Rolling the Dice: Esca

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, Frank Bruni reviews Esca, the Batali–Bastianich seafood palace on the edge of the Theater District. Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 15-1
One Star: 6-1
Two Stars: 4-1
Three Stars: 3-1 √√
Four Stars: 10,000-1

The Skinny: We needn’t linger over this one, as Eater’s logic is so compelling. Esca already carries two stars from the Times, and Bruni’s re-reviews usually come with either an upgrade or a downgrade. Given Bruni’s love-affair with the Batali–Bastianich empire, an upgrade is the only sensible bet.

We also think there’s a kind of Newton’s Law at the three and four-star levels: every downgrade must come with an equal and opposite upgrade no more than a few weeks later. Bruni demoted The Four Seasons just a fortnight ago, leaving the gap that Esca will now fill.

Lastly, we think that Bruni itches to pull the trigger on a major review every once in a while, and we haven’t had a trifecta in over three months. The six-stars combined for Eleven Madison Park and the Bar Room, on January 10th, was Bruni’s last trip into such rarefied air.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will award three stars to Esca.