The Other Critics

Wild Salmon Starts Its Upstream Journey Strongly; Craftsteak Upgraded

Alan Richman has a few qualms about Wild Salmon – its reason for being, for example – but likes both the food (except for the sauces) and the service (when it’s not too friendly). Given how ready Richman is to knock restaurants, owner Jeffrey Chodorow has to feel pretty good about this one. [Bloomberg]
Related: Wild Salmon Swims Into View. Yes, ‘Pun Intended’ [Grub Street]

The newly revamped Craftsteak and Craftbar get rereviewed by Bruni, who awards the less than the white-hot former a much-needed second star, and the latter, “more or less back on track” after earlier troubles, a (borderline) single star. [NYT]

Time Out’s Randall Lane lays four stars (out of six) on Gilt, finding Chris Lee’s cooking admirable all around, if less risky than that of his predecessor, Paul Liebrandt, who still keeps popping up whenever the restaurant is discussed. [TONY]
Related: Gramercy Rehab [NYM]

Paul Adams has nothing but good things to say about Azza’s food, but the service was “glacial” and the management seems uninterested in the food except as an excuse for the lounge. Not a promising start for Azza in terms of major reviews. [NYS]

The New Yorker keeps up its strange practice of devoting its weekly review to minor restaurants, in this case Brooklyn’s La Lunetta, which seems to have a nice chicken to recommend it and not much else. Weird. [NYer]

Ryan Sutton is as usual the first to hit Insieme and finds that the lasagne lives up to its praise in Ruth Reichl’s blog, and that the Craft-like kitchen is firing on all cylinders. [Bloomberg]

Robert Sietsema goes to Zoma, an upscale Ethiopian eatery in Harlem and is taken aback by the relative blandness of the taste – a fairly predictable take, given the critic’s penchant for exalting dives and putting down middlebrow restaurants that seem less authentic. [VV]

Wild Salmon Starts Its Upstream Journey Strongly; Craftsteak Upgraded