“The new Bouley is a labor of obvious and obsessive love,” Frank Bruni rhapsodizes, “a thrilling blast from the gaudy past, a reminder of how much pleasure can be had just from being tucked into such opulent chambers and attended with such formal manners.” [NYT]
Related: David Bouley, Culinary Cartographer [NYM]
“[Bouley’s] setting, loving and snoot-free service and a modern-French menu that dares not to be daring make for an experience so transporting, so conducive to dressing up just for fun’s sake it’s almost quaint,” gushes Steve Cuozzo. [NYP]
Bouley “exists in its own fantastical bubble: a place where the Dow still surges and expense-account spending never dried up,” writes Jay Cheshes, who deems the restaurant a “B-list runner up” to special-occasion restaurants like Jean Georges or Daniel. [TONY]
The sliders are “fabulous,” but the eponymous dish at Fatty Crab UWS is “not worth the effort” for Gael Greene. Watch out for the heat factor, too. [Insatiable Critic]
Related: A First Look at Fatty Crab
At Corton, “[Paul] Liebrandt’s cooking is the culinary equivalent of wordplay—an intellectual exercise cloaked in amusement,” says Lauren Collins. [NYer]
Related: Corton’s Menu, Illustrated
Robert Sietsema finds a proper izakaya at Rockmeisha on Barrow Street: “As befits a place seeking to redefine Japanese bar food, the menu wanders aimlessly in pursuit of perfect dishes to go with alcohol.” [VV]
Danyelle Freeman is surprised, and then not, that there’s a good French bistro in Harlem: “Chez Lucienne is a really good find. And chef [Thomas] Obaton is asking to be taken seriously.” [NYDN]
