If you don’t mind my asking, did you pay for the meal? Just curious.
I agree with this. I appreciate the fact that Pete Wells provoked a discussion about fine dining and its merits, including relative QPR, however there’s something about the manner in which he did it that seems inflammatory, excessively so. There are times when I read his work and wonder if he really loves food, or if he just loves stirring the pot ![[stirthepothal.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/f/f40faec63ca1018898a40805efbf9f0066a3d205.gif "[stirthepothal.gif]"){kind=small}
and triggering a social media firestorm. The pieces on Guy Fieri, Señor Frog’s were interesting, but did they really merit a NY times restaurant review? Would most of the Food section readers really consider going there versus some of the other, more interesting and vital restaurants in NYC that would more greatly benefit from the exposure granted by a review in the NY times? This isn’t even an April Fool’s type of thing like Jonathan Gold reviewing the Olive Garden, but something that Pete Wells has consistently done and delighted in, to what I think is the detriment of the level of food writing as a whole.
I can understand how the restaurant critic of the NY Times can use his/her pulpit however they choose, but I wish he would do more to elevate the dining scene and the discourse on food in NY, rather than generate click bait. Until I got to this forum, none of the pieces I read online about the Per Se review were substantive or questioning; most were juvenile sniggers fixated on the “bong water” quote and its ilk.
I grew up reading the NY Times dining section and listening to Ruth Reichl’s voice on the radio (back when the times owned WQXR) in the 90s, and reading her work and delighting in the way she made me want to try and explore, not recoil in disgust. Even when she panned a popular high-end restaurant like Le Cirque, she did it in a way that was elegant and eloquent, and raised serious questions about classism and sexism in the NYC restaurant culture:
Maybe this is just part of me remembering and missing a different era, though I’m not even that old…
I have tremendous respect for everything Ruth Reichl has done (caveat - I haven’t read her books). Her restaurant reviewing, her time at Gourmet, her editing of the Gourmet cookbook…
I almost feel like it isn’t fair to compare other reviewers to someone who stands so very tall.
that le cirque review was great! something like-ms reichl, you’re table is ready. the king and queen of spain will have to wait at the bar…
i believe it was garlic and sapphires that contained many of her times reviews and background on how she arranged them. it is a fun read.
I cut it out of the Times and saved it for years. Ditto with the glowing review she wrote of Lespinasse.
I don’t think it’s fair to characterize Pete Wells as the “least respected” restaurant critic in the Times’ recent history. You make a good point that his choice of restaurants (Guy Fieri and Senor Frogs) raises some eyebrows and sometimes it feels like he’s taking potshots in a way that is unnecessary and somewhat detrimental to his work as a critic (the recent review of the pizza restaurant being one example). That said there were other NYT critics who were so careful to watch where they stepped in the industry that they became, well, uncritical.
Put it this way - there has been a tremendous amount of discussion over Wells’ review but not a lot of it has questioned the accuracy of what he’s written (the two star rating itself aside).
Oh please. Bryan Miller had perfected this schtick at the Times 30 years ago. Let’s not act like its new.
Mamma Leone’s - Poor
Mamma Leone’s reopened to much fanfare two and a half months ago on 44th Street at Eighth Avenue, four blocks from its former home, which is to become a residential tower. For years this 600-seat Neapolitan tourist haunt has been considered little more than a garish sideshow in the Broadway theater district, hardly worth serious scrutiny. Yet all the hoopla over its new place piqued my curiosity, so I decided to give it a try.
The Playbill-toting customers who wander into this 82-year-old institition are met by a host and escorted past white plaster nymphs, leafy grottoes, brick arches and Chianti-filled wine racks into one of the downstairs dining rooms or upstairs to a sprawling open room overlooking West 44th Street.
Upon being seated you are presented with a platter of Italian breads strewn with cottony cubes of pale tomato and garlic, which they call bruschetta; a rubbery brick of tasteless mozzarella the color of old soap; a dish of olives; slices of pepperoni, and a basket of breadsticks.
As for the service staff, I have had warmer encounters with people serving me traffic summonses. The weary veterans I encountered, all wearing gold badges with their tours of duty -‘‘Mamma Leone’s Since 1954’’ - trudge around their defined stations with the apparent goal of exerting the least possible energy on an eight-hour shift. When I made the unpardonable mistake of asking a waiter assigned to the adjacent territory for a clean fork - mine was smudged and encrusted - he grunted and pointed to another waiter at the far end of the room.
We waited 15 minutes for a bottle of wine from the arrogantly overpriced list, only to have our waiter plop it down at the table unopened, then disappear - not to fetch a corkscrew, however, but to take a dessert order from another table. Ten minutes later he returned, desserts and corkscrew on his platter. Why make two trips when one will do?
As for the food, it is scarier than anything conjured up at ‘‘The Phantom of the Opera’’ at the Majestic Theater next door. When I asked our waiter what was in the appetizer called stuffed tomato and zucchini, he muttered something incomprehensible, flashed an exasperated look, then finally said, ‘‘Breadcrumbs, you know, breadcrumbs.’’ Breadcrumbs they were, over a fibrous halved tomato and a woody hollowed-out zucchini. Stuffed clams had even more breadcrumbs, sodden and sticky ones, with barely a hint of clams. Minestrone Leone put canned soup in a favorable light, and sheets of prosciutto did little for a hard, overchilled unripe melon.
Forget any of the pastas that come with industrial-grade tomato sauce. One mildly satisfying addition to the updated menu is fettuccine with salsa aurora (tomato, cream and porcini). Fusilli putanesca, on the other hand, is a bland and soupy mess. Roasted leg of veal with grilled polenta, for $29.95, features two anemic slices of dry meat lying in a puddle of watery juice, along with a pale yellow slab that tastes like day old Cream of Wheat. Roast chicken, for $24.95, arrived looking like one of those shriveled delicatessen birds after about nine hours on the rotisserie - and it tasted even drier. One dish that survived the kitchen relatively undamaged was osso buco, a tender braised veal shank with an inoffensive vegetable sauce. Seafood? Don’t even ask.
For dessert, you can attack a wedge of the Sahara called cheesecake or get a sugar rush from an awful rendition of tiramisu. As a final insult, they try to trick tourists into tipping on the tax as well as the food by combining the two on credit card receipts.
Mamma Leone’s is to Italian cuisine what break-dancing is to classical ballet - but not half as amusing
West 44th Street, 586-5151.
Atmosphere: Touristy Neapolitan grotto look. Enormous open room upstairs.
Service: Abysmal.
Recommended dishes: Fettuccine with porcini, osso buco.
Price range: Lunch, appetizers $5.95 to $7.95, main courses $10.50 to $15.95. Complete dinners $16.95 to $29.95 daily until 11 P.M. A la carte menu is available after 10 P.M.
I find this to be a very important point.
david z, thanks
you just reminded me of many wonderful times with my long deceased grandparents at mamma leones eating fettucine alfredo and cheesecake
i had completely forgotten about that place!
I couldn’t agree more that the importance of front of house has faded to the detriment of many, many restaurants. I don’t mean formality, or the variety of different pieces of flatware, but an awareness that experience, warmth, welcome, relationship with the diner are all part of what makes a great restaurant. More places need to remember this.
However, your choice of Josh Bell as a simile fodder I can’t agree with. One of the most self-indulgent and spoofilated musicians of our time, albeit very talented. He’s a wine guy, too, or fancies himself one.
Very apropos commentary from Juan Mari Arzak (from *** Arzak in San Sebastian) about the future of restaurants. Link is below, but the best passage mirrors what Sarah and others have been saying:
All of this is to say that if my story is any indication, the future is bright. I have no doubt that we will see many great movements in cooking. You will hear some people say that chefs are done cooking ambitious food, that it’s all casual and simple now, or that fine dining is dead. I couldn’t disagree more. A lot of people may like going to more modest places because they are excellent and cheap, and a lot of chefs might like to open them because they are easier to open.
I think that people are focusing on the wrong things when they talk about the restaurants of the future. People talk about how long the menus will be, how elegant the spaces, these sorts of material concerns. The restaurants of the future will be about three things: excellent food, smart service, and above all, lots of affection—cariño— for the guests. The latter is the key as we go forward. All of this “yes, sir” and “no, sir” business is gone. You have to respect the guests and be professional, but you can’t be servile, because the most important thing is showing them that you have heart and you want to give them everything you have.
I have no love for Josh Bell (though I once got puke-in-a-trash-can drunk with him off of cheap beer many years ago), but was referring to: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/pearls-before-breakfast-can-one-of-the-nations-great-musicians-cut-through-the-fog-of-a-dc-rush-hour-lets-find-out/2014/09/23/8a6d46da-4331-11e4-b47c-f5889e061e5f_story.html
Excellent sentiments. Funny that I had one of the work experiences of my dining life at Arzak, based largely on the deplorable service. 
I agree with this. There is a way to make very serious and professional service feel comfortable and warm. My NYC example of this is Blue Hill.
Not the least respected of recent history, but rather, of all time. (He and Sifton can duke it out for that dubious honor. My money is on Wells.) Some of the true giants of the American food scene preceded him. People whose collective list of books published is as long as your arm. Don’t get me wrong, I think that the Per Se takedown is the best thing that Wells has ever done, but one good article does not a career make. He spends too much time trying to be cute and clever, and most of the time, he is neither. Actual reviews of the restaurants often get lost in his attempts to be funny and aerbic. Here is the gospel according to Eater, prior to Wells’s tenure:
"Many wondered, when Times restaurant critic Sam Sifton announced his retirement from the gig this week, whether or not he had the shortest tenure of all restaurant critics at the paper. Turns out it’s not even close! With the help of Mitchell Davis’ book A Taste for New York, Eater has compiled this handy guide to all the critics since Craig Claiborne pretty much founded the Dining Section in 1957, learning two critics left even earlier than the Siftonator. Have a look at the full chronology and do peruse the book for a much more in depth analysis of each critic’s style:
Craig Claiborne, 1957 - 1972: Claiborne, the first man to run a dining section at an American newspaper, reviewed important restaurants here and there, but he didn’t begin the tradition of a weekly review, based on multiple, anonymous visits, until 1963. He stayed on as editor until 1986.
Raymond Sokolov, 1971 - 1974: Formerly a reporter for Newsweek in France, Sokolov critiqued restaurants from the Wall Street Journal decades later, leaving that paper in 2010.
John L. Hess, 1973 - 1974: With the shortest critic tenure, Hess reviewed for nine months. He came from the Times’ Paris bureau and went on to write The Taste of America with his wife, which blamed Claiborne and Julia Child for contributing to the decline of the American palate. Hess, a real crank, once gave all of Chinatown four stars.
John Canaday, 1974 - 1976: He was the art critic for the Times who did reviews part time until Sheraton came along. He gave an Italian restaurant four stars in 1975.
Mimi Sheraton, August 1976 - December 1983: Sheraton was a Dining Section staffer who filled in for Canaday when on vacation. He gave her the job when he saw how well she did, making her the first full time restaurant critic at the Times and the first to go to great lengths to disguise herself. Her first review was a four spot for Palm.
Marian Burros, January 1983 - 1984: Burros was a Dining Section staff writer who filled the role for just a year before handing it over to Miller. She has filled in as interim critic since leaving the job.
Bryan Miller, 1984 - June 1993: Miller, a francophile and trained chef, had the longest tenure as critic at the Times. He moved on to be a freelancer for the Times and others and famously criticized his successor for ruining the star system when she awarded three stars to Honmura An.
Ruth Reichl, September 1993 - January 1999: Reichl was the critic for the Los Angeles Times before making the switch and was known for exploring ethnic cuisines and wearing elaborate disguises. She left in '99 for Gourmet.
[Interim: Frank Prial, Marian Burros]
William Grimes, February 1999 - December 2003: Grimes joined the paper in 1989 and became a dining section reporter in 1997 before getting the big promotion. He eventually moved to Books and the Obituaries. He penned a book about New York restaurant history called Appetite City.
[Interim: Marian Burros, Amanda Hesser]
Frank Bruni, April 2004 - August 2009: Bruni came over from the Rome bureau and stayed for five years before moving on to the Times magazine and then the opinion page. He was the first critic to really work in the world of online restaurant news, Yelp, and the rest. He penned a memoir about his life and his issues with food called Born Round.
[Interim: Pete Wells]
Sam Sifton, October 2009 - October 2011: Sam Sifton joined the Dining Section from the Culture desk, where he oversaw the Arts sections. He cut his teeth reviewing restaurants over at the New York Press. Known for writing as much about the scene and its meaning as about the food of a restaurant, he wove pop cultural and literary references throughout his reviews. He moves on to the National desk at a yet to be announced date this fall."
What a bigoted, effete, stuffed shirt of a fellow you are (and coming from me, you know that you are in trouble now!), not to mention one who no doubt eats very well on the “corporate dime” (well, client hundred-dollar bills anyway). You are clueless as to what goes on outside of your own head, and as badly afflicted with traditional New Yorker navel-gazing myopia as I have ever seen. (As a former Wall Street lawyer and 10-year Manhattan resident, I still get to lay waste to New York and its populace with insider impunity.) Are you the devil spawn of Steve Plotnicki? 
Reality is NOT that Per Ses are popping up all over the place, and the food press seems to have that right. They pop up and survive only where there are diners with hot-and-cold running cash to support them: New York, L.A., San Francisco and the Silicon Valley, Chicago, Las Vegas. Even the next tier of major American cities cannot support Keller’s level of usurious dining experiences: Boston, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Miami, Orlando, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Atlanta (although it may be getting close), Charlotte, Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Diego…the list could go on for quite a while. In its prime, America’s one-time greatest dining city, New Orleans, would have laughed a money grubber like Keller out of town.
Somebody else correctly stated the present reality above: there is room for both expensive, fine dining experiences and places where excellence of the food and/or a fun, casual environment dominate over pomp and circumstance. The latter have always, and will always, dwarf the former in number, with only disposable income and dining trends determining the relative fortunes of both from time to time. Otherwise, there would be as many Per Ses as Olive Gardens, yes? (That is what we call “common sense” and “thinking before you type”, David. You are outnumbered and surrounded by those poor, lowlife slobs from Bushwick, many of whom no doubt eat better than you do, based upon some of the carping and whining I read in “David’s Excellent French Adventure”, posted elsewhere.) The best new restaurants in Paris are bistro/brasserie-level places, not new Taillevents. Ditto in Italy and elsewhere in Europe, where the economic battering taken in the wake of the 2008 global meltdown has made even the well-off more sensitive to dining costs. Of course, it does not hurt that one can source in farmer’s markets here the top-quality ingredients that America’s Kellers must have flown in from around the world, but the worldwide trend is absolutely NOT toward more restaurants where the birth certificates and passports of every beet and carrot must be incorporated into the menus, nor toward outrageous surcharges on top of an already outrageous fixed price, nor toward wine lists whose prices are marked up 3-10 times over wholesale or FMV. That schtick is tired and tiresome. These are the very restaurants marked for extinction by 99% of the world’s population, many of whom understand that better food and wine is available for far less money. If the Per Ses of the world survive, it is because high-rolling doctors, lawyers, bankers and businesspersons keep them alive, and for no other reason. Nowhere is that more true than for Keller’s places. You may be shocked to learn that French Laundry and Per Se are once-in-a lifetime places for many multi-millionaires, not just the Bushwick folk.
While I am at it, let me point out that there are tens of millions of people living below the poverty line in places like coastal Mississippi and Louisiana, New Mexico, Sicily, Brittany, India and a thousand other places who have forgotten more about great food than you will ever know. They maximize the opportunities that nature provides. They never eat out, so atmosphere counts for very little. You seem hell-bent upon looking for decor and atmosphere that will sustain you when the food will not. (And in fairness, I understand that nature provides you only with a tiny, overpriced Union Square Greenmarket, Balducci’s, Eataly and Dean & DeLuca. No oceans. No citrus and olive groves.) Bon chance!
It seems very windy today.
When people like, say, YOURSELF have nothing worthwhile to say, typically, well, MOST OF THE TIME, it is always a welcome relief when you take so few words to not say it. Dennis is “trollin’, trollin’ trollin’ down East River…”
Mr Klapp, you had me at
Are you the devil spawn of Steve Plotnicki?
a very worthy read:
i think pete wells writes like a 5-year old. sometimes he’s right, usually wrong, IMO. i’m shocked the Times publishes a good deal of what he writes. they can be very engaging and entertaining reads, but they often fail to serve the purpose of criticism.