Review Preview: Marea

Tomorrow, Sam-I-Am Sifton reviews Marea, Chris Cannon & Michael White’s seafood stunner on Central Park South. The Eater oddsline is as follows: Sift Happens: 22-1; Three Stars: EVEN; Four: 20-1.

The Skinny: This was the restaurant that most of us were positive Frank Bruni would review before he left. The Brunz fawned over Italian restaurants in general, and none more so than Cannon & White’s two other places, Alto and Convivio, both of which received three stars. His reasons for taking a pass on Marea were never satisfactorily explained, but we believe he wasn’t quite sold on the place, but couldn’t bring himself to drop the hammer.

If Bruni was ambivalent, we can certainly understand his reasons. We were not impressed when we visited in June. In New York, Adam Platt was unhappy, but awarded three stars anyway, prompting an angry outburst from Michael White’s BFF, Josh Ozersky. Ryan Sutton in Bloomberg awarded four stars. Alan Richman in GQ doesn’t do stars, but if he did, said he’d award four, as well.

Notwithstanding our doubts, there seems to be a clear consensus for at least three stars. Besides, if DBGB is a two-star restaurant (as Sifton claimed it was a week ago), how could Marea get the same? Although Ozersky lobbied hard for a four-star review, we are assuming that Sifton isn’t that crazy.

The Bet: We agree with Eater’s Ben Leventhal that Sam Sifton will award three stars to Marea.

Review Preview: DBGB

Record to date: 12–5

Tomorrow, the Sam Sifton era at The New York Times begins with a review of Daniel Boulud’s casual downtown burger-and-sausage joint, DBGB Kitchen & Bar.

The Odds: The Eater.com odds have returned, with a slightly different format: One Star Odds: 3-1; Two Stars: 4-1; Sift Happens: 45-1.

The Skinny: With its casual vibe, informal décor, and a menu of mainly burgers, charcuterie, and inexpensive classics, DBGB screams “one-star restaurant.” To get two stars, it would need to be extremely good.

Reviews have been mixed, including a star each from Adam Platt in New York and Ryan Sutton in Bloomberg. However, Jay Cheshes in TONY four-of-fived it.

Boulud has had the luxury of an unusually long break-in period. The restaurant opened in June, and most reviews appeared in July or August. Sifton’s review meals likely did not begin until September, giving Boulud plenty of time to correct flaws the earlier reviewers complained about.

Sifton’s choice of a first review is a significant contrast from Frank Bruni, who opened by re-affirming Babbo’s three-star rating. We didn’t know it at the time, but that review foreshadowed what the Bruni era would be about—a preference for Italian cuisine, the love of all things Batali, and a distinct dislike for formal dining. A review of DBGB is not likely to tell us nearly as much.

But if, as we suspect, Bruni-era star inflation is finally over, Sifton is hardly likely to blow a two-star kiss at DBGB, which wouldn’t leave him much room for the real two-star restaurants to come. At the same time, we don’t think he’d begin with a restaurant he dislikes, which leaves one star as the most likely outcome.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Sam Sifton will award one star to DBGB.

Review Preview: Saul

Record to date: 11–5

Tomorrow, Pete Wells of the Times closes out his short career as restaurant critic with a trip out to Brooklyn to review Boerum Hill’s Michelin-starred darling, Saul.

Saul received a Michelin star in the inaugural 2006 New York City red guide, and it has one still. This frustrates foodies who suspect the tire man uses a gentler grading curve on the other side of the East River. We dined at Saul about four years ago and liked it better than we expected to, awarding 2½ stars out of four.

Saul has never had a full review in the New York Times. In 1999, Eric Asimov gave it a favorable write-up in $25 & Under. The restaurant has dialed up its prices since then, with entrées now $28–30, which would be the rough equivalent of $35 and up in Manhattan.

Wells has been stingy with the stars, giving out two goose-eggs and a singleton in three weeks. We think this review will be positive, in the first place because Wells is overdue to actually like something; and in the second place, because outer-borough restaurants seldom get bad reviews in the Times. The trifecta would surprise us, because it would open Wells to the same accusation leveled at Michelin—grading Brooklyn on a different curve. But we think Saul is easily good enough for the deuce.

We predict that Pete Wells will award two stars to Saul.

Review Preview: Hotel Griffou

While we wait for Sam Sifton, the Times’s Pete Wells is trolling the landscape for insignificant restaurants that do not demand the gravitas of a full-time critic. Last week, he gave us the smackdown of Gus & Gabriel Gastropub. Tomorrow, we have Hotel Griffou.

I doubt that Wells will deliver the goose egg two weeks in a row, but no critic yet has suggested that Hotel Griffou is an Important Restaurant. By process of elimination, we arrive at one star for Hotel Griffou.

Review Preview: Gus & Gabriel Gastropub

Record to date: 10–3

According to @pete_wells, “This week full reviews return to NYT Dining with a writeup on Gus & Gabriel Gastropub done by some guy named Pete Wells.”

The restaurant is named for Chef Michael Psilakis’s father (Gus) and his son (Gabriel), because “he intends the restaurant’s cooking to appeal to the kid in every adult.” It’s perhaps a slightly more sophisticated version of the comfort food that the Upper West Side is known for: salads, burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches, meatloaf—that sort of thing.

According to the online menu, most of the food is below $15. It’s the kind of place that would originally have fallen to the $25 & Under critic, back when that column contained real restaurant reviews.

Pete Wells has no history of doling out stars, but we can’t imagine that this place is better than the subject of Frank Bruni’s parting review, The Redhead, which earned one star. So that’s our guess for Gus & Gabriel: one star.

Review Preview: The Redhead

Record to date: 9–3.

Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews The Redhead in the East Village, bringing his five-year tenure to a close.

The Skinny: First, we have a little catching up to do. Before we went on vacation, we took a guess at Bruni’s last three reviews. We were right about just one of them: four stars for Eleven Madison Park. We missed the chance to issue our prediction on Union Square Cafe—a pity, as we knew it had to be two stars the instant we heard about it.

He didn’t review DBGB, and it turns out he’s skipping Marea, as well. That last one’s strange: Bruni taking a pass on an upscale Italian place? Is there a story waiting to be told?

So we come to The Redhead, a fine neighborhood place, but hardly an impressive choice for the final review. The one time we visited, it struck us as the quinessential one-star place—in a good way. When Frank Bruni takes pen in hand, two stars can never be ruled out, but we have trouble imagining how he would make the case for it.

The Prediction: We predict that lame-duck Frank will award one star to The Redhead.

Review Previews: DBGB, Marea, Eleven Madison Park

Record to date: 8–3

We’ll be away for the next two weeks, and most likely will not be able to post our Review Previews in real time, so we’re posting them now.

Bruni has three reviews remaining. What will they be?

1. Marea is a definite: there’s no way Bruni would pass up an upscale Italian place that opened on his watch.
2. Eater.com reported that Bruni has been spoted three times recently at Eleven Madison Park. He wouldn’t be there so often in the twilight of his tenure unless he’s working up a re-review.
3. The last one’s something of a wild card, but among places that must be reviewed (and a Boulud restaurant clearly fits this description), we are fairly certain that DBGB is the oldest outstanding.

Bruni has already reviewed Eleven Madison Park twice (two stars; 2/23/2005 and three stars; 1/10/2007). A promotion to four is the only conceivable reason to review it again. He has not named a new four-star restaurant since Masa in December 2004. The 4½-year gap is the longest in Times history, a record he set in the middle of last year. We and others believe that he’s itching to crown one more.

Unfortunately, that will leave poor Marea with three stars, as Bruni isn’t going to canonize two restaurants in under a month, when in almost five years he found none at all. We don’t think Marea is a four-star restaurant in any event, but given Bruni’s love-affair with Italian cuisine we thought he just might pull the trigger until we heard he was taking another hard look at Eleven Madison. (If the 11MP review doesn’t come through, then Mike White and Chris Cannon could still have a chance.)

Finally, DBGB: Most reviews we’ve seen (including our own) have been slightly less enthusiastic about this place than Bar Boulud at Lincoln Center, where Bruni awarded two stars. We therefore believe that DBGB will be rated a notch lower, at one star.

In summary, our predictions are: one star for DBGB, three stars for Marea, and four stars for Eleven Madison Park. Obviously, it’s possible that Bruni’s final reviews will include one or two other places, but we’re positive that Marea will be among the three.

Review Preview: Table 8

Record to date: 7–3

Just four reviews to go! Tomorrow, Frank Fantastic reviews Table 8 in the Cooper Square Hotel. We do not expect this one to be pretty. No critic yet has been smitten with this place, so the only question is: one or zero? Does Bruni have one more delicious smackdown left in him? The hour is late, so we’ll once again spare you the analysis, and take the bet on zero stars.

Review Preview: Locanda Verde

Record to date: 6–3

The NYT took its sweet time posting the teaser for tomorrow’s review: Locanda Verde. We’ll therefore skip the analysis and go straight to the prediction: Bruni + Carmellini + Italian = 2 stars.

Review Preview: Monkey Bar

Record to date: 6–2

Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Monkey Bar, Graydon Carter’s midtown cafeteria for celebrities and wannabes.

The Skinny: The two relevant data points are Carter’s downtown restaurant, the Waverly Inn (one star; January 2007) and the imitation a few blocks away, Charles (goose egg, April 2009). In both reviews, Bruni wrote hilariously as his alias, Frannie von Furstinshow. Without that conceit, the reviews were entirely pointless.

Would he pull that stunt again, a mere two months later? No one has suggested there is actually important cooking being committed at the Monkey Bar. It’s a place where Graydon Carter decides who is A–List, who is B, and who is Nobody. Even Restaurant Girl was banished to Siberia. Don’t they know who she IS?

Not long ago, the restaurant disconnected its reservation line: too many nobodies were calling for not enough seats. You can e-mail for one of the few reservations not claimed by Carter’s friends, but if you’re not Barry Diller or Madonna, you’re probably not getting in. If you do, you’ll get the sorriest real-estate, and you’ll probably be over-paying for mediocre food.

Of course, mediocrity never stopped Frank from giving one star in the past, and it wouldn’t surprise us if he does again. But Monkey Bar, even more than the Waverly Inn, feels like a cynical exercise in crass showmanship, and we think Bruni will penalize it accordingly.

The Prediction: We predict that Frank Bruni will give no stars to the Monkey Bar