Ian, not sure how you determined that. “Every dish was spot on. Service was tops. Wine program needs work if the goal is to be at the same levels as the food.”
To me wine program certainly includes list , as well stems and service, but its pretty unclear where the complaint lies.
I haven’t been since prepandemic, when I enjoyed food, service, and their great attitude towards BYOB. List still has plenty of stuff I think is interesting for decent pricing for NYC.
Cancelled my subscription for the very same reason. Miss Mr. Martin’s writings, but that’s it.
I THOUGHT I had read something that said service specifically.
Ha. Now you see the confusion.
A wonderful lunch with great food, and service was tops. Wine list is good too. It’s just the total experience that needs work.
Wut?
From the comments section from AG:
Not about the quality of the list but about the total experience, which was not good. But you can read all the details when I write this lunch up on our site.
Thank you! I knew I was making it up! HA!
Maybe all the Somms got the flu and gave it to each other so a somm from another restaurant had to come fill in … or just the server? It’s irresponsible to blast that out to the world with zero context (when you have a large following, especially) if you don’t make some attempt to clarify with the restaurant IMO (and then either include that context or report that they didn’t comment). If you’re a journalist and you’re writing a story on John Doe where he’s accused of being an asshole for reasons XYZ, you contact John Doe and ask him about XYZ. Galloni was acting more like a butthurt influencer than a journalist here, and I think he’s rightly being taken to task for it. And I like Galloni – both personally and professionally.
I am curious whether he has retained any of them after a year, as I can’t imagine they have got their money’s worth.
Who is this Larry lad you are talking about? David? BIrd? King?
“I’m going to make it next on my list to go to.”…Thank you SO MUCH! So nice of you! Holding our collective breath for your review! …lol…what a douche!
I said something not that dissimilar upstream.
It’s been a sea change with restaurants.
It’s somewhat ironic. His review moved up the Modern for me on places to go back to. It’s hard with new places constantly opening, and want to go back to all the places you’ve previously loved. Knowing the food is full charge ahead is exciting. It’s long been one of my favorites.
I can’t remember where I read it, but once a critic pans a dish it’s the one dish everyone wants to order.
Sounds true!
I know that when Pete Wells wrote the review of Per Se (comparing some dish to drinking bong water), I know several people that went soon thereafter and said the food was amazing.
negative headlines / subjects garner more interest and clicks.
it’s an interesting paradox for wine critics though. the incentive is to give out more high scores to appease subscribers.
More than appease, keep them relevant. Nobody subscribes to a publication where the average score is an 88.
fully agree.
It’s interesting how everyone talks about score inflation (without talking about the relevant topic of how much better wine is today than in any point in time prior), yet everyone would complain if what you said was true also 
Burghound?
Don’t forget to ensure access with the producers. It’s a big part of why I have very little utility for wine critics. I often like what they write about things, but I feel like they seldom say anything well, critical. Except for restaurants apparently.
Perhaps The Modern didn’t provide Antonio with the circa 2002 Robert Parker wine critic rock star “experience” and that is why he is upset?
He provides no details other than he was disappointed with the “experience” so we are left to wonder…