New Yorker reviews

Monday, October 13, 2008 - Deep in the brownstones of Prospect Heights, away from the cafés of Flatbush and Vanderbilt Avenues, with their homelier crowds and everyday fare, James glows like a well-kept campfire, luring diners to an otherwise tenebrous residential block. For several years, this historic Brooklyn neighborhood has been enduring a growth spurt, and the locals’ eager acceptance of James coupled with what is essentially a no-reservation policy have led to hour-long waits.

Monday, September 15, 2008 - For ten years, Yura’s, the airy Madison Avenue muffin/latte/turkey-roll shop, has served the lionesses of Carnegie Hill as a mid-morning caffeinating hole and late-afternoon reheatable-meal hunting ground. Square Meal is the restaurant next door, in the bottom floor of a town house. Yura is Yura Mohr, the baker and chef who opened the restaurant a year ago. As for the square meal—that is what you get here. The name is perfect, conveying as it does the affectation of no affectation.

Friday, August 29, 2008 - The menu at I Sodi is small, rotating, and more than ably executed by the chef Michael Genardini, who has cooked at L’Impero and Alto. (Even so, he’s likely never had such a gorgeous kitchen. I Sodi, all pine and tiles, could be the setting for a fantasy Tuscan cooking school.) His lasagna is traditional but sophisticated, with a woodsy top layer that brings to mind chocolate or mushrooms more than boring old hamburger.

Monday, August 25, 2008 - In a town full of whiz-kid chefs, Scott Conant is an anomaly; at thirty-seven, he cooks like an older man—wisely, taking his time, knowing exactly what he’s doing. Having established his mastery of Italian cuisine at L’Impero (where he pulled off the oxymoron of refined rustic) and Alto (where he veered into esoterica), Conant has now relocated, jettisoning the stuffy drapes-and-sconces trappings of his previous restaurants for Scarpetta, a streamlined space on the border of the meatpacking district.

Monday, August 11, 2008 - It’s easy to walk straight past this unassuming Thai eatery, which is set deep in the heart of the N.Y.U.-occupied Village and shares a commercial strip with a liquor store, a mailing center, and a Citibank. The co-owner, Andy Yang, and his partner’s family also own the Malaysian restaurant chain Penang; inside, Rhong-Tiam is almost oppressively generic.

Monday, August 04, 2008 - At this new American eatery, just across from the Museum of Natural History, surprises abound. One evening, a hostess led a party past the main room and down a narrow hallway, which opened into the kitchen: a gantlet of sorts, lined with staff, all of whom rushed to wish the guests good evening. One didn’t quite know where to look, or how to respond. Then onward, to what looked like the library of a very tasteful gentleman—soft jazz, art tomes, dark wood.

Monday, July 28, 2008 - Adour, as a recent diner put it, “feels like a jewelry box,” rectangular and pewter-colored, with floridly etched glass and burgundy banquettes. Waiters stand along the perimeter, as solemn as tennis ball boys, before dashing hither and thither to perform solicitous acts and utter hushed the-pleasure-is-all-mine-sirs and think-nothing-of-it-ma’ams. The food is exquisitely executed French: duck foie-gras terrine, striped bass in sauce vin jaune, chicken fillet à l’unilatéral. A delicately light zucchini ravioli, floating in foamy vegetable broth, is itself a jewel.