

Agreed as well. But, similarly, we should point out that most theatrical productions do not get a featured review in the New York Times. Nor do most restaurants. So the comparison, I would think, would be between those that do.

[Nathan]

that's why I said "major" and mentioned Adam Rapp as an example.

Broadway musicals are the Meat Packing District of the theater world. primarily taken seriously by out-of-towners. its obligatory to review them because of the expense and prominence (as with the MPD restaurants).

Adam Rapp is like a Paul Liebrandt. He can get financing, a following and will automatically be reviewed by the Times for anything he does (and he's kind of an enfant terrible). That doesn't mean his plays can afford much of a preview period or a long rehearsal. But they're definitely major.

Stoppard is the Thomas Keller or the Robuchon of the theater world. there's one production of that prominence a year. the Times is reviewing plays 52 weeks a year.

the vast majority of restaurants reviewed by Bruni can't afford months of rehearsal and previews. the vast majority of theatrical productions reviewed by the Times can't afford it either.

ditto for dance.

opera is a different matter. first, for all practical purposes, there's only two companies in town. second, those two companies have large endowments, huge professional casts who can be in multiple productions simultaneously. third, the majority of both companies' productions are well-known works that every opera performer already knows in their sleep. fourth, most of their productions are old productions from the inventory. the staging, costumes and choreography was done years ago.

Edited April 26, 2007 by Nathan (log)

[Sneakeater]

You could actually make an argument that the two major opera companies are the UES and UWS of the opera world, and the many smaller producers (the music schools, the small local companies, etc.) are like the smaller restaurants you refer to.