Rolling the Dice: Provence

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, Francophobe Frank reviews the newly re-imagined SoHo bistro, Provence. Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 6-1
One Star: 3-1
Two Stars: 7-2 √√
Three Stars: 25-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: For the second week in a row, Eater is practically on the fence, with only a smidgen separating the favorite (two stars) from the runner-up. Once again, there’s a reasonably good case for either outcome.

The case for two stars? As Eater notes, Marc Meyer and Vicki Freeman have already cracked the two-star code at Cookshop. And Bruni seems to have a soft-spot for husband–wife teams. Something about a small, family-run business appeals to him. A number of quaint restaurants run by married couples—usually Italian—have received two stars from him.

Eater also notes that this is technically a re-review—the restaurant received one star from Ruth Reichl, which Eric Asimov re-affirmed—and re-reviews usually come with a change-of-rating. That factor is probably less important here, as any Meyer/Freeman restaurant would pretty much demand a review. And when the review is driven by market events, Bruni doesn’t necessarily feel compelled to justify the effort with an upgrade or downgrade.

The case for one star? Well, the reviews of Provence have been decidedly mixed, and Bruni has never had much of a liking for French food.

The Bet: We’re two games behind in the pennant race, and we’ll never catch up without taking some risks. But we just don’t have a strong enough feeling about this one to bet against the odds. Two stars it is.

The Payoff: Gramercy Tavern

Today, Frank Bruni awarded three stars to Gramercy Tavern. A good deal of what we predicted yesterday came true. As expected, it was a “yes, but…” kind of review:

• There are restaurants with more shimmer, and there are certainly restaurants with more spark. There are restaurants that take bigger chances and stake bolder claims to your attention.

• They steer clear of anything too challenging, and if tameness is a consequence, so be it. Gramercy has never been a destination for the most adventurous or jaded gourmands.

Bruni reiterated his view that Gramercy Tavern is no longer the flagship of the Danny Meyer empire:

• It doesn’t scale peaks as high as those at Eleven Madison Park, currently the most exciting restaurant in Mr. Meyer’s collection. But like a solid marriage rather than a heady love affair, it has stood the test of time, righting itself when it starts to go wrong, knowing that what’s at stake are a great many warm memories, some yet to be made.

As we imagined, Meyer nailed the balance between casual and formal that Bruni finds lacking—the casual part, that is—at many high-end restaurants:

• The service is back on track, with its trademark blend of coddling and unpretentiousness, a mix that Gramercy nailed well before other restaurants and that explains a lot about diners’ loyalty to the restaurant. They find comfort in rooms with well-spaced tables and one rustic touch for every two elegant flourishes. Gramercy Tavern is a homey retort to the slickness of some fine-dining peers, and minor changes to lighting and art have made it look fresher, less where your grandmother goes after needlepoint class and more where your aunt goes after Italian for the Umbria-bound.

But having correctly predicted all of that, we failed at the one prediction that counted: the rating. Frank Bruni awarded three stars, and we predicted two. We don’t like losing, but if it has to happen, we’re glad it happened this way. In Frank Bruni’s three years on the job, this was one of the few times he awarded the correct rating to a restaurant, simply for doing classic things well. We would not be so foolish as to suggest Frank has actually learned something. We expect him to be back up to his old tricks again soon.

We lose $1 on our hypothetical wager, while Eater wins $3.50 at 7–2 odds.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$34.00		$35.67
Gain/Loss	+$3.50		–$1.00
Total	$37.50		$34.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	14–3		12–5

Rolling the Dice: Gramercy Tavern

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 the newly-retooled Gramercy Tavern, with Blue Hill alumnus Michael Anthony now in the kitchen. Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 9-1
One Star: 8-1
Two Stars: 3-1
Three Stars: 7-2 √√
Four Stars: 400-1

The Skinny: Eater is clearly as conflicted about this wager as we are. Only a half-point separates the most probable outcome (3½–1) from the next-most probable (3–1). To the best of our recollection, the Eater odds on two different outcomes have never been so close. Indeed, the careful Brunomics watcher can put together a quite compelling case for two stars or three.

The case for two stars. In Bruni’s infamous six-star double-review of Eleven Madison Park and the Bar Room, posted just five months ago, he drew a highly unfavorable contrast to the other restaurants in Danny Meyer’s empire:

I prefer them to Tabla, to Union Square Cafe and definitely to Gramercy Tavern, whose luster had dimmed some even before the chef Tom Colicchio officially severed his ties in August. It’s anyone’s guess how it will emerge from its current state of transition, which isn’t pretty. During a meal there last month a fillet of cod was a mealy catastrophe. Servers tried to deliver another table’s entrees to ours, then tried to deliver the same desserts twice.

Restaurants seldom get a second chance with Frank Bruni. Once he gets a negative impression, it tends to persist. His comments in the double-review are significant for another reason. The whole premise of the review was that the torch had passed from the former flagships of the Meyer Empire—Union Square Cafe (for which Meyer’s corporate umbrella is named) and Gramercy Tavern—to the Bar Room and Eleven Madison Park. If he gives three stars to Gramercy Tavern, he can’t help but admit that the whole premise of the earlier review was, if not wrong, at least premature.

On top of that, Bruni loves to slay sacred cows, and few restaurants are more sacred than the perennial Zagat leader, Gramercy Tavern, which is currently tied for the best food in New York City—as it usually is—at 28 out of 30. And lastly, a number of critics have been less-than-wowed by the current incarnation of Gramercy Tavern, suggesting that Michael Anthony simply hasn’t maintained the magic of the the Tom Colicchio era.

The case for three stars. Frank Bruni is a man of predictable habits and predilections. And he definitely has a predilection for Michael Anthony’s food—or at least, the kind of food Anthony is known for. He awarded three stars to Blue Hill at Stone Barns, when Anthony was sharing the helm there with Dan Barber. And he did it again last summer, awarding three stars to the original Blue Hill in Greenwich Village. Anthony was gone by then, but by all accounts he has brought the same cooking style with him to Gramercy Tavern.

And the smart money says that, with a few months to work on it, Danny Meyer surely will have smoothed out the service glitches that Bruni complained about in January.

Our conclusion: The three-star case definitely seems weaker. On top of that, Bruni is seldom wowed by the luxury service that high-end restaurants like Gramercy Tavern offer. He is liable to give no credit for service (unless it is absolutely pitch-perfect and unfussy), and then to penalize a $76 prix fixe, on the grounds that substantially the same food is available at Blue Hill for considerably less money.

If Bruni does award three stars, we suspect it will be with significant reservations, and not the exuberant three stars that the Bar Room and Eleven Madison Park (or, more recently, Esca) received

The Bet: We hate to do it. We really hate to do it. We are kicking ourselves for doing it. But we just can’t bring ourselves to believe that Frank Bruni will award three stars to Gramercy Tavern—much as it may deserve it. We are placing our money on two stars.

The Payoff: Katz's Delicatessen

Today, Frank Bruni awards one star to Katz’s Delicatessen. This is Frank at his best, reviewing the casual, fatty-greasy food he likes:

Let’s do something we don’t do often enough. Let’s take the occasion of the most recent rumors, which swirled just a few weeks ago, to pause and appreciate Katz’s. To take its measure in a format that grants it the kind of recognition typically reserved for restaurants more proper but no more deserving.

To revel in its pastrami sandwich, one of the best in the land, with an eye-popping stack of brined beef that’s juicy, smoky, rapturous. To glory in the intricate ritual of the place: the taking of a ticket at the door; the lining-up in front of one of the servers who carves that beef by hand; the tasting of the thick, ridged slices the server gives us as the sandwich is being built; the nodding when we’re asked if we want pickles, because of course we want pickles.

There’s part of us that says Katz’s deserves its place in the pantheon of starred restaurants, and Frank was exactly the guy to do it. Another part of us wonders why Frank is so bored with the high-end restaurants he’s supposed to be reviewing. Today makes 3 out of the last 5 Bruni reviews that really should have been “$25 & Under” restaurants. But if Frank is going to slum it, Katz’s was at least a worthy subject.

We were nervous about disagreeing with Eater once again, given that we’ve been hammered the last three times we did it. But this week, virtue was rewarded. We win $4 on our imaginary $1 bet at 4–1 odds. Eater, who had predicted zero stars for Katz’s, loses $1.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$35.00		$31.67
Gain/Loss	–$1.00		+$4.00
Total	$34.00		$35.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	13–3		12–4

Rolling the Dice: Katz's Delicatessen

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 a New York institution, Katz’s Delicatessen. Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 2-1 √√
One Star: 4-1
Two Stars: 8-1
Three Stars: 75-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: I guess Frank is formally auditioning for the $25-and-under beat. For the second week in a row, he’s reviewing a place that probably doesn’t even belong in the fine dining critic’s territory. Eater thinks Bruni will award zero stars, which would be a harsh verdict indeed. What are we to make of this?

In the first place, zero-star reviews are fairly uncommon—as they should be—and we’re only four weeks removed from Frank’s last bagel, Max Brenner.

In the second place, this is clearly not a review that’s demanding to get written. Katz’s was founded in 1888, and as far as I know, has never been given a rated review. Frank normally doesn’t pick review targets out of nowhere, only to trash them. Actually, when Frank chooses the review target—as he clearly has done here—it is usually a rave. (Max Brenner was the exception to that rule.)

In the third place, Frank is a confirmed carnivore, and he clearly prefers casual food to formality and luxury. When Frank is reviewing one of his favored cuisines, a positive review is usually the outcome.

And lastly, does Frank Bruni really have the balls to give the goose-egg to a revered institution like Katz’s?

The Bet: Lately, we’ve been getting clobbered whenever we bet against the oddsmakers. Nevertheless, we once again think Eater’s got this one wrong. We predict that Frank Bruni will award one star to Katz’s Deli.

The Payoff: Resto

Frank Bruni resumed his assault on the star system yesterday, after a few months when most of his ratings actually seemed somewhat sensible. Resto won two stars (the same as The Modern and Gordon Ramsay), apparently because it has great lamb ribs, french fries with mayonaise, and perhaps one or two other good dishes.

Those stars come with a “forewarning”:

Resto — the name is slang for restaurant [thank heavens he cleared that up] — doesn’t take reservations for groups smaller than six, and on some nights there’s a 45-minute wait by 7:30. It can be difficult to reach the bar through the crowd around it and even tougher to hear servers through the din.

If that wasn’t enough Bruni for one week, you can read his Critic’s Notebook piece on Marc Vetri’s pair of Italian restaurants in Philadelphia, Vetri and Osteria. It’s nice to see Bruni branch out a bit, but why must it always be Italian?

In the wagering department, NYJ absorbs another tough loss this week, losing $1 on our hypothetical bet, while Eater wins a whopping $5. We should have remembered our own advice: the restaurants Bruni chooses to review—as opposed to those he must review—are usually two stars.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$30.00		$32.67
Gain/Loss	+$5.00		–$1.00
Total	$35.00		$31.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	13–2		11–4

Rolling the Dice: Resto

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 the foolishly-named Belgian eatery Resto. Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 4-1
One Star: 2-1
Two Stars: 5-1 √√
Three Stars: 75-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: In this week’s game, jokers are wild. Anything can happen. As Eater points out, Resto would have historically belonged in the $25-and-under critic’s territory, and wouldn’t have had a starred review at all. But with Peter Meehan reviewing taco trucks these days, any restaurant with seating defaults to Bruni. With most of the entrées at Resto priced below $20, this is precisely the kind of restaurant Bruni loves.

Bruni certainly hasn’t hesitated to award two stars to unlikely candidates. But when he does so, it’s usually only when the restaurant has already achieved a significant “foodie following.” Frank then swoops in, and his rating confirms what the experts already knew. Resto has flown mostly under the radar, notwithstanding a 4-out-of-5 rating on New York’s “casual scale.” If any of the usual suspects have suggested that Resto was a NYT two-star restaurant, I must have missed it.

Frank sometimes grades on a gentler curve when reviewing restaurants in under-served neighborhoods, but no one would seriously suggest that 29th Street at Park Avenue South is such a neighborhood.

The Bet: Though we won’t be surprised to wake up to a two-star review, we are going to bet conservatively this week on one star.

The Payoff: Anthos

As expected, Frank Bruni awarded the deuce to Anthos. It was as enthusiastic as Frank gets at the two-star level, and he implied that the restaurant fell only a whisker short of three:

[Anthos is] the restaurant you might get if you triangulated between Onera and Dona. It has the former’s resoundingly Greek soul. It has the latter’s fussy tics and more sophisticated wine list, with sommeliers who can guide you through the impressive advances of Greek winemaking.

It’s better than its predecessors, although it doesn’t come together quite smoothly or sharply enough to loft Mr. Psilakis and Ms. Arpaia to the level they clearly aspire to and will almost certainly reach.

The review marks the return of Fussy Frank. As we’ve often remarked, Frank does not like fine dining—a peculiar deficiency in a critic assigned to cover high-end restaurants. And “fussy” is his favorite word when he feels he’s been pampered too much.

The precise reasons for the two-star rating border on incoherent. He says, “Much of the cooking is inspired, and much of it is excellent.” What’s the Venn Diagram for that statement? Is some of the food inspired, but not excellent? Excellent, but not inspired? Later on, the servers’ exuberance “communicates a self-consciousness that only a few of the dishes are transcendent enough to justify,” and “not everything that arrives is worth the wait.”

Later still, “the ratio of hits to misses is better at Anthos than at Dona” (a restaurant he loved), but he wishes “the kitchen’s efforts” were “just a little more selective and straightforward.” Good luck making any sense of that smorgasbord of “almost…but not quite” sentences. The one thing he makes clear is that he likes this restaurant better than any Arpaia/Psilakis production to date, but in the end, lands at the same two-star rating given to the rest of them.

Eater and I both placed identical $1 winning bets on Anthos at 2–1 odds, so each of us wins a hypothetical $2.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$28.00		$30.67
Gain/Loss	+$2.00		+$2.00
Total	$30.00		$32.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	12–2		11–3

Rolling the Dice: Anthos

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 the haute Greek restaurant Anthos, the latest collaboration of chef Michael Psilakis with the comely restauranteur Donatella Arpaia. Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 7-1
One Star: 4-1
Two Stars: 2-1 √√
Three Stars: 7-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: All indications point to two stars. Frank Bruni has already awarded that rating to two other Psilakis restaurants, Onera and Dona, and he seems hopelessly besotted with Arpaia.

At one point, we thought Anthos could be headed for a trifecta, which was no doubt Psilakis’s intention when he closed Onera, and announced he was going for something more upscale. But no critic so far has been wowed by Anthos, and Bruni isn’t the type who says a restaurant is better than everyone else says it is.

We agree with the Eater oddsmakers that one star is more likely than three, but that would be a very significant slapdown. Bruni’s affinity for Everything Arpaia will save the day.

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

The Payoff: Craftbar and Craftsteak

Today’s review is a bit of a snoozer, confirming our hypothesis that Frank Bruni is bored. He arrives at the correct ratings for Craftbar and Craftsteak (one and two stars, respectively), but he doesn’t have much passion for either restaurant. Maybe he banged it out on his laptop in between naps on his long flight back from Los Angeles, where he recently traveled to review a pizzeria. With apparently no NYC restaurants remaining that interest him, perhaps we can persuade Frank to take his discerning palate to the opposite coast, where no doubt they are hungering for a parade of Italian restaurant and steakhouse reviews.

Eater and I both placed identical $1 winning bets on Craftbar (2–1 odds) and Craftsteak (3–1 odds), netting each of us a total of $5 for the week.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$23.00		$25.67
Gain/Loss	+$5.00		+$5.00
Total	$28.00		$30.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	11–2		10–3