Rolling the Dice: Peter Luger Steakhouse

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 Peter Luger Steakhouse. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 10-1
One Star: 4-1
Two Stars: 2-1 √√
Three Stars: 12-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: Despite occasional reports that it has gone downhill, Peter Luger remains the gold standard of NYC steakhouses. As of today, it carries a three-star rating from the Times (per Ruth Reichl in 1997), the only steakhouse so honored. It also carries a Michelin star, the only one given to a steakhouse.

There are two main data points from Frank Bruni. In June 2004, he awarded two stars to Wolfgang’s Steakhouse (a Luger clone). As part of his research, he also tried the Luger porterhouse, which he found superior. In February 2005, he made the trip out to Williamsburg for Luger’s burgers (which are served only at lunch), and was not impressed. It got another mention, albeit briefly, in his one-star review of Robert’s Steakhouse. This time, he found “real depth, along with the muskiness and mineral quality that often come with dry aging, but on this occasion the meat lacked its usual char.”

There are now a good half-dozen Luger clones in New York City, most of them doing pretty much what Peter Luger does, in a more pleasant atmosphere, with better service, and with a more varied menu. Ultimately, they all rely on the same raw material—aged prime beef. Luger could not go on forever getting the best specimens, and preparing them better than anyone else. If Luger has an edge in that department, at this point it is probably microscopic. Against that are the well known drawbacks: the beer hall décor, the limited menu, the brusque service, the refusal to take credit cards, the trip out to Williamsburg, and the difficulty of scoring a table.

Given that this is a re-review, the overwhelming likelihood is that Luger will not keep all three of its stars. Even allowing for Bruni’s love of steakhouses, it would be hard to justify the re-review just to re-affirm its current rating. The only question is how low Bruni will go. My sense is that he will accept the conclusion of every past critic, which is that Luger is all about the porterhouse. And given his past enthusiastic comments, I suspect he will grudgingly award two stars for the one thing Luger does well, even if the restaurant has lost a step.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will award two stars to Peter Luger Steakhouse.

The Payoff: Bar Stuzzichini

Today, as expected, Frank Bruni awarded one star to Bar Stuzzichini, finding the Italian small-plates joint flawed but worthy:

The restaurant’s agents of tantalization include creamy sheep’s milk ricotta seasoned with saffron and drizzled with honey; ethereal buffalo’s milk ricotta stuffing involtini of thinly sliced eggplant; fried meatballs, each consumed in one crunchy, happy bite; and a tangle of astonishingly tender octopus, poached and then grilled, which is a smart way to treat an octopus.

On a given night there are some 25 stuzzichini in all, each priced between $5 and $10. Only a fool would order them individually because $22 buys any combination of five, and that’s a deal that gives Bar Stuzzichini something to crow about, a hook in a city and era of determined grazers.

Eater and I both took the one-star bet at 2–1 odds. We both win $2 on our hypothetical one-dollar bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$40.50		$44.67
Gain/Loss	+2.00		+2.00
Total	$42.50		$46.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	17–5		16–6

Rolling the Dice: Bar Stuzzichini

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 Bar Stuzzichini. The Eater oddsmakers (after a hiatus last week) have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 4-1
One Star: 2-1 √√
Two Stars: 6-1
Three Stars: 75-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: Yawn. Another review, another Italian restaurant…Bruni’s favorite. Yet again, it’s one of those earnest neighborhood places that probably belongs in the $25-and-under column.

Adam Platt gave the place two stars this week, but he admitted he was biased:

Bar Stuzzichini is in my approximate neighborhood. It is modestly priced (off-duty restaurant critics tend to be cheap), and as the name indicates, you can dine by yourself (off-duty restaurant critics also like to be left alone) at one of two long, convivial bars.

I give Platt credit. At least he admits that he is reviewing based on criteria that no responsible critic should depend on. Bruni is less self-conscious about doing the same.

Though Platt’s tastes tend to track Bruni’s rather well, in this case I don’t think Bruni will be quite as generous. He’s going to want to let Franny’s bask in the glow of the big wet slathering two-star kiss he adminstered a couple of weeks ago. To do it again so soon would dim the luster of that review.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will award one star to Bar Stuzzichini, though probably on the higher end of one star—it is Italian, after all.

The Payoff: Franny's

Today, as expected, Frank Bruni awarded two stars to Franny’s, giving the kind of rave review we’ve come to expect when he runs into a quaint, family-owned Italian restaurant that doesn’t take reservations:

Other restaurants have honorable pies, admirable lettuces or noteworthy salumi. But take it from a cranky Franny’s doubter, now a besotted Franny’s believer: not many do all three with as much joy and distinction as Franny’s.

Eater took the one-star odds, while NYJ guessed correctly that Frank would give Franny’s a two-star smooch. We win $6 on our hypothetical $1 bet, while Eater loses a dollar.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$41.50		$38.67
Gain/Loss	–1.00		+6.00
Total	$40.50		$44.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	16–5		15–6

Rolling the Dice: Franny's

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 Franny’s, the acclaimed Park Slope pizza joint that was infamously Banned on Chowhound. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 4-1
One Star: 2-1 √√
Two Stars: 6-1
Three Stars: 75-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: Frank Bruni has been on a pizza kick lately. He even managed to get the Times to spring for a trip to L.A. so that he could review Pizzeria Mozza—a restaurant genre not normally on his beat.

We know that just about any type of restaurant can get two stars from Frank Bruni. So why not a pizzeria? Franny’s has all the trappings of a two-star special: it’s in Brooklyn, it’s Italian, and as Eater notes, Bruni does have “an undying love for small, earnest restaurants.”

My guess is that after dining at Mozza, Bruni wanted to find the best pizza in town, and if he could give it two stars, he would. New York’s Underground Gourmet says Franny’s has the best pizza in New York. And Eater says that Franny’s “has turned it up a notch in the kitchen of late,” an assertion I cannot verify, but which would certainly explain the timing of this review.

The Bet: Lately, we’ve been spanked anytime we disagreed with Eater. Nevertheless, we’re going to roll the dice on two stars for Franny’s.

The Payoff: Rayuela

Today, as expected, Frank Bruni awarded one star to Rayuela. Quite predictably, he found its broad geographic reach a drawback:

It’s a beautiful, fascinating, frustrating place, its cosmetic showiness echoed by dishes that are also all over the map, in terms of their appeal as well as their geographic and ethnic tethers, and in the way they throw ingredient upon ingredient and seasoning after seasoning at you. 

Both Eater and NYJ win $2 on our hypothetical $1 bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$39.50		$36.67
Gain/Loss	+2.00		+2.00
Total	$41.50		$38.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	16–4		14–6

Rolling the Dice: Rayuela

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 Rayuela, with its “Estilo Libre Latino” cuisine on the Lower East Side. The Eater oddsmakers have established the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 4-1
One Star: 2-1 √√
Two Stars: 6-1
Three Stars: 75-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: I’ve given zero thought to this restaurant. With casual restaurants like Reyuela, the Bruni X-Factor can never be discounted—that is, his willingness to give two stars to practically anything. But I’ve heard nothing to suggest Rayuela is such a restaurant. The rather long menu and wide geographical range of its cuisine will probably work against it.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will award one star to Rayuela.

The Payoff: Café Boulud

Today, as expected, Frank Bruni awarded three stars to Café Boulud.

As I predicted, Bruni included a backhanded slap at Boulud’s flagship, the four-star Daniel, saying that Café Boulud is “the most consistently enjoyable” of the chef’s restaurants. Daniel is the only four-star restaurant in New York that Bruni has not yet reviewed. The comment certainly suggests that it might not retain its lofty perch when Bruni finally gets around to it. Indeed, I suspect the only reason he hasn’t done so is that he has no other restaurant to replace it with, and he doesn’t want the four-star club to dwindle below its current five members.

The review was one of the few times Bruni has been able to visit this type of restaurant without bitching about the elegant service that top-tier restaurants offer. Unlike most people, Frank is actually offended when you pamper him. But the best he could say, was that Café Boulud is “no less fun to visit in this informal dining era.” Though that’s a compliment coming from Frank, I doubt the Boulud empire will be pulling it as a teaser quote.

And isn’t it just typical that it was a pasta dish that sealed Frank’s opinion that Café Boulud still deserved the three stars it earned from Ruth Reichl?

Both Eater and NYJ win $3 on our hypothetical $1 bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$36.60		$33.67
Gain/Loss	+3.00		+3.00
Total	$39.50		$36.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	15–4		13–6

Rolling the Dice: Café Boulud

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 sharpens his knives at Café Boulud. Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 8-1
One Star: 7-1
Two Stars: 4-1
Three Stars: 3-1 √√
Four Stars: 5,000-1

The Skinny: “Rolling the Dice” returns this week after a two-month hiatus. Sorry to say, we don’t have much by way of original analysis. As Eater noted, Frank Bruni is already on record with the view that Café Boulud is the most enjoyable of Daniel Boulud’s three New York restaurants. I wasn’t enraptured when I visited last year, but a friend whose opinion I respect assured me it must have been an off-night.

I also agree with Eater that CB has flown under the radar in recent years, and there’s really no reliable way of telling whether the new chef, Bertrand Chemel, has his act together. And there is always Bruni’s well known aversion to French cooking. But I have to agree that three stars is the most likely outcome, given Bruni’s already-documented affection for the place.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will award three stars to Café Boulud. Regardless of the rating, look for Bruni to include a back-handed slap at Daniel, the only one of the four-star restaurants he has yet to review.

The Non-Payoff: Provence

Yesterday, Frank Bruni awarded one star to Provence.

For the second week in a row, we had a review that could have gone either way. And for the second week in a row—and indeed, this is becoming a depressing regularity, NYJ was on the wrong side of the bet. But for the first time in eighteen weeks, Eater was also on the wrong side, making this the first time in 18 weeks that both of us are losers.

Both Eater and NYJ lose $1 on our hypothetical wagers.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$37.50		$34.67
Gain/Loss	–1.00		–1.00
Total	$36.50		$33.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	14–4		12–6