Update from an Angry Little Man

So now I’m the guy known to the blogosphere as the Angry Little Man, thanks to the magnanimous chef Joe Dobias, a/k/a “JoeDoe.” My girlfriend suggested that we should pitch that title to the Food Network. Every week, viewers could tune in to see which restaurant I am going to pan next. If Guy Fieri can be a cable star, why can’t I?

It seems Joe has a habit of lashing out whenever even a slightly negative review appears. When Eater’s Amanda Kludt posted a mixed, but encouraging snapshot in the restaurant’s first week, Dobias banned the whole Eater staff from his restaurant. No wonder the place is empty at 8:00 p.m. on a Friday evening.

Yes, I know the East Village is a late-arriving crowd, but I don’t know of any half-decent place that is still empty at 8:00. Maybe Chef Joe ought to think about why that is, instead of lashing out at his customers.

I didn’t think JoeDoe was terrible. I thought it was promising, but a bit frustrating. It is possible I would have returned—that is, before Dobias opened his mouth. And if you read the comments on this and other blogs, apparently many other people have drawn the same conclusion. For a restaurant that clearly has not been a runaway hit, this isn’t the kind of publicity Dobias needed.

Many commenters have made a similar point: every time a chef sends a dish out of his kitchen, customers are going form an opinion, and they’re probably going to tell their friends. This blog is just a slightly more public way of doing that. My typical post does not have many readers. I don’t make or break restaurants.

Chef Dobias wonders why we finished our food and made no complaint while we were at the restaurant. Well, we finished our food because we were hungry. We did not think it was great food, but it was certainly edible. We did not complain because we seldom do. We saw no point in asking the Chef to prepare our food again.

No one is going to change Chef Dobias, as an interview at Grub Street makes clear:

At Cornell I was taught the customer is always right, but the customer is not always right.

We’ll leave it at that. Links below.

In Pity of Joe Dobias [Strictly Platonic]
Adventures in Public Relations: The Bellicose JoeDoe [Eater]
Chef Joe Doe Speaks Out About the New York Dining Circus [Grub Street]
Maddened Restaurant Owner Blasts Bloggers, Other “Angry Little Men” [The-Feedbag]
Adventures in Public Relations: JoeDoe Strikes Back! [Eater]

Aimless Bruni Speculation

Frank Bruni was named New York Times restaurant critic on April 8, 2004. His first review appeared 62 days later, on June 9, 2004 (Babbo, three stars).

The first non-Bruni Times review will be published on August 26, 75 days from now. This suggests that if the Times does not name a successor sometime roughly within the next 2–3 weeks, there will likely be another interim critic, as there was between William Grimes’s departure at the end of 2003, and Bruni’s arrival.

Bruni, of course, had to relocate from Rome, where he had been the bureau chief. Someone who already lives in New York, and who is familiar with the local restaurant scene, wouldn’t need as long a runway.

It has been 29 days since Times editor Bill Keller announced that Bruni was stepping down. Aside from Eater.com’s long list of candidates, posted that same week, I haven’t seen any speculation or rumor-mongering, which suggests the Times is doing a good job of keeping its search private.

We can only hope that as Keller sifts through candidates, he is taking our advice to heart.

Does Bruni have another 4-star review in him?

Over at Eater.com, Ben Leventhal asks the existential question:

The biggest question is, Will The Brunisimo inaugurate one more restaurant into the four star club before he leaves? He confirmed Daniel’s four stars in January, but hasn’t put a new restaurant into the club since Masa in late 2004. Frequent dining companions of his whisper about the man’s quiet interest in finding one more perfect restaurant before he departs. And these critics, they like to leave a mark, which to me means we’ve got one more four star review coming if any restaurant even comes close to getting it done.

We totally agree with Leventhal that Bruni must be itching to play king-maker one more time. Indeed, we’ve noted before, Bruni currently holds the record for the longest interval between new four-star reviews. Awarding four stars—not reaffirming, as he did with Daniel, but awarding—is a critic’s signature moment, and he has kept his powder dry for the last 4½ years.

We doubt, though, that Bruni will pull the trigger unless he’s convinced. In a post late last year, he mentioned recent visits to Eleven Madison Park and Del Posto—clearly looking for an excuse to promote them to four stars, but finding both wanting.

Here are the restaurants that Leventhal thinks could break the string, with Eater’s trademark odds:

Marea: 3-1
Aureole: 10-1
Del Posto: 18-1
Blue Hill, Stone Barns: 19-1
Babbo (Bruni’s first review): 75-1
Momofuku Ko: 298-1
Le Cirque: 500-1
Locanda Verde: 5,000-1

We do not think Marea is designed to compete with the likes of Le Bernardin and Jean Georges. In flusher times, Chris Cannon and Michael White would no doubt have liked to, but by all appearances it seems they (wisely) hedged their bets. The new Aureole, even if it ultimately gets four stars, is probably opening too late (not till June, by most reports).

Del Posto needs to be crossed off the list for now, based on Bruni’s year-end comments. Babbo? I doubt that even Mario Batali thinks it’s a four-star restaurant. We certainly agree that Le Cirque is the longest of long-shots, and Locanda Verde is (by its creators’ admission) intended to be a neighborhood place.

In our view, that leaves only Momofuku Ko and Blue Hill Stone Barns as plausible candidates. We think BHSB is a near-perfect restaurant, but even if Bruni thinks that, would he award four stars to a restaurant that is not even in New York City?

That leaves Momofuku Ko. Bruni has been curiously silent about the ambitious lunch menu that was launched after his original review. That lunch menu would certainly provide the excuse for a re-review, and if the inconsistencies he wrote about have been smoothed out, perhaps Ko would be the place.

Given Bruni’s long-standing shine for everything Chang, we have to think that Momofuku Ko is the best candidate.

Edit to Add: I am not saying that I believe Momofuku Ko will be (or should be) upgraded to four stars. I am only saying that if Bruni files another four-star review, Ko is a more likely recipient than any other.

Dear Bill Keller (in re: Bruni)

Dear Bill,

Today, you announced that Frank Bruni, the Times restaurant critic, will be leaving his post in August, when his memoir is published.

I have to ask: Do you seriously believe that Frank Bruni was an “inspired” choice? I can only hope that, despite your praise for his “ambitious feats of criticism,” you recognize that the Bruni experiment was not altogether successful.

Bruni, to be sure, is a very good writer (not quite “exquisite”), a top-notch journalist, and a smart guy. Like anyone with those attributes, he naturally had some successes. Over time, he nearly mastered the job. He also had a long, painful, unacknowledged apprenticeship, during which much of his criticism was just plain embarrassing.

The fact is, the best critics are normally those who bring a lifetime of experience to the subject matter—something it was simply not possible for Frank Bruni to have had. That’s not the only requirement, but it is an essential one. There is no substitute for it.

When we read The New York Times, we expect not just exquisite writers, but writers who have deep background in the beat they are covering. Although Frank Bruni is a better writer than I am, I never thought that he knew more about restaurants than I did. That’s because his background for the job was the same as mine: he had none.

However, I am an amateur. Frank Bruni’s work was marketed as a professional product, and it wasn’t, because he lacked one crucial attribute: expertise.

Of course, there were other problems with Frank’s work. He consistently overrated Italian restaurants (the one cuisine in which he was arguably an expert). And you always got the sense that high-end restaurants—the kinds that get 3 and 4 stars—held little joy for him. Even when he rated them highly, these restaurants seldom brought out his passion the way a great pizzeria did.

It’s awfully telling that you cite his nationwide tour of fast-food restaurants as a highlight of his tenure. That piece is emblematic of everything that was wrong with Frank Bruni as a fine dining critic.

So Bill, I wish you luck in your search for Frank Bruni’s replacement. But this time, please choose someone with a solid track record in the field. Is that too much to ask?

Very truly yours,
Marc Shepherd
New York Journal

The Year of the One-Star Restaurant

Is this the year of the one-star restaurant? Frank Bruni has reviewed nine new restaurants so far this year, and only one, The John Dory, got two stars. None received three or four, except the re-reviewed Daniel. This is the critic who once gave the deuce so often that Eater’s Ben Leventhal dubbed him “Frankie two-stars.”

Here’s the list of Bruni’s reviews this year—all one star, except for Daniel and The John Dory:

Rouge Tomate (January 7)
The West Branch & Bar Bao (January 14)
Daniel (January 21)
Cabrito (January 28)
The Oak Room (February 4)
The John Dory (February 11)
Shang (February 18)
Buttermilk Channel (February 25)
L’Artusi (March 4)

The Year in Bruni

Another year of Frank Bruni’s Times restaurant reviews has come and gone. It could be his last, as he’s rumored to be stepping down next year to write his memoirs. As of June 2009, he’ll reach his 5-year anniversary, a point when a critic might want to move on.

For the second consecutive year, no restaurants earned 4 stars. Corton was the year’s best new restaurant, but I suspect even Drew Nieporent (owner) and Paul Liebrandt (chef) would tell you they were not aiming for 4 stars. Bruni gave it 3 stars, which was the correct rating. Momofuku Ko was the only other conceivable candidate, but Bruni made a compelling argument for awarding three.

In case you’re wondering, it has now been 209 weeks since Bruni elevated a restaurant to 4 stars (Masa on December 29, 2004). That’s by far the longest such gap in New York Times history. There have been a couple of 4-star re-reviews since then, but no new members of the club.

Daniel is the only remaining 4-star restaurant that Bruni has not reviewed, and it’s fairly apparent he does not love the place. I suspect he is itching to find another 4-star restaurant, after which Daniel will be promptly demoted. I don’t know of any new restaurants coming along that are 4-star candidates, so Bruni will need to promote somebody.

At the 3-star level, there were happy pills in the water at Times HQ. Bruni doled out eleven 3-star reviews in 2008. He has given just 33 of them in 4½ years, so it is remarkable that a third of them came in 2009. Bruni’s smackdowns are the stuff of legend, but he did not demote any 3-star places this year, and there was not a single new restaurant that was clearly aiming for a 3-star review that failed to get it.

To some extent, we are seeing the effects of Bruni’s grade inflation. At least three of Bruni’s 3-star awards seemed awfully dubious to me (Dovetail, Matsugen, and Momofuku Ssäm Bar), and I have my doubts about one other (Scarpetta). But even if you subtract a star from those reviews, it was still a very good year for new restaurants.

Bruni continued his pattern of awarding two stars to very marginal candidates, such as Double Crown, Bar Q, Bar Blanc, Bar Milano, Mia Dona, Market Table, Perbacco and Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar & Grill. This, in turn, put pressure on him to elevate borderline places to 3 stars. It should be obvious that if Momofuku Ko is a 3-star restaurant, the less ambitious Ssäm Bar is no better than two. Yet, when he awards 2 stars to Double Crown the preceding week, all Ssäm Bar’s 3-star review means is “better than Double Crown.” That is not a tough bar to clear.

Bruni’s obvious bias in favor of Italian restaurants continued. About 20% of his reviews were Italian (broadly construed), and he gave those restaurants 2 or 3 stars 60 percent of the time. Even his 1-star Italian reviews were generally enthusiastic, which is not always the case with Bruni.

In other genres, there were missed opportunities. Allegretti and Eighty One, to which he gave 2 stars each, were better than several of his 3-star places. Eighty One was probably the most unjustly treated, given the 3-stars awarded to the inferior Dovetail nearby. Persimmon and Elettaria deserved better than the 1 star Bruni gave them.

For the first time that I can recall, Bruni visited a French restaurant by choice. He awarded 1 star to La Sirène, which was a perfectly reasonable rating. Had it been Italian, it would have received two.

Every year, Bruni picks a couple of places no one writes about any more, just to point out that they’re not as good as they were. This year’s victims were Mesa Grill (1 star) and Michael’s (no stars). Among new restaurants, Ago and Secession received his most entertaining and richly deserved takedowns, both receiving no stars.

A number of Frank’s reviews were about a ‘scene’, conveying practically no important culinary content. Among these were Kurve, Delicatessen, Chop Suey, Elizabeth, and Second Avenue Deli. It seems almost a travesty when Elizabeth is allotted the same number of column-inches as Corton. If it was worth writing about at all, couldn’t it have shared the review with some other place?

Bruni doled out several well deserved promotions, including WD~50 (2 to 3), Le Cirque (2 to 3) and Mas (1 to 2). But the largest errors of his tenure—The Modern, Gilt, and Gordon Ramsay—remain uncorrected, with all three restaurants still undeservedly mired in Bruni’s two-star scrum.

Despite some mistakes, Bruni did not commit as many howlers in 2008 as he did in past years. For the most part, where there was excellence he found it. Where restaurants let us down, he called them on it.

As Bruni notes in his year-end retrospective, most of the important restaurants that opened in 2008 were planned in much happier times. That means that we won’t be seeing anywhere near as many ambitious restaurants in 2009. Bruni will be spending his time in more casual places, which is probably the way he likes it.

A Chef's Plea for Half-Stars at the Times

Frank Bruni delivered a shock this week — deliberately, I am sure — by awarding three stars to Corton just seven days after awarding three stars to Momofuku Ssäm Bar. Three-star reviews are pretty rare. There have been just 32 of them in Bruni’s 4½ years on the job. So to give out two of them in a row is unusual. He has never done that before.

Now, the Ssäm Bar review was totally discretionary. No particular event compelled him to write it. By doing so when he knew Corton was coming the following Wednesday, he was clearly trying to make a meta-statement about the very different paths to excellence that these two restaurants have followed.

But the Ssäm Bar review upsets many in the industry, not just because David Chang is ridiculously over-exposed, but because it makes nonsense of the rating system. The same chef’s Momofuku Ko, which is clearly more ambitious and accomplished by any measure, also carries three stars from Frank Bruni. What is the point of a rating system, if it fails to distinguish different levels of excellence and accomplishment?

Over at the Feedbag, an anonymous chef suggests that the Times should add half-stars to its system, to better distinguish between different levels:

The grading of restaurants lately does not make sense. How can a restaurant as refined as Eleven Madison Park, Picholine and Corton fit on the same level as restaurants as casual as A Voce, Scarpetta and the very baffling Momofuku Ssam? I am not saying they aren’t all great restaurants in their own right, but they are not equals. By installing a half star, one could differentiate between them. In my opinion, Blue Hill, Scarpetta and Craft should be 3 stars, Corton, Picholine, and Eleven Madison, 3 and a half, and Momofuku Ssam, 2 and a half. By grouping all of these establishments under the same 3 stars, they are misleading patrons. Isn’t that supposed to be the idea of these reviews? By awarding three stars to restaurants so disparate, they’re making the Times review system meaningless, and that hurts everybody.

We agree that half-stars allow the critic to discriminate better between different types of restaurants. That’s why reviews published on this blog use half-stars.

But ultimately, whether your rating system has 4 grading levels or 100, it can be no better than the person assigning them. I have no idea what ratings Bruni would have given out if his system allowed for half-stars. However, it is poor judgment that has created this mess in the first place, and poor judgment is not rectified by adding levels to the system.

Bruni seems to be applying a bizarre “quality divided by price” formula to assign stars. On that line of reasoning, Ko and Ssäm Bar are rated identically, for although Ko is better, it also costs more. In his defense, Bruni can point out that the Times rating system expressly states that prices are “taken into consideration,” though no past critic has done it quite the way he does.

The same perverted logic allows Bruni to justify awarding three stars to the Bar Room at the Modern, when the obviously superior dining room at the same establishment has just two. We strongly suspect that if the Times had half-stars in its rating system, Bruni would nevertheless have made the same error.

Our own view is that ratings should reflect excellence, period. The fact that excellence costs more is utterly irrelevant to the rating. It may be that some diners either cannot afford the best restaurants, or that they prefer to spend their time and money in other ways. But if Momofuku Ssäm Bar is inferior to Momofuku Ko—as it clearly is—the fact that one is cheaper does not make them equal.

Frank Bruni, Failed Food Blogger

Frank Bruni’s New York Times blog, Diner’s Journal, has been with us a bit less than three years. It is a failure.

In February 2006, his inaugural post promised:

I spend an insane, glorious amount of time in restaurants. And of course I see and taste more than I get to recount within the confines of weekly Dining section reviews, each based on multiple visits to a given restaurant, each boiled down to about 1,000 words from hours and hours of observation and tens of thousands of calories.

This new blog is an attempt to capture and share more of my notes from the field. To provide, in something closer to real time, a sense of what’s being served in the city’s newest, oldest, most delightful and most frustrating restaurants and of how those restaurants are serving it. To flag trends and, less often and more selectively, flog underachievers. To report moments of real significance and incidents that just happened to be interesting. To keep a journal, and to keep the tone of that journal light, casual, accessible.

Just as the “Diner’s Journal” in the Friday newspaper did, this “Diner’s Journal” on the web will offer quick, early peeks at restaurants that have just opened but aren’t yet ready to be reviewed. In the spirit of that weekly feature, it will also present critical perspectives on restaurants that probably won’t be reviewed, given the limitations of space in the newspaper and the limits of those restaurants’ charms.

But it will be more frequent and more flexible. I’ll post new entries several times a week.

What is the reality? Bruni seldom uses the blog to write about food. In the last six months, there have been just nine posts about food. I’m being generous by including his Nov. 24 post about Waterfront Ale House, which is mainly about his craving for chicken wings. If Frank was auditioning for the “$25 & Under” job, let me be the first to congratulate him: he passed.

The promises to “share more notes from the field” in “something close to real time,” to “flag trends,” “report moments of real significance,” “flog underachievers,” and offer “early peeks,” have largely not been kept.

Bruni does post a couple of times a week, on average, but usually not about food. He writes about Top Chef, getting reservations at inaccessible spots, allegations of poor service, Chef Q&A’s, industry news, and so forth. But he seldom writes about the thing he presumably spends most of his time on: restaurant meals.

Bruni has vitiated the whole point of having a blog—the ability to report in real time, rather than saving up his thoughts for one big weekly review. What’s more, the restaurants he reviews are just a small fraction of his meals out. The typical review requires three visits to the restaurant, but he probably dines out 10 times a week. That means about 70% of his meals aren’t explicitly reported on.

Now, if the Times is willing to pay Bruni to report on just 30% of his meals, that’s their business, not mine. But if the reason for starting the blog was to provide “more frequent and more flexible” coverage of restaurants, then he ought to do it.

More importantly, isn’t the Times overdue for a re-think of the long-form review? With only one review per week, many very good restaurants go years without any comment from the Paper of Record. Bruni’s crazily premature re-review of Momofuku Ssäm Bar last week—even though the restaurant’s many charms are basically the same as they were two years ago—deprived plenty of more worthy places that haven’t been reviewed in years, or perhaps not at all, a chance at exposure. Yet, in the review, Bruni said:

In the last year and a half, I’ve found myself returning to Ssam again and again…because eating at Ssam feels so unencumbered, honest and joyful, and because I can’t stop reflecting on the daring and importance of Mr. Chang’s work there.

If Bruni had used his blog to report on even a fraction of those visits—and as far as I can recall, he never did—then perhaps the newspaper review last week could have been used to direct attention to someone other than the ridiculously over-exposed Mr. Chang.

The Times should overhaul its reviewing system, so that ratings and recommendations can evolve gradually as the critic makes his rounds over the course of his tenure. There are plenty of restaurants that Bruni has visited but never reviewed, because he hasn’t paid the minimum of three visits that the paper requires. But a running journal of those visits could, over time, provide valuable perspective—perhaps even more so than the Wednesday reviews, which offer, at best, point-in-time snapshots.

As print reviews continue their slide into irrelevance, Bruni or his successor ought to consider how his online journal could become the primary medium for reporting on restaurants, instead of the very distant afterthought it is today.

The Month in Bruni

Our weekly BruniBetting contest with Eater has been on hiatus for the past couple of months. That included a couple of weeks when we were on vacation, and another few when Eater posted its predictions too late in the day for us to respond. (Is that a conscious strategy on Eater’s part?)

Five weeks ago, Bruni awarded one star to Persimmon. We were a touch more impressed here, awarding two, but we probably would have agreed with the Eater assessment that one star was more likely.

Four weeks ago, Bruni awarded three stars to Matsugen. We were quite a bit less impressed, awarding two for the food, but deducting a half-star for ambiance. Eater made its most reckless bet ever, putting its dollar on four stars at 9–1 odds, while conceding that three stars was the more likely outcome. We would certainly not have taken the four-star bet. Knowing that Bruni actually awards bonus stars to restaurants without tablecloths, we probably would have taken the three-star bet.

Three weeks ago, Bruni awarded two stars to Perbacco. Eater, overriding his own odds for the second straight week, bet on two stars at 4–1 odds, while admitting that one star was the more likely outcome. We’re not sure how we would have bet, but Eater’s logic was compelling: “The Bruni loves Italian food and loves putting a legitimate sleeper on the map,” and “The other thing that’s in play this week is the Little Owl Theorem, which gets very small restaurants with moderate price, earnest service and overachieving food two stars.” We have no personal experience here, but our sense is that Bruni, as is his wont, rated, the unassuming neighborhood one star too high.

Two weeks ago, for the second time this year, Bruni took the week off.

Last week, Bruni couldn’t find a real restaurant to review, so he awarded one star to the NoLIta train wreck, Elizabeth. We awarded one star too, but that was probably generous, and it was before they fired the chef. Bruni doesn’t normally pull marginal candidates out of the woodwork only to destroy them, so we would have agreed with Eater that one star was the only possible bet.

Finally, we come to this week’s review, arguably another wasted slot: no stars for Michael’s. No one that pays the slightest attention to the food scene has paid attention to Michael’s since the Clinton administration, but it actually had two stars at one time. We’ll allow Bruni one diversion per year to slay a celebrity icon past its prime. Eater took the one-star bet, but I suspect we would have put our buck on zero.

Restaurant Girl's Ratings, WTF?

Since she debuted as the New York Daily News restaurant critic last year, Danyelle Freeman (a/k/a “Restaurant Girl”) has taken plenty of flak. In a recent interview, Robert Sietsema, the Village Voice’s veteran critic, ripped into her:

[New York Daily News]I think she was thrust into a very important position without having a lot of experience and perhaps chosen for extraneous reasons. Her writing has been improving, but still she seems to take an a priori, frivolous attitude towards the material. And the fact that she did choose to be recognized is, to me, like, really horrible… I presume that part of her being non-anonymous is that she goes into a restaurant under her own name, flashes her cleavage, and they just bring her free food.

You could fill a book with her tortured prose, like this howler in her review of Dovetail: “The rosy fish, grilled à la plancha, is exhilarated by a creamy horseradish gribiche (egg and mustard sauce) and bursts of caviar.” The fish was exhilarated? Actually, I thought the poor fish would rather still be swimming.

Fully alive to the problem, Freeman has the fix: she’s changed her rating system to a best-of-five stars, replacing the former best-of-four. I believe it happened just this week, with three-of-five for Elettaria. She’s also gone back and revised her old reviews retroactively—only the stars; not the grammar. That Dovetail review, formerly 3-of-4, is now 4-of-5.

Her old scale allowed half-stars, but it seems the new one does not. Merkato 55 is a winner, rounded up to 3-of-5 from 2½-of-4. South Gate is a loser, rounded down to 1-of-5 from 1½-of-4. Most perplexing is Adour, which she didn’t seem to like, but which gets the benefit of rounding to 3-of-5 from 2½-of-4.

We weren’t expecting to revise our star-system roundup quite this quickly. But revise it we will.

Update: RG explained to Eater.com: “The New York Daily News has newly implemented a five star rating system for all critical reviews (theater, movies, restaurants,) thus eliminating half stars…I have adjusted my system accordingly as well as readjusted all formerly filed reviews to the new system in order to maintain consistency.”