Rolling the Dice: Varietal

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, His Frankcellency reviews Varietal, the Chelsea wine-themed restaurant with blow-the-doors-off desserts. Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 5-1
One Star: 3-1 √√
Two Stars: 4-1
Three Stars: 30-1
Four Stars: 15,000-1

The Skinny: All the indicators this week point to one star. Varietal is primarily a wine restaurant. Frank doesn’t know much about wine, so he is unlikely to appreciate the restaurant’s main attraction. Varietal has white tablecloths, and Frank finds traditional formality a turn-off. The service at Varietal is, as Eater put it, “fussy.” Frank doesn’t like fussy. Varietal is rather expensive, and Frank tends to hold expensive restaurants to a high standard. Lastly, most critics have not been wowed by the food—other than Jordan Kahn’s desserts.

So, why even one star? Only because we think Varietal is the kind of restaurant Frank would simply ignore if he couldn’t find something good to say. Given that he’s reviewing it, we don’t think it will get goose-egged. Desserts will save the day. We do agree with Eater, however, that zero stars is more likely than two.

The Bet: For the second week in a row, we agree with the Eater bet, which in this case is one star.