The Other Critics

Fette Sau and 15 East Get Strong Endorsements From the Experts

Peter Meehan gives a highly thought-out, admiring review (probably the most knowledgeable one so far) of Fette Sau, taking pain to mention the place’s few but significant shortcomings. [NYT]
Related: Fette Sau’s Weird Williamsburg Barbecue Palace [Grub Street]

Alan Richman, a person with highly developed opinions about sushi, thinks 15 East a great find: “If you have pricey seafood cravings without the wherewithal to finance them, I don’t believe you can do better than 15 East,” he says. [Bloomberg]

Frank Bruni inexplicably reviews Max Brenner: Chocolates by the Bald Man, a place that no one would ever expect to be good. Unsurprisingly, he hands them a bagel. [NYT]
Related: Milking It [NYM]

Nick Paumgarten, in The New Yorker, sees the same things that bothered Adam Platt and most of the other critics in Morandi – its contrivance, some weak spots on the menu, the crowds – but likes it anyway. [NYer]
Related: Not So Bene [NYM]

Packed, deafening, and with food that seems to have made no impression at all, Ed’s Lobster Bar doesn’t really get a very good write-up from Moira Hodgson. But then it’s not a good season for lobsters. [NYO]

Ryan Sutton, always first on the spot, seems unimpressed by his tasting menu at P*Ong but knocked out by the food, if not the room, at FR.OG. [Bloomberg]

Randall Lane visits two Italian-Japanese restaurants and gives them both four stars (out of six). It’s an odd rating, since one of them, Natsumi, is an out-and-out fusion restaurant, and the other, Dieci, a traditional Italian inflected with Japanese sensibilities. He likes them both equally though. [TONY]

The Sun’s Paul Adams writes an unexpected love letter to Amalia, which wowed him with its “sensible, inspired, and delicious” food. Special props go out to having calf’s liver on the menu, “further proof that there’s more to the restaurant than throbbing beats and a VIP lounge.” Definitely its best review yet. [NYS]

Fette Sau and 15 East Get Strong Endorsements From the Experts