Bruni and Beyond: NYC Reviewing (2007)

Nathan · August 20, 2007

this, of course, is purely anecdotal...yet I think most would report the same.

I know a lot of people who dine well...they might not be foodies...and I might not agree with their preferences (often Aureole and the like)...Per Se was always on their radar....Ducasse? nope. too "stuffy", too French. too expensive (not that they couldn't afford it..but in terms of perceived value). they knew of it...but didn't think about it. that's the reality of NY dining. and the proof is in its closing.

slkinsey · August 20, 2007

It seems clear to me that ADNY would have been re-reviewed by now if it had not closed. But I still don't see any persuasive argument that it automatically had to be re-reviewed in less than 1.5 years (the period of time between Esnault's hiring and media reports of ADNY's imminent closing). From what Leonard has said, I gather re-reviewing even one of the City's most important restaurants after a demotion would be unprecedented during a timeframe this short. It's too bad that it didn't get an opportunity for a re-review before it closed, but it seems to me that a change of chef and reconfiguration of the restaurant shouldn't necessarily mandate an immediate re-review within a short period of time or the Times will run into exactly the same problem mentioned upthread: restaurants that are demoted or feel like they were reviewed under their goals will feel as though they "deserve" a short-time re-review if they fire the chef and make changes. If we go down that path: It's no secret Batali and Bastianich were going for four stars with Del Posto. And Batali is certainly in the same stratosphere as Ducasse, Jean-Georges, etc. in terms of name recognition and industry power. If they had fired Ladner following the three star review and reworked the restaurant, does that mean Del Posto should reasonably have expected a re-review within 12 months of the change?

Steven, when do you think would have been a reasonable time to do this re-review? After six months? A year? I'm interested... if ADNY had been re-reviewed in January 2007, would we feel that the re-review had been unreasonbably delayed? What about a re-review in September 2006?

Fat Guy · August 20, 2007

What I'd expect is a "Diner's Journal" report in the 3-6 months time frame, followed by a review if necessary. In other words, if the "Diner's Journal" report indicated that there was no reason for a re-evaluation, I'd expect no new review, or at least not one for several years. If, however, there were major changes in the cuisine, I'd expect a review within a year.

oakapple · August 20, 2007

So why did Ducasse get a third review when it did? When Bruni started, he said part of his agenda was to revisit all the ****. At the time, LB had gone the longest without re-review, followed by J-G, Bouley, Daniel, and ADNY. You'd expect him to follow that order. However, Bruni started with Bouley. Why? Well, my guess is it's because the **** Bouley Bakery closed after 9/11, re-opening as Bouley in Feb. 2002. According to Fabricant's "Off the Menu" piece, "it's more than just a name change." I don't know what Grimes thought about thee need for a fresh review, but Bruni apparently thought this incarnation priority enough to be his third review ever.
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The trouble with these precedents is that we're dealing with a small sample size, and many of the examples are from critics who had a very different approach than Bruni does.

My guess is that when Bruni arrived in New York, he dined at all the 4*'s immediately, and found Bouley clearly below the level of the others, a conclusion I agree with (though the review did a poor job of expressing it). That made the re-review a matter of some importance, in his mind.

The trouble with the Ducasse re-review is that Bruni just doesn't "get" this kind of restaurant. Even under Delouvrier, I have considerable doubts that ADNY truly deserved the demotion. So if the guy responsible for the demotion didn't "get" the restaurant under Delouvrier, there's a good chance he wasn't going to "get it" under Esnault either.

There may also be an unwritten law that the four-star club can't ever grow beyond a certain size. There are five of them now, and I am not aware of a time when there were more than six. Had Bruni awarded 4* to Masa and Per Se without demoting anybody, there would have been seven.

By the same token, I suspect that the lack of a "replacement" is the only thing preventing Daniel from being demoted. Four stars is supposed to mean "extraordinary," and his comments about it (albeit in dicta) suggest a lot less enthuisasm for Daniel than he has expressed in his 4* reviews.

Incidentally, I suspect that a majority of restaurants that have lost the fourth star have never gotten it back again. As usual, I'm sure Leonard will confirm or refute. The known exceptions often involve a move of premises or a re-naming—a tactic more likely to encourage a fresh look by the critic.

Edited August 20, 2007 by oakapple (log)

slkinsey · August 20, 2007

What I'd expect is a "Diner's Journal" report in the 3-6 months time frame, followed by a review if necessary. In other words, if the "Diner's Journal" report indicated that there was no reason for a re-evaluation, I'd expect no new review, or at least not one for several years. If, however, there were major changes in the cuisine, I'd expect a review within a year.

3-6 months? Wow, that's very fast. Is there any precedent for a re-review of a demoted restaurant on anything approaching this timetable? I'm not necessarily saying that you're wrong in suggesting that ADNY should have had a re-review, but it does seem a bit like you're saying they should completely change their established way of doing these things.

I'm also curious as to what other restaurant things were going on in NYC during that timeframe that might have been Bruni's plate (so to speak).

Fat Guy · August 20, 2007

In terms of "precedent," I think the appropriate level of generalization to be looking at precedents is at the level of general frequency of re-reviews. If someone told us (and was correct about it) that "No restaurant has ever been reviewed twice in a year," then that might be something worth considering. However, it seems less relevant to say something like "No restaurant that had X stars and then got Y stars ever got re-reviewed within time-frame Z." We're not talking about decisions of the Court of Appeals. We're talking about journalism. The important issue, so much so that it makes all precedent irrelevant (even though the precedents surely allow for a re-review), is that there's an important story here. One of the city's only four-star restaurants -- one that many serious observers felt was in a separate category alone with Per Se from all the other four-star restaurants -- lost a star, then changed chefs, revised the menu completely, and among other things received three Michelin stars. It's hard to see how the sole critic at the Times responsible for evaluating the fine-dining universe in New York City could think that's not important enough to justify so much as a "Diner's Journal" mention or even, it seems, a single visit. Likewise, while it's human to be concerned that restaurants might exploit the ability to change chefs in order to get a re-review, that should ultimately be of no concern to a journalist, whose job it is to report (in this case write criticism) regardless of the impact. Moreover, yes, I absolutely think that had Del Posto changed chefs there would have been prompt follow-up by Bruni. Heck, he was prompt in his follow-up of Craftsteak.

Fat Guy · August 20, 2007

What I'd expect is a "Diner's Journal" report in the 3-6 months time frame, followed by a review if necessary. In other words, if the "Diner's Journal" report indicated that there was no reason for a re-evaluation, I'd expect no new review, or at least not one for several years. If, however, there were major changes in the cuisine, I'd expect a review within a year.
3-6 months? Wow, that's very fast. Is there any precedent for a re-review of a demoted restaurant on anything approaching this timetable? I'm not necessarily saying that you're wrong in suggesting that ADNY should have had a re-review, but it does seem a bit like you're saying they should completely change their established way of doing these things.
I'm also curious as to what other restaurant things were going on in NYC during that timeframe that might have been Bruni's plate (so to speak).
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I was not clear. I was saying "Diner's Journal," as in the informal reports, based usually on a single meal, that often precede full reviews. I'd expect that 3-6 months after the chef change. Then, with a year of that, I'd expect a full review if warranted. If there's nothing new to say, there's no need for a full review at all. But if the cuisine has totally changed (as it had in this case), I'd expect the full review within a year of the "Diner's Journal" report.

slkinsey · August 20, 2007

We are, of course, taking the "no visits" thing on faith. It's entirely possible that he did eat at ADNY at some time during Esnault's tenure. Or, failing that, it's possible that he heard from his various sources that ADNY hadn't made such huge changes to be worth such an immediate re-review.

I wonder what he would say if he were asked why he didn't re-review ADNY. I think we might be surprised at the response.

Edited August 20, 2007 by slkinsey (log)

Fat Guy · August 20, 2007

We're taking "no visits" on faith, but we're certain he wrote nothing. It's also high-probability faith because this is a restaurant where the service staff is very highly attuned to the faces of the major critics. Not just one in-the-know maitre d' who might be off on a given night. Everybody.

I think Bruni's answer, were he given truth serum, might be something like, "I just didn't want to deal with it."

slkinsey · August 20, 2007

I was not clear. I was saying "Diner's Journal," as in the informal reports, based usually on a single meal, that often precede full reviews. I'd expect that 3-6 months after the chef change. Then, with a year of that, I'd expect a full review if warranted. If there's nothing new to say, there's no need for a full review at all. But if the cuisine has totally changed (as it had in this case), I'd expect the full review within a year of the "Diner's Journal" report.

Assuming he did a Diner's Journal look in 6 months (and he may have thought, or had reasons to believe that not enough had changed in 3-6 months for that -- or may have been turning his attentions in other directions), a year after that would have been exactly when people were hearing that ADNY would close. So, even under your schedule, there never would have been a full follow-up review.

Edited August 20, 2007 by slkinsey (log)

Fat Guy · August 20, 2007

At one extreme outside limit of the hypothetical, yes. The other extreme is that the review comes out in six months. But neither is relevant: there was never even a "Diner's Journal" report. And while I can see some intelligible reasons for skipping or delaying a full review, I simply can't imagine a reason for a lack of even a notebook entry and, probably, not even a single visit. Not enough change? The menu was completely changed, the whole style of the cuisine was different enough to be recognizable as such even by Bruni. Turning his attentions in other directions? This is his job. There is no direction as important as what's going on at the top restaurants.

slkinsey · August 20, 2007

I should point out that we're basing this whole idea that "Bruni never ate there once after Esnault became chef" on this one line from Oakapple: "I recall reading an interview in which Esnault mentioned that Bruni had not yet even paid a visit, to the best of Esnault's knowledge." With all due respect to everyone, that hardly seems definitive.

Edited August 20, 2007 by slkinsey (log)

oakapple · August 20, 2007

I should point out that we're basing this whole idea that "Bruni never ate there once after Esnault became chef" on this one line from Oakapple: "I recall reading an interview in which Esnault mentioned that Bruni had not yet even paid a visit, to the best of Esnault's knowledge." With all due respect to everyone, that hardly seems definitive.
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I don't suggest it's definitive, but I agree with FG that it's extremely likely that Bruni would be noticed at ADNY.

Fat Guy · August 20, 2007

I should point out that we're basing this whole idea that "Bruni never ate there once after Esnault became chef" on this one line from Oakapple: "I recall reading an interview in which Esnault mentioned that Bruni had not yet even paid a visit, to the best of Esnault's knowledge." With all due respect to everyone, that hardly seems definitive.
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It was an actual quote given to New York Restaurant Insider magazine. I have the back issues here if we need to look it up again. But again, we don't need to know whether Bruni visited eventually. All we need to know is that he never wrote about it, not even in "Diner's Journal." If he went there and still didn't comprehend that there was a story, that's even worse.

slkinsey · August 20, 2007

However, it is of course possible that Oakapple isn't remembering the article correctly. Or... If Esnault did say that in the interview, it is possible that he misspoke, misremembered or deliberately misrepresented. There is some possibility that Bruni did get in there and it was not reported to Esnault. There is the possibility that someone said something like "I think that might be Bruni at table 42," but the kitchen was in the middle of some kind of clusterfuck and he didn't take notice. There is the possibility that several of Bruni's trusted friends and acquaintances dined at ADNY and gave him the impression that the things he didn't like hadn't changed all that much.

I'm just saying that we're predicating an awful lot of argument on the premise that he was never there, based on a recollection of a comment from an interview that appeared some time ago, and comment that Esnault may have made in that interview without giving it a great deal of thought.

On review: Steven, I'd be interested to see the quote if you have it, in context.

Edited August 20, 2007 by slkinsey (log)

oakapple · August 20, 2007

I think FG is suggesting this premise: Any NYC restaurant that has four stars, or is a plausible candidate, deserves both a visit and some kind of commentary—not necessarily a full re-review—when it changes chefs. Such changes don't happen all that often. When they do happen, it is inherently newsworthy. Moreover, the NYT critic has an unusual position of authority. His decisions at the four-star level make international news. He also has the budget to spend the kind of money on those restaurants that most critics cannot.

But if Bruni saw his job that way FG and I do, he probably wouldn't have demoted ADNY in the first place. To make that decision, he had to conclude that ADNY was no better than the sixth-best restaurant in New York, a verdict that's very difficult to believe.

slkinsey · August 20, 2007

Well, I don't disagree with that. But what we think the NY Times critic job is and what the NY Times thinks that job is are two different things.

oakapple · August 20, 2007

But what we think the NY Times critic job is and what the NY Times thinks that job is are two different things.
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True, but that could be the response to almost every post on this 52-page thread.

Fat Guy · August 20, 2007

However, it is of course possible that Oakapple isn't remembering the article correctly.
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He is remembering it correctly, but it's academic, not only because it will never satisfy a "beyond reasonable doubt" standard but also because if he did go in and still didn't do anything with the information it's even more negligent.

Fat Guy · August 20, 2007

Thinking a bit further about this concern that, if the Times re-reviews restaurants that change their chefs, it will encourage restaurants to get new chefs after getting bad reviews, I'm starting to think that's a good thing. If, for example, Ducasse really did bring in Esnault as a result of Bruni's review, that's great. It made the restaurant better. That's something to celebrate, not something to be afraid of. Businesses that improve in response to criticism deserve enthusiastic recognition. It would be an even better system in a scenario where the Times critic had a clue. Then we wouldn't have to worry about so many false positives.

Nathan · August 20, 2007

One of the city's only four-star restaurants -- one that many serious observers felt was in a separate category alone with Per Se from all the other four-star restaurants --
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like who? when it comes to the relative rankings of NY 4-star restaurants (as well as restaurants with 4-star aspirations)...there are as many varying opinions as there are critics.

oakapple · August 20, 2007

One of the city's only four-star restaurants -- one that many serious observers felt was in a separate category alone with Per Se from all the other four-star restaurants --
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like who? when it comes to the relative rankings of NY 4-star restaurants (as well as restaurants with 4-star aspirations)...there are as many varying opinions as there are critics.
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I think we agree that, with the system we have, there are only a handful of restaurants that could make a plausible claim of being four-star restaurants.(*)

I think we also agree that there aren't a huge number of people who visit that class of restaurants often enough to have any basis for making informed comparisons between them.

It therefore doesn't take many people making that claim, before you have to take it seriously. "Taking it seriously" doesn't mean automatic agreement. It only means that it merits investigation, and most likely some kind of comment.

It really is no different than when Bruni made an uninformed comment about New York pizzerias. There aren't that many real pizza experts, so it doesn't take much effort to figure out what they're saying. If the same pizzeria is named by a whole bunch of different people, it probably suggests that you ought to be taking it seriously.

You could argue that his pizzeria error was more defensible, because pizza isn't really "his beat." Yet, he considered it important enough to persuade his editors to pay for an out-of-town trip to an L.A. pizzeria, though couldn't be bothered to properly research the places he was ostensibly comparing it to.

(*) I know there are people who believe that the best restaurant of Type X ought to have four stars, even if X = "hot dog stand". But under the system that Frank Bruni is using, there are only 5 four-star restaurants, and probably no more than 10 others—that's stretching it—that could reasonably be considered candidates.

Edited August 20, 2007 by oakapple (log)

Leonard Kim · August 20, 2007

http://www.nyrestaurantinsider.com/oct2005_ducasse.asp

We're talking a half year -- I agree that's enough time for Bruni to have started revisiting. And Bruni's initial review explicitly says they recognize him.

Sorry to quibble about the precedents issue, but the distinction I laid out in the previous post is supported by Bruni in his Diner's Journal entry about re-reviewing, namely:

Given the number and pace of new openings, there simply aren’t enough days in a year to circle back and re-try all the existing restaurants that were rated the previous year or the year before that.
Among the restaurants I’ve reviewed and rated since June 2004, when I began, there are some that, more than others, struck me as places with the potential to be better a year or two down the road than they were a few months after they opened. I’ll indeed make a special effort to return to these restaurants, but I’ll probably only re-review them if I feel strongly that they need a different rating.

As I said in the previous post, this covers virtually all the rapid re-reviews, but Ducasse and other established restaurants fall under a different category:

I do think it’s important, especially in the cases of prominent restaurants, to make an effort, no matter how random and flawed, to go back periodically to determine whether the initial published appraisals and existing star ratings seem to hold true.
I make more of these return visits than the review space reflects.
. . . select club of restaurants with four stars from The Times. To my mind, that superior rating demands periodic re-examination and re-justification in a way that a lesser rating doesn’t.

One of the comments to Bruni's piece (I know, commenters are idiots) wrote in March 2006:

Jean François Bruel took over the Daniel kitchen a few years ago now, yet there was never a fresh review of the restaurant from the Times.

Is it relevant? It has been about 6.5 years since Daniel was last reviewed.

I agree that a timely Diner's Journal piece would have been warranted in any case. As for never visiting (I admit the following is very shaky evidence), Bruni mentions Ducasse in his "cult of the chef" blog post, dated 1/24/07. I think it'd be slightly odd (or rather, poorly and misleadingly written, which is surely possible) if he were personally referring to visits from 2004-05. One could infer (perhaps incorrectly) from the language that he'd been more recently.

The restaurant Alain Ducasse at the Essex House isn’t around anymore, but if you went before it closed at the turn of the year, you may remember the following details:

In August 2006, another post has him talking to the manager of Ducasse about price-less menus. So it's not like he's had no contact with the restaurant whatsoever and it'd be a little perverse if this were the only contact ("Hi, it's Frank, I'm not ever showing up, and you're not getting re-reviewed, but do you mind giving me your 2 cents on this fluff piece I'm writing?") Heck, one could completely and unjustifiably speculate in a manner unworthy of the serious e-gulleteer that in fact Bruni and Ducasse's staff do periodically communicate with each other and perhaps Bruni was asked/told not to bother re-reviewing because the new restaurant was in the works.

I'm not going to argue this next point at any length, but it's possible to view a reporter's and a critic's responsibilities as being different. The chef change was duly and unusually extensively reported as news by Fabricant. I'm not sure the same standards apply to reviews.

Ten years from now, would something like this read strangely to anyone? "There are and were very few restaurants in NYC with the pedigree and potential importance of ADNY [stolen from John's post]. In 2001, it received **** from the New York Times. In the following years, the restaurant failed to maintain consistency in both food and service and, two years ago, was demoted to ***. Changes have been made, including a new executive chef, and the results are. . ."