Frank Bruni and the Fine Dining Deathwatch

Frank Bruni, the New York Times restaurant critic, has launched an all-out assault on fine dining. Bruni’s influence is difficult to measure. But there is no doubt that the city’s most influential critic has his knives sharpened against restaurants that offer classic, traditional luxury. Anyone planning such a restaurant must assume that the likelihood of recognition from the Times is close to nil.

By “fine dining,” I mean the traditional trappings of excellent restaurants: white tablecloths, a first-rate wine program, fine china and stemware, elegant service, and of course a serious chef with a top-notch kitchen brigade. In so defining it, I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with restaurants that serve great food without some or all of these trappings. Indeed, like most people, the vast majority of my meals are not consumed at luxury restaurants.

But there is a place in our city for traditional fine dining — the kinds of restaurants normally associated with three or four New York Times stars. During Frank Bruni’s tenure, proper recognition for these types of restaurants has all but disappeared.

In roughly 32 months on the job, Frank Bruni has issued 17 three-star reviews. Taken on its own, this is a reasonable pace. When you look at the characteristics of those restaurants, the results are sobering.

One restaurant, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, isn’t even in New York City. As far as I know, it’s the only NYT starred restaurant that is not in the five boroughs. It is an anomaly.

Another seven restaurants were previously reviewed by other critics, including:

• Two restaurants demoted from four stars (Alain Ducasse, Bouley)
• Three restaurants held at three stars (Babbo, Felidia, Picholine)
• Two restaurants promoted from two stars (Blue Hill, Eleven Madison Park)

Nobu 57 is a strange case, as it was technically a new restaurant, but it is a virtual clone of the original Nobu, which was already a three-star restaurant. Bruni could hardly have rated Nobu 57 anything other than three stars, unless he was going to re-rate the flagship restaurant, to which it is largely identical.

Hence, of the sixteen NYC restaurants that have received three-star reviews from Bruni, eight of them were either pure re-reviews, or in the case of Nobu 57, the clone of one. That leaves just eight truly new NYC restaurants that have received three stars from Frank Bruni.

Of the remaining eight restaurants, five of them are notable for their comparative informality: A Voce, Bar Room at the Modern, BLT Fish, Perry St., and L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon.

That leaves just three traditional “fine dining” restaurants that have earned three stars on Frank Bruni’s watch: Country, Cru, and Del Posto. Two out of the three are Italian or Italian-influenced (Cru and Del Posto). This leaves Country as the only new fine dining non-Italian restaurant that has won three stars from Bruni over a 32-month period.

Against this is a much longer list of fine dining restaurants that clearly were designed for and expected three stars, but received less: Alto, Cafe Gray, Gilt, Le Cirque, The Modern, and most recently, Gordon Ramsay. The message is clear: If you are opening a non-Italian fine dining restaurant in New York, the odds of a three-star review from Frank Bruni are slim. If the restaurant is French or French-influenced, the odds go down to near zero.

The odds against earning four stars are even worse. Frank Bruni has awarded four stars to no restaurants that opened during his tenure. He did review one four-star restaurant that was not a re-review: Per Se, which opened before Bruni started, but which no other Times critic had yet reviewed. With Per Se’s clone, The French Laundry, regularly appearing on lists of the world’s greatest restaurants, the decision was practically made for him. To have awarded anything less than four stars to Per Se would have taken Bruni’s credibility to the breaking point.

Even at Per Se, Bruni’s award of four stars seemed almost regretful. What finally persuaded him? Of all things, the vegetable tasting—surely Per Se’s least often ordered menu option. He also complained of ostentation, and a menu “too intent on culinary adventure or too highfalutin in its presentation and descriptions of dishes.” Where, if not here, would culinary adventure be expected? Where, if not here, would “highfalutin” presntation be acceptable, if not indeed demanded?

Bruni’s reviews of fine dining restaurants are full of comments suggesting he is hostile to the genre. The food at Cafe Gray is “fussy”; at The Modern, “over-thought and overwrought”; at Alto, “something too restrained”; at Gilt, the chef “sometimes doesn’t know when to pull back, pipe down and let superior food speak for itself”; at Gordon Ramsay, “low-key loveliness…in place of big excitement.”

His brutal demotions of Alain Ducasse and Bouley are especially telling. Ducasse was done in by an out-of-order toilet and a slightly snooty sommelier. The Bouley review dragged in a bunch of unrelated gossip about David Bouley’s other activities, and wondered whether his heart was still in it—that, notwithstanding a comment about “serious talent in the kitchen.”

The after-effects of Bruni’s smackdowns have ranged from devastating to irrelevant. At Ducasse and Gilt, chefs were fired, and Ducasse closed altogether. The Modern and Bouley still seem to be doing just fine. But to the extent Frank Bruni’s reviews have any influence, anyone who dares open a serious non-Italian fine dining restaurant is taking an almost unacceptable risk. The city’s principal restaurant critic will probably not acknowledge excellence even if he trips over it.

Moskin at the Morgan: A New Standard for Irrelevance

This week, as Frank Bruni recuperates from his Roman Holiday, Julia Moskin filled in with a two-star review of the Morgan Dining Room.

I suppose that if one is going to review a restaurant so far off the radar, the least one can do is award two stars — otherwise, why bother? But the Morgan Dining Room is open only for lunch six days a week, and for dinner just one day a week (Fridays, 5 to 9). And of the recommended dishes…

Green salad, beet salad, ricotta and Swiss chard tart, mussels, striped bass on squash risotto, salmon with baby carrots and parsnips, lobster salad, fruit cobbler, cookie plate

…most are salads or desserts. Of the mussels, striped bass and salmon, all we’re told is that they’re “successful.” All in all, if this is a two-star restaurant — and I’m not saying it couldn’t be — Moskin’s case is rather limp.

Steve Cuozzo of the Post says he doesn’t write reviews any more, but in a piece today called “Messed Western,” he seems to do exactly that, dropping the hammer on Ted Turner’s Montana Grill and Tim Love’s Lonesome Dove Western Bistro. The original Lonesome Dove carries the Zagat #1 food rating in Dallas, so Cuozzo’s review, if true, would be a significant fall from grace. Undeterred by Cuozzo’s review, I’m keeping my reservation at the Lonesome Dove a week from Saturday.

Steven A Shaw's "Turning the Tables"

Turning the Tables: Restaurants from the Inside Out
by Steven A. Shaw
New York: HarperCollins, 2005
xxiv+216 pages

Steven A. Shaw is the “Fat Guy” of eGullet, the superb Internet food site that he co-founded, and to which I am addicted. Any regular visitor to the site will have been impressed by Shaw’s encyclopedic knowledge of the restaurant industry and especially the New York restaurant scene. Shaw gave up a career in the law to become a food writer. It is his passion, and it comes through in everything he writes.

A bit belatedly, I finally got around to reading this book. It’s about 200 pages, but goes by quickly. I bought it on a Thursday night and finished it the next day. Curiously, although it’s hardcover, the book is shaped like a Zagat Guide, which is a strange design choice. I found it a little unwieldy to hold.

The book’s premise is to provide an insider view of the restaurant industry. Shaw talks about how they manage their reservation books, how kitchens work, how ingredients are sourced, how restaurants operate as businesses, and the “Restaurant Information Age.” Most of his points are made by example. The bulk of his research was conducted in high-end New York restaurants (Eleven Madison Park, Gramercy Tavern, Tavern on the Green, Café Gray), but he also visits a hot dog stand, pizzerias in New Haven, barbecue joints in the South, and a small restaurant in Florida where one guy does all the cooking.

Shaw has done most of his writing in short formats, and it shows: the book reads like a series of newspaper feature articles. This structure makes the material easily digestible, but at times it lacks depth. For instance, in the chapter on “The Business of the Restaurant Business,” Shaw takes brief tours of projects that are already in progress, but they are only fly-bys. Take Café Gray, for instance. Shaw wants to tell us what it takes to open a new restaurant, but when he first drops by, the space is already under construction. A lot of the formative stages have already happened. And he never gets far enough to tell us how it all turned out after Café Gray opened: What worked? What didn’t?

Shaw spends several pages on one of his favorite hobby horses: critic anonymity. He believes that critics should drop the pretense of dining anonymously, since restaurant staffs usually recognize them anyway. He argues persuasively that restaurants can’t really improve the quality of the food when a critic is in the house, so in that sense anonymity is meaningless. Instead, he suggests that critics should develop “ties—close ties—to the community.” Shaw believes that those close ties will allow the critic to obtain better information, and ultimately to “promote the best within the industry while exposing the worst.”

Shaw’s own book demonstrates why this will not work, for it is notable that Shaw never criticizes any of the restaurants or restaurateurs whom he had personally interviewed or worked with during his research. To the contrary, he gushes and fawns over them. It is a love-fest. Regular eGullet visitors will know that Shaw hasn’t lost his critical faculties. But in the book, he holds his tongue. He is too indebted to his sources—without whom the book would have been impossible—to confide what he really thinks about what he may have seen or heard.

By the way, Shaw doesn’t hesitate to criticize those whom he did not work with. He gives an extremely balanced view of the Zagat Guides, both their strengths and methodological flaws. He rightly takes the New York Times to task for selecting amateurs as food critics (William Grimes and particularly Frank Bruni). He brashly says that “Michelin will, and should, fail to gain traction in the United States.” Early indications suggest that he is already being proved wrong on that prediction. But would he have been so harsh had Michelin invited Shaw to a few confidential inspectors’ meetings? To the contrary, one must assume that Shaw would have bestowed heaps of praise upon Michelin, just as he did for everyone who helped him on the present volume.

Mind you, I am not suggesting that Shaw has done anything wrong here. I would be very happy to receive just one-tenth of the comped meals and insider access that Shaw receives. But I do not suggest that I could write about those restaurants with the same objectivity as a critic who attempts—however imperfectly—to remain detached and anonymous.

One can understand Shaw’s lack of objectivity about the wonderful resource he co-founded: eGullet. Having already run us through the limitations of Zagat, Michelin, and newspaper reviews, he asks, “Is there another way? I think there is. It’s called the Internet.” Jaws drop in amazement. There’s this undiscovered secret called the Internet, and somehow we missed it!

Anyhow, I’m as big a fan of the medium as anybody, but Shaw’s discussion of the Internet doesn’t have the same detachment—and perhaps it can’t—as it does where he’s not personally involved. He steers clear of mentioning Chowhound, the one other Internet site that could reasonably be considered a competitor to eGullet. Perhaps that’s because, in any rational comparison, Chowhound would invariably come across as inferior, and Shaw could be forgiven for not wanting to gloat. However, I could see no reason for his failure to mention the invaluable menupages.com, or indeed, any other Internet site that caters to dining out.

Along the way, Shaw doesn’t spare us his opinions, and some are provocative. He appears to be right when he criticizes overly harsh U. S. agricultural regulations that prohibit the manufacture of chesse made from raw (un-pasteurized) milk, even though it is permitted in Europe. He concludes that the purported health risk is insignificant.

He strongly believes it is worthwhile to focus your dining on a few good restaurants, so that you’ll become a “regular” and get treated like a VIP. One of the book’s early chapters explains precisely how to go about doing that. I don’t doubt Shaw, since he’s done it and I haven’t. But for the moment I intend to disregard his advice. Trying new places—his advice in a different chapter—is just too much fun.

Some of Shaw’s general advice seems trivial. He points out that most restaurants have a menu posted outside, and it’s a good idea to read the menu first before deciding whether to eat there. Yet, we shouldn’t be afraid to try new things. I think my mother told me all that before I was 10. Shaw advises us to remember to say “please” and “thank you.” Those to whom this is a revelation are probably beyond his help.

A final chapter on the future of dining takes a fun look at where the restaurant industry has been, and where Shaw thinks it is going. He interviews Jean-Jacques Rachou (La Côte Basque) and Georges Briguet (Le Perigord), two conseratives who turn out to be surprisingly open-minded. He also profiles avant-garde chefs like Ferran Adria of El Bulli and Grant Achatz of Alinea. He argues convincingly that we shouldn’t be concerned about global chefs who aren’t always present in the kitchens they supervise: all chefs are executives, and are to some extent dependent on work done in their absence. “To my way of thinking…all chefs are absentee chefs,” he says. “The only variable I have been able to isolate is the extent of their absence.” Less persuasive is his strange definition of authenticity as “being faithful to oneself.”

Shaw has a tendency toward hyperbole that can be extremely irritating. Nobu Masuhisa’s flavors are “seemingly extraterrestrial.” Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Gray Kunz “run roughshod over culinary borders with the audacity of international arms dealers.” A pizza oven is “ancient…spewing forth sparks, flames, and smoke with reckless abandon.” (Can an inanimate object be reckless?) The workers who tend it “look as though they’ve been working the boiler room of the Titanic.” A cheese-making machine “looks like an evil harp.” He later tastes the cheeses: “all are at least superlative.”

The book is written in Shaw’s easy conversational style. There are occasional lapses into irrelevance, such as complaints about having to wake up early to do research. My alarm goes off at 5:45am on weekdays—a time not unusual among New Yorkers—so Shaw’s complaints about leaving the house at 6:30am don’t draw much sympathy from me. The ongoing saga of his choices of shoes, none of which seem to make him comfortable, is a distraction we don’t need.

But while it may be a mixed bag, there is much here about the restaurant industry from the inside-out, which is precisely what Shaw set out to tell us. I can’t imagine anyone more qualified to tell it. One gets the sense that Shaw has far more knowledge to share than made it into this book. I will be very happy to see a sequel.

$25 and Over

For many years, the New York Times has employed two restaurant critics, the only paper in town to do so. The main critic reviews the “high-end,” and another critic writes a column called “$25 and Under.” Just how the Times defines a $25 meal is unclear, but it seems to include only the entrées. For instance, in April Eric Asimov reviewed August, a Greenwich Village newcomer with entrées ranging from $16-24. Clearly, you’re not getting out of there for under $25, unless you drink sodas, skip dessert, and order from the bottom end of the menu. Indeed, my own solo meal at August ran to about $75 all-in, which included three courses and two drinks. I did not order the most expensive things, by any means. The definition of a meal’s cost on Zagat’s website is far more sensible, and consistent with the way other guides define it: “The cost column reflects the estimated price of a dinner with one drink and tip.”

Part of the Times’s problem is that the “$25 and Under” label has been unchanged since the 1980s. At one time, you probably could have eaten at these places for under $25. Asimov admitted to the New York Observer recently that the label is no longer strictly true:

Twelve years ago, The New York Times launched “$25 and Under,” a weekly column cataloging good (or at least decent) restaurants for cheap. A spokesperson for The Times declined to comment on whether the paper would consider changing the column to reflect today’s elevated prices.

On April 14, 2004, its writer, Eric Asimov, reviewed the meatpacking district’s Barbuto: “Best of all,” Mr. Asimov wrote, “the main courses are under $20 and almost all appetizers are under $10, providing a rare opportunity to try a celebrity chef’s work without celebrity prices.” Err, just what is our definition of “celebrity prices” these days?

Recently, Mr. Asimov hit Shore in Tribeca, which boasts a $29 steak, and La Nacional on 14th Street, with a $15-per-person paella and “tiny lamb chops,” also for $15.”It wouldn’t be incorrect to say the literal meaning of ‘$25 and Under’ doesn’t always apply anymore,” Mr. Asimov said. “It just so happens that in Manhattan, the neighborhood restaurant has greatly increased in price. In the 1990’s, when the economy was cruising along, all these neighborhood restaurants started serving foie gras.”

The fault lines were even more brutally exposed with this week’s pair of NYC reviews. The main critic, Frank Bruni, reviewed Ici (246 Dekalb Avenue, Brooklyn), where entrées are $12-17. In inflation-adjusted terms, it might be the most inexpensive restaurant ever to earn one star. It was also a rare venture outside Manhattan by the main critic. In the “$25 and Under” column, Matt and Ted Lee reviewed Maia (98 Avenue B), where entrées are $12-21. Thus, the so-called “$25 and Under” restaurant, which was ineligible for a star under the Times system, was actually more expensive than the restaurant the main critic covered this week. Whether the brothers Lee would have awarded Maia a star had they been allowed to is somewhat beside the point. There is no doubt in my mind that August warranted a star [it subsequently received two].

It must be pointed out that the “$25 and Under” critic sometimes reviews obscure, hole-in-the-wall places that are no more than an over-achieving sandwich shops or taco stands. To award these places a star would stretch the Times rating system beyond what it will bear. There’s a certain minimum expectation of service and pampering that one expects even at the low end of the star scale. A sandwich joint, no matter how good, just doesn’t deserve one star. But increasingly, the $25 and Under” column overlaps the main reviewer’s territory. Yet, these restaurants can’t have a star – and the cachet that goes with it.

This isn’t the only oddity in the Times’s reviewing system. The main critic actually writes two reviews a week: the main review on Wednesdays, and a shorter column called “Diner’s Journal” on Fridays. Restaurants covered in the Diner’s Journal are never eligible for stars, but sometimes the critic comes back and grants those restaurants a full review soon afterwards. A recent example was V Steakhouse in the Time Warner mall, which was the subject of a Diner’s Journal column on June 18th, and then a full one-star review on July 14th. The full review made essentially the same points as the Diner’s Journal column less than a month earlier. Had the restaurant been inclined to take any of Bruni’s points to heart (and I don’t know that they were), a month was clearly not enough time for them to do so.

The upshot is that the Times has three columns a week that walk, talk, and squalk like reviews, but only one of which awards the coveted stars. On eGullet, one writer thought that the two reviewing positions fall between two stools:

As it is right now, we have a “highbrow plus a little middlebrow” reviewer and a “lowbrow plus a little middlebrow” reviewer. In both cases, the reviewers are delving into somewhat inappropriate territory when they reach into the middle. Also, every time a middlebrow neighborhood place is reviewed by the high end guy, we’re missing out on a potential review or re-review of a haute place. Likwise, we’re missing out on a potential review or re-review of a cheap eats place every time the <$25 guys review a middlebrow neighborhood restaurant. There is also somewhat of an inequity as to which middlebrow restaurants are reviewed by which reviewer. There is no denying the fact that a review by the high end guy, even if some faults are mentioned, is more prestigious and beneficial to the restaurant than a glowing review by the <$25 guy. The inevitable result is that quality middlebrow neighborhood places are underrepresented with reviews. What we’re left with is a situation where certain middlebrow places are raised above their peers with a big review (e.g., Ici), others are given a <$25 review that doesn’t devote the kind and depth of scrutiny they deserve (e.g., Franny’s), and most of them are simply never reviewed (e.g., @SQC). I’d like to see a system whereby all thee of these places would have an informed, well-written review that was made by a reviewer who was familiar with middle-level dining, and that could be viewed against the history of other such reviews. This is a particular shame considering that middlebrow dining is one of the largest segments of NY dining.

Having said all that, I don’t see the slightest bit of evidence that the Times has any interest in fundamentally rethinking its system. But if they do, there’s certainly plenty to think about.

Clueless Chowhounds

There are two online food boards that I follow regularly: eGullet and Chowhound. Both have discussion forums organized by geography. You’ll find eGullet’s New York board here, and you’ll find Chowhound’s Manhattan board here. (Chowhound management tosses a hissy fit if you mention Peter Luger on their Manhattan board, even though Luger is economically part of the Manhattan market. They insist it belongs on an “outer borough” board.)

eGullet is superior to Chowhound in almost every respect. It has a more intuitive user interface, it is easier to find things, and the average post is considerably more sophisticated. This is not to deny that you sometimes find useful comments on Chowhound - otherwise I wouldn’t bother to read it - but they’re fewer and far between.

I am particularly amused by clueless Chowhound posts like this one yesterday:

Looking for recommendations for good eats (dinner) in the West 50’s. Scene/buzz/beautiful people _not_ of interest; just wonderful eats.

All cuisines are in the ballpark except for Mexican and Indian (thanks to spice allergy).

Now, there are hundreds of restaurants in the West 50s. Menupages lists 274 of them, and of course not all restaurants are on Menupages. So to ask for “good eats” in the West 50s, with the only requirement that it not be Mexican or Indian, is an idiotic question. I mean, I’m pretty tolerant of those who are intellectually challenged, but this is just not a thoughtful question. And there are a few howlers like this on Chowhound’s Manhattan board almost every day.

And am I the only one who finds the ridiculous word “eats” totally unnecessary? I’m alright with “foodie” (another recurring word on these boards), as there is no other word of comparable length that conveys the same meaning. It is, in other words, a useful addition to the language. But “eats” merely means “food,” as far as I can tell, and both are four letters.

Hessergate

The New York Times hasn’t had a full-time restaurant critic since William Grimes stepped down from the post at the end of last year. As Grimes is still with the Times, working on other assignments, you’d think the paper could have persuaded him to stay in the chair a few months longer until a permanent successor could be named, but for whatever reason that wasn’t possible. Evidently Grimes couldn’t take eating out 10-12 times a week (and the rumored $150k+ expense account that goes with it) for a day longer. Marian Burros filled in for a while, and for the last couple of months it has been Amanda Hesser. Hesser is a fine writer, but she has made a mess of things, and no doubt the Times will heave a sigh of relief when a permanent successor to Mr. Grimes takes over.

Hesser got herself in trouble with a glowing, almost fawning, 3-star review of Spice Market (403 West 13th Street at 9th Avenue), the Jean-Georges Vongerichten-Gray Kunz homage to Asian street food that’s the latest rage in the trendy meatpacking district. Well, it turns out that JGV wrote a glowing jacket blurb for Hesser’s book Cooking for Mr. Latte. It is safe to say that Hesser benefited enormously from such a high-profile endorsement, and her review looks like a quid pro quo.

Bear in mind that, according to the Times, there are just five 4-star restaurants in New York City, and all of those are temples of French haute cuisine. A 3-star review of a place that sells “street food” is thus highly unusual, if not unprecedented. Coming from the Times, such a review instantly puts Spice Market at the top of the pile. To add insult to injury, Hesser failed to mention JGV’s partner, Gray Kunz, and she praised the desserts while failing to credit the pastry chef. The review mentioned Vongerichten’s name eleven times.

The embarrassed Times says it stands by the review (how could it do otherwise?) but had to issue a correction:

A restaurant review in the Dining section last Wednesday about Spice Market, on West 13th Street in Manhattan, awarded it three stars. The writer was Amanda Hesser, The Times’s interim restaurant critic. Last May, before her assignment to that post, Ms. Hesser published a book, “Cooking for Mr. Latte,” that was praised in a jacket blurb by the restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who later opened Spice Market. He wrote: “Amanda Hesser’s charming personality shines as the reader experiences the life and loves of a New York City gourmet. `Cooking for Mr. Latte’ is perfectly seasoned with sensuality and superb recipes.” The review should have disclosed that background.

Reviews of Spice Market have been mixed, which only adds to the perception—whether justified or not—that Hesser had no business awarding it three stars. (Although Hesser’s lack of disclosure may raise eyebrows, the rating is defensible. Andrea Strong praises Spice Market just as highly as Hesser did, sans conflict-of-interest. So does Hal Rubenstein in the April 19th issue of New York.)

Hesser’s problems didn’t start or end there. On February 24, she reviewed Asiate, awarding just one star. Now, from all I’ve read Asiate is an extraordinary restaurant that isn’t yet clicking on all cylinders. Nevertheless, to award just one star is practically an insult, and nothing in the review itself seemed to justify such a hard slap. She ends the review with this bon mot:

There is also the view. You sit atop an urban canyon, as the sheer cliffs of Midtown drop off into the park. From this height, the traffic below seems to glide and swirl without an ounce of contention. The pressures of city life ease a little. And for that alone, I might order a glass of sake, stay for the gougères, then feign illness and steal across Columbus Circle to Jean Georges for a meal that never disappoints.

Once again, a bouquet for Jean-Georges Vongerichten.

When not praising her favorite restauranteur, Hesser has been stripping restaurants of stars previously won. On March 17 Montrachet was demoted from three stars to two, while today Compass got the shove from two stars to one, despite the installation of a new highly regarded chef, Katy Sparks.

This passage of her Compass review showed another lapse in judgment:

A renovation is planned, and I hope it includes the service, which vacillates between comically inept and smothering. One night, I asked the waiter if he could describe the venison entree. “It’s awesome!” he said. Later, when we were having dessert, the waiter popped open a half-bottle of Bruno Paillard Champagne and began pouring.

“What did we do to deserve this?” I asked.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “I forgot to serve it to another table, and I didn’t feel like taking it back to the bar. So here you go.”

It’s pretty well known that the Times does not permit its critics to accept free food or drinks. Does Ms. Hesser really believe that the waiter was unaware whom he was serving, or the lame excuse he offered for giving her a drink she neither ordered nor paid for? Obviously the restaurant’s largesse did them no good in this instance, but why did Ms. Hesser accept it, in clear contravention of her paper’s stated policy?

And if a “renovation” is planned, why review Compass now? Given that the Times cannot re-review a restaurant very often, would it not have made considerably more sense to wait until after the rehab was complete?

Between keeping up with new openings, and cleaning up the mess Ms. Hesser has made in her brief tenure, the Times’s new restaurant critic will have his or her hands full. (Update: The Times has now announced that Frank Bruni, presently the NYT’s Rome bureau chief, will become the new restaurant critic. His first review will appear June 9th.)