Rolling the Dice: Craftbar and Craftsteak

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: After last week’s gross dereliction of duty, Frank Bruni is back in action tomorrow with reviews of two real restaurants: Craftbar and Craftsteak. Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Craftbar
Zero Stars: 3-1
One Star: 2-1 √√
Two Stars: 5-1
Three Stars: 20-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

Craftsteak
Zero Stars: 7-2
One Star: 4-1
Two Stars: 3-1 √√
Three Stars: 12-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: All the critics in town pummeled Craftsteak after it opened last year, with Herr Bruni awarding just a measley star in July 2006. Tom Colicchio’s steakhouse did everything right except the one thing at which it had to excel: steaks. I visited twice, and wasn’t wowed either time. Colicchio publicly admitted that he had goofed, fired the chef de cuisine, and bought new cooking equipment—including a broiler, inexplicably not part of the original plan.

In three years on the job, Bruni has just one self-re-review to his credit (Eleven Madison Park). I don’t know what would possess him to re-review a steakhouse just ten months later, but the improvement must surely be significant. I suspect that in Colicchio’s mind, Craftsteak is a three-star restaurant, and if he’s finally got the steaks right, it’s not an unreasonable aspiration. After all, it is built on a similar model to Craft, which has three stars. But two stars is the most that Bruni has given any steakhouse, and after a two-week losing streak, we aren’t prepared to dare the Eater oddsmakers.

Craftbar is getting its first rated review, after receiving the $25 and Under treatment from Eric Asimov in 2002 and a Diner’s Journal piece from Sam Sifton in 2004. Since then Chef Akhtar Nawab has moved on to The E.U., and according to FloFab in the Times, the new menu is “less elaborate and expensive.”

It’s not unusual for restaurants promoted from $25 and Under to get two stars, and casual places like Craftbar are right up Frank’s street. When train wrecks like Morandi and Cafe Cluny get one star, it almost seems like there’s no longer any such thing as a “good” one-star restaurant, leaving two-stars as the minimum rating that represents any kind of compliment. But with Craftbar lurking pretty much under the foodie radar these days, we have to agree with the oddsmakers that a deuce is unlikely here.

The Bet: Tomorrow could be a wild day, but we aren’t taking any chances. We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will award one star to Craftbar and two stars to Craftsteak.

The Payoff: Max Brenner

Today, Frank Bruni learns that he can take his niece and nephew out for dessert, and the New York Times will pay for it. At Max Brenner, critic-to-be Gavin, 6, pronounced “Not everything should be made into dessert.” No doubt Gavin will be on the Times payroll soon, as he seems to have the same discerning palate as his uncle.

I hadn’t thought that Bruni would pick out such an utterly irrelevant “restaurant,” only to give it zero stars. To be sure, it’s overrun with tourists, suggesting that perhaps there’s a large audience that needs Frank’s advice about the place. But Little Italy and the Theater District are overrun with tourists too. Will Ferrara be next week’s review?

But zero stars it is. We took the one-star action, and lose $1, for our first two-week losing streak. Luckily for us, the odds on zero stars were only even money, so Eater wins just $1.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$22.00		$26.67
Gain/Loss	+$1.00		–$1.00
Total	$23.00		$25.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	9–2		8–3

Rolling the Dice: Max Brenner

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 chocolatier Max Brenner. Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: EVEN √√
One Star: 3-1
Two Stars: 10-1
Three Stars: 90-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: After his Morandi review last week, poor Frank must be either bored or exhausted. There’s no other way to explain tomorrow’s utterly bizarre choice: a breakfast/sandwich/dessert place so insignificant that it doesn’t seem to have attracted a single review—anywhere—though it has been open since July of last year. It’s not even clear which Max Brenner Frank is reviewing: a second outpost opened last November.

Such places, if the Times reviewed them at all, would normally be covered in the paper’s $25 and Under column. Tomorrow’s review creates the topsy-turvy paradox that the city’s best dessert restaurant, Room 4 Dessert, has only a $25&U mention to its credit, while Max Brenner gets a full rated review.

Bruni doesn’t normally pick a restaurant out of nowhere, only to trash it. Given last week’s depressing review, he probably wanted some fun (or a week off). Morandi, which Frank pretty much had to review, showed us how bad a restaurant can be, and still earn a star. If he’s wasting his time on Max Brenner—a restaurant no one expected him to review—I have to assume he found something nice to say.

The Bet: We are crossing our fingers, and betting that Frank Bruni will award one star to Max Brenner.

The Payoff: Morandi

In today’s Brunology lesson, Professor Frank hands out what must be the weakest one-star review in New York Times history. To be sure, we expected no better than a weak star for Morandi, but we never imagined that Keith McNally could be trashed this badly, and still escape with his manhood intact:

Morandi’s overworked Chianti bottles and its canopy of brick arches — no matter how old the brick — aren’t whimsical; they’re just clichéd. Unlike Balthazar and Pastis, which Mr. McNally cunningly sculptured to look old before their time, Morandi can simply feel tired before its time, and not quite worth the struggle to get in and stay upright in the scrum.

Frank did find a number of dishes he liked (which saved it from the goose-egg), but we don’t recall a one-star review as harsh as this one. But then, Frank has never goose-egged an Italian restaurant, has he?

We were prepared to take the long odds that Morandi would indeed get zilch, so we lose $1 on our hypothetical bet. Eater took the one-star wager, and wins $2.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$20.00		$27.67
Gain/Loss	+$2.00		–$1.00
Total	$22.00		$26.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	8–2		8–2

Rolling the Dice: Morandi

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 Morandi, Keith McNally’s foray into Italian cuisine. Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 5-1
One Star: 2-1 √√
Two Stars: 6-1
Three Stars: 90-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: Morandi had a shaky start, with many critics finding the food uneven, the service scattered, the crowds unbearable, the décor inauthentic and claustrophobic. I can only take Eater’s word for it that things are getting steadily better at Morandi, because frankly, nothing I’ve read has made me eager to go there.

The Brunologist loves Italian food, and some of his most generous ratings have gone to Italian restaurants. But it’s the one genre in which Bruni can’t be fooled. I have to think that when he wrote his love letter to Esca last week, it was with the certain knowledge that the Morandi review was up next. I therefore expect to find a noticeable contrast between the two, with Morandi earning a weak one star, at best.

The Bet: We are inclined to agree with Eater that one star is the most likely outcome, and that is normally how we would bet. But with the oddsmakers offering only 2–1 odds for that choice, we are going to roll the dice on zero stars, which at 5–1 odds is the more attractive wager.

The Payoff: Esca

Today, as expected, Frank Bruni awarded three stars to Esca. It was one of Bruni’s best-written reviews, mercifully free of the irrelevant asides that sometimes divert him. He started praising the food in the 3rd paragraph, which must be a new record.

I thought that three stars was the only likely outcome this week. Thanks to the oddsmakers’ rather generous 3–1 odds, Eater and I both make an easy $3 on our hypothetical $1 bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$17.00		$24.67
Gain/Loss	+$3.00		+$3.00
Total	$20.00		$27.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	7–2		8–1

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.

The Payoff: The E.U.

Yesterday, as expected, Frank Bruni awarded one star to The E.U.

The headline—“Where the Motto Is: Try, Try Again”—isn’t one of his better inspirations. It puts undue emphasis on The E.U.’s past troubles, which I must admit make an interesting story. But NYT reviews need to be written with a long shelf-life in mind. Even major restaurants (such as The Four Seasons, reviewed last week) go many years between reviews. A minor one, like The E.U., might never be reviewed again, making this the newspaper’s (likely) final word on the restaurant—something that will turn up on google searches and be read for years to come.

With that in mind, is this how the review should end?

As a watering hole, the E.U. actually feels charmed, though I articulate that with my fingers crossed (a tough trick when you’re typing), and in spite of my parting glance at the restaurant around midnight one busy, noisy night. I walked out as three grim-faced police officers walked in.

Uh-oh.

On a more positive note, his first mention of the food came in the sixth paragraph, a considerable improvement over Rosanjin two weeks ago, when the food wasn’t mentioned till paragraph fifteen. And the review made me want to visit the restaurant, which is always a good sign.

The review was also a useful reminder that one star, despite being near the low end of the Times rating scale, means “good.” Often, the restaurants awarded one star don’t actually sound all that good: at that level, it usually seems like the critic is explaining why the restaurant isn’t two or three stars, which can’t help but convey a negative impression. Bruni’s review of The E.U., although not without its negatives, actually reads like what a “good” one-star review is supposed to be.

Eater and NYJ both took the one-star bet at 3–1 odds, winning $3 on our hypothetical $1 wager.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$14.00		$21.67
Gain/Loss	+$3.00		+$3.00
Total	$17.00		$24.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	6–2		7–1

Rolling the Dice: The E.U.

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 E.U., a restaurant best known for its eighteen-month odyssey to obtain a liquor license. In the kitchen is Ahktar Nawab, formerly the acclaimed chef de cuisine at Craftbar.  Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 3-1
One Star: 3-1 √√
Two Stars: 8-1
Three Stars: 85-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: We don’t really have much to go on this week. Bruni tends to lag the other reviewers, so by the time he gets to a place, there’s a body of critical opinion already out there. That’s not so for The E.U., but we rely on Eater’s report that “Chef Nawab’s food has ranged from legitimately very good to wildly less so.”

The menu is also not in The E.U.’s favor, with its polyglot categories: raw bar, tapas, charcuterie, panini, along with standard appetizers and entrées. Bruni tends to think—and here I agree with him—that a restaurant trying to do so many things will usually misfire on some of them.

If Bruni is grading on his “downtown curve,” there’s an outside shot at two stars. On the whole, we think one star is the safer bet.

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

The Payoff: The Four Seasons

When Little Frankie BrunBrun was a young lad, his father used to take him to the Four Seasons, where he got “a sweeping sense of the big money to be made and spent in this city.” Yesterday, Big Frank Bruni returned to the stomping ground of his youth, and found that “the restaurant, like so much else, isn’t quite what it was.” Some dishes transported him; others were but a shadow of their former decadent selves.

Mercifully, Bruni spared us his usual assault on fine dining. He did not try to argue that contemporary “savvy” diners are no longer interested in classic luxury. The review included none of the insulting terms he usually applies to such places, like fussy, prissy, or highfalutin. He was, for once, perfectly happy to accept the restaurant on its own terms. He simply found it not up to its former glory.

To the extent the restaurant cares—and it probably does not—the Four Seasons should consider itself fortunate to have escaped with just a three-to-two demotion. The review read at the low end of two stars. From the text alone, a singleton could very well have been justified. Did Frank give the second star for nostalgia? Quite possibly.

We took the two-star bet at 8–3 odds, winning $2.67 on our hypothetical $1 wager. Eater took the three-star bet, losing $1.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$15.00		$19.00
Gain/Loss	–$1.00		+$2.67
Total	+$14.00		+$21.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	5–2		6–1