Is New York Worth a Trip? Oui
By FLORENCE FABRICANT Published: November 2, 2005 - New York Times
IT may have been only one more review among many, but when Michelin announced its first ratings for restaurants in New York City yesterday morning, superstar chefs and proprietors reacted with joyous tears, resignation and, in some cases, dismay.
Four restaurants - Alain Ducasse at the Essex House, Jean Georges, Le Bernardin and Per Se - received the top ranking, three stars. But Daniel, long considered to be in the very top rank of New York's restaurants, had to settle for two, along with Masa, Bouley and Danube.
And in some of the more surprising rankings, the Spotted Pig, a no-frills Greenwich Village pub with an idiosyncratic menu, got a star, putting it up with restaurants like Babbo and Gramercy Tavern, while respected restaurants like Chanterelle, Felidia, the Four Seasons and Union Square Cafe got no stars. Scott Conant, one of the city's most admired young chefs, failed to win a star for either of his restaurants, L'Impero and Alto.
Michelin's red-covered guides have been the standard for dining in Europe since the company first published ratings of restaurants in France in 1923. But in a city more attuned to the consumer-generated rankings of the Zagat Survey and weekly reviews in newspapers and magazines, it remains to be seen what impact the Michelin ratings will have, beyond the prestige they confer.
Michelin rated 507 New York restaurants in all five boroughs for the 2006 New York guide, which will go on sale Friday for $16.95. Two Brooklyn restaurants, the 118-year-old Peter Luger steakhouse and Saul, a cozy contemporary American spot on the Smith Street strip in Boerum Hill, were the only restaurants outside Manhattan to win stars. Thirty-seven other places received stars, making New York second only to Paris, which has 72 starred restaurants, including 10 with three stars. London has 34 restaurants with stars, including one, Gordon Ramsay, with three.
Eric Ripert, the chef and an owner of Le Bernardin, said he was beside himself when he learned of his ranking. "I didn't expect to become emotional," he said.
"Maguy is getting on a plane to New York, and she's crying," he said of his partner, Maguy Le Coze, who opened the original Bernardin in Paris more than 30 years ago. "For us it's the grand slam," he added, noting that his restaurant had been awarded four stars in March by Frank Bruni, the restaurant critic for The New York Times, and that the 2006 Zagat Survey for New York City puts Le Bernardin at the top of its list.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who said he was very nervous before the results were released, said that he too was emotional about his three stars. "I apprenticed only in three-star restaurants when I was in France, and this means a lot to me," he said.
"It puts me on the level with my mentors," he added. "Paul Bocuse has had three stars for 45 years. I've had mine for two hours."
Jo Jo and Vong, two of Mr. Vongerichten's other restaurants, received one star each.
With three stars for his New York restaurant, Alain Ducasse, who also has three-star restaurants in Paris and Monte Carlo, is the first chef ever to have three restaurants with the top rating. The executive chef at the New York restaurant, Tony Esnault, started there in April, replacing Christian Delouvrier. Michelin's reviewers started reviewing New York restaurants last November and continued until September.
Mr. Ducasse got his news by BlackBerry when his jet from Paris landed at Kennedy Airport yesterday afternoon. "It's a good day," he said as he arrived in his restaurant, radiating expansiveness and restrained joy. "Three stars. You know, they have removed stars twice, then added them back - and it is better to win stars than to lose them."
Mr. Ducasse was greeted with Champagne (the nonvintage house cuvée) and he headed past a clutch of smiling waiters to the kitchen, where he saluted Mr. Esnault with a low-key, heartfelt, "Félicitations."
Thomas Keller, the chef of Per Se and the only American-born chef to receive three stars in the New York guide, called his ranking "mind boggling."
"It's hard to believe," he said by telephone from Paris. "Starting out as a young cook and working your way up and always looking to France for those kinds of benchmarks and knowing about the Michelin guide for years and then to actually become part of it is extraordinary."
Of his two stars for Daniel and one for Café Boulud, Daniel Boulud said: "I'm not surprised. I know I can beat many three-stars at their own game." He added, "Frankly, my restaurant is what it is. I don't want to change anything."
The guide defines a three-star restaurant as one that is worth a special trip, and a two-star as worth a detour. One star is considered worth a visit for good food in its category, and that rating is highly respected by savvy travelers who use the guides in Europe. Some others with one star are Café Gray, Craft, Nobu, Etats-Unis and WD-50. Outside Manhattan, the guide lists 25 restaurants in Brooklyn, 13 in Queens, 4 on Staten Island and 2 in the Bronx.
After learning that Babbo had received one star, Mario Batali said he didn't think New Yorkers would give much credence to the guide. He was not happy with that ranking, the same as for the Spotted Pig, of which he is a part-owner. "They're blowing it," he said. "They can't put the Spotted Pig on the same level as Babbo."
He attributed the absence of additional stars to the loudness of the music he plays, and a possible bias among the inspectors against Italian cuisine and the more casual New York style of dining, which Europeans don't embrace.
"It will certainly be controversial for a couple of weeks," Mr. Batali said. "With that few restaurants in the two-star category, people will not take it seriously."
But April Bloomfield, the chef at the Spotted Pig, was more upbeat. "It's great news for casual places," Ms. Bloomfield said of the rating.
Bonnie Cohen, an interior designer who was interviewed outside Citarella on Third Avenue, said she was not surprised that Michelin had found only two restaurants outside Manhattan worthy of a star. "Michelin is very elite, effete," Ms. Cohen said, "and they're probably not selling to the people in the boroughs." Did she think there were restaurants in Queens and the Bronx and on Staten Island worth visiting? "Probably, but to tell you the truth I never go, either," she said.
Lester G. Magrill, having lunch at Peter Luger yesterday, said he had never heard of the Michelin guide. "I've eaten here every day for 60 years, and there's no other place with this quality meat," he said. "I know because my grandfather was a butcher, so it doesn't matter."
In the days before the release of the ratings, which Michelin managed to keep totally leakproof, not all New York chefs were as tense as Mr. Vongerichten. Tom Colicchio, who is in San Francisco, said he had no illusion that his places would get any stars. "We have no tablecloths at Craft, and there's a tavern at Gramercy," he said. But each got a star.
Jean-Luc Naret, the head of Michelin's guide division, has long insisted that stars have to do only with what is on the plate, not a restaurant's style. Even so, he acknowledged on Monday, "a pearl is always better in a nice setting."
Not all the inspectors in New York are French; at least one American was recruited and trained. They have already started working on the next annual guide.
"They came to Jean Georges eight times," Mr. Vongerichten said of the inspectors, "and I was in the kitchen six of them. Then they spent two hours in the back of the house, looking into the refrigerators and inspecting our dinnerware."
Below the stars, the Michelin guides have lesser rankings denoted by one to five sets of crossed spoons and forks. When they are printed in red, rather than black, the ambience is considered particularly appealing. The New York guide also made note of 58 restaurants with menus for less than $25.
Whether New Yorkers will pay attention to a restaurant with, say, three forks and spoons remains to be seen.
And comparisons with more established reviews - including the Zagat guides, which are based on reader surveys and have a top ranking of 30, and those in The New York Times, which award up to four stars - are inevitable.
The highest rating for food given to any New York restaurant in the 2006 Zagat Survey was 28, a score that only two of the Michelin three-star restaurants received: Per Se and Le Bernardin. (The two others - Jean Georges and Alain Ducasse - got 27's.) And Sushi Yasuda, which scored 28 in Zagat, got no Michelin stars. Three of the four three-star places in Michelin have received four stars in reviews in The Times.
Unlike the Zagat guides, the new Michelin, with nearly 500 pages and dimensions of four and a half by seven and three-quarters inches, will not slip easily into a pocket.
Michelin, the French-based tire company, began publishing guidebooks 105 years ago, at first giving just practical information and maps for motorists. Michelin inspectors are full-time employees, and they often dine alone, anonymously. Awarding stars often involves a consensus, with visits by more than one inspector. Mr. Naret said the top-rated restaurants in New York were visited at least 3 times, some as many as 12.
In recent years, Michelin has encountered some bumps in the road, including a tell-all book by a former inspector, a hubbub over a restaurant in the Benelux guide that was included before it opened and announcements by several starred chefs, including Alain Senderens in Paris, that they no longer wanted Michelin stars, especially not three.
But Michelin is now off and running in the United States. And chefs in San Francisco are starting to get nervous.
Reporting for this article was contributed by Eric Asimov, Dana Bowen, Melissa Clark, Glenn Collins, Rachel Metz, Christine Muhlke, Oliver Schwaner-Albright and Kim Severson.
IT may have been only one more review among many, but when Michelin announced its first ratings for restaurants in New York City yesterday morning, superstar chefs and proprietors reacted with joyous tears, resignation and, in some cases, dismay.
Four restaurants - Alain Ducasse at the Essex House, Jean Georges, Le Bernardin and Per Se - received the top ranking, three stars. But Daniel, long considered to be in the very top rank of New York's restaurants, had to settle for two, along with Masa, Bouley and Danube.
And in some of the more surprising rankings, the Spotted Pig, a no-frills Greenwich Village pub with an idiosyncratic menu, got a star, putting it up with restaurants like Babbo and Gramercy Tavern, while respected restaurants like Chanterelle, Felidia, the Four Seasons and Union Square Cafe got no stars. Scott Conant, one of the city's most admired young chefs, failed to win a star for either of his restaurants, L'Impero and Alto.
Michelin's red-covered guides have been the standard for dining in Europe since the company first published ratings of restaurants in France in 1923. But in a city more attuned to the consumer-generated rankings of the Zagat Survey and weekly reviews in newspapers and magazines, it remains to be seen what impact the Michelin ratings will have, beyond the prestige they confer.
Michelin rated 507 New York restaurants in all five boroughs for the 2006 New York guide, which will go on sale Friday for $16.95. Two Brooklyn restaurants, the 118-year-old Peter Luger steakhouse and Saul, a cozy contemporary American spot on the Smith Street strip in Boerum Hill, were the only restaurants outside Manhattan to win stars. Thirty-seven other places received stars, making New York second only to Paris, which has 72 starred restaurants, including 10 with three stars. London has 34 restaurants with stars, including one, Gordon Ramsay, with three.
Eric Ripert, the chef and an owner of Le Bernardin, said he was beside himself when he learned of his ranking. "I didn't expect to become emotional," he said.
"Maguy is getting on a plane to New York, and she's crying," he said of his partner, Maguy Le Coze, who opened the original Bernardin in Paris more than 30 years ago. "For us it's the grand slam," he added, noting that his restaurant had been awarded four stars in March by Frank Bruni, the restaurant critic for The New York Times, and that the 2006 Zagat Survey for New York City puts Le Bernardin at the top of its list.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who said he was very nervous before the results were released, said that he too was emotional about his three stars. "I apprenticed only in three-star restaurants when I was in France, and this means a lot to me," he said.
"It puts me on the level with my mentors," he added. "Paul Bocuse has had three stars for 45 years. I've had mine for two hours."
Jo Jo and Vong, two of Mr. Vongerichten's other restaurants, received one star each.
With three stars for his New York restaurant, Alain Ducasse, who also has three-star restaurants in Paris and Monte Carlo, is the first chef ever to have three restaurants with the top rating. The executive chef at the New York restaurant, Tony Esnault, started there in April, replacing Christian Delouvrier. Michelin's reviewers started reviewing New York restaurants last November and continued until September.
Mr. Ducasse got his news by BlackBerry when his jet from Paris landed at Kennedy Airport yesterday afternoon. "It's a good day," he said as he arrived in his restaurant, radiating expansiveness and restrained joy. "Three stars. You know, they have removed stars twice, then added them back - and it is better to win stars than to lose them."
Mr. Ducasse was greeted with Champagne (the nonvintage house cuvée) and he headed past a clutch of smiling waiters to the kitchen, where he saluted Mr. Esnault with a low-key, heartfelt, "Félicitations."
Thomas Keller, the chef of Per Se and the only American-born chef to receive three stars in the New York guide, called his ranking "mind boggling."
"It's hard to believe," he said by telephone from Paris. "Starting out as a young cook and working your way up and always looking to France for those kinds of benchmarks and knowing about the Michelin guide for years and then to actually become part of it is extraordinary."
Of his two stars for Daniel and one for Café Boulud, Daniel Boulud said: "I'm not surprised. I know I can beat many three-stars at their own game." He added, "Frankly, my restaurant is what it is. I don't want to change anything."
The guide defines a three-star restaurant as one that is worth a special trip, and a two-star as worth a detour. One star is considered worth a visit for good food in its category, and that rating is highly respected by savvy travelers who use the guides in Europe. Some others with one star are Café Gray, Craft, Nobu, Etats-Unis and WD-50. Outside Manhattan, the guide lists 25 restaurants in Brooklyn, 13 in Queens, 4 on Staten Island and 2 in the Bronx.
After learning that Babbo had received one star, Mario Batali said he didn't think New Yorkers would give much credence to the guide. He was not happy with that ranking, the same as for the Spotted Pig, of which he is a part-owner. "They're blowing it," he said. "They can't put the Spotted Pig on the same level as Babbo."
He attributed the absence of additional stars to the loudness of the music he plays, and a possible bias among the inspectors against Italian cuisine and the more casual New York style of dining, which Europeans don't embrace.
"It will certainly be controversial for a couple of weeks," Mr. Batali said. "With that few restaurants in the two-star category, people will not take it seriously."
But April Bloomfield, the chef at the Spotted Pig, was more upbeat. "It's great news for casual places," Ms. Bloomfield said of the rating.
Bonnie Cohen, an interior designer who was interviewed outside Citarella on Third Avenue, said she was not surprised that Michelin had found only two restaurants outside Manhattan worthy of a star. "Michelin is very elite, effete," Ms. Cohen said, "and they're probably not selling to the people in the boroughs." Did she think there were restaurants in Queens and the Bronx and on Staten Island worth visiting? "Probably, but to tell you the truth I never go, either," she said.
Lester G. Magrill, having lunch at Peter Luger yesterday, said he had never heard of the Michelin guide. "I've eaten here every day for 60 years, and there's no other place with this quality meat," he said. "I know because my grandfather was a butcher, so it doesn't matter."
In the days before the release of the ratings, which Michelin managed to keep totally leakproof, not all New York chefs were as tense as Mr. Vongerichten. Tom Colicchio, who is in San Francisco, said he had no illusion that his places would get any stars. "We have no tablecloths at Craft, and there's a tavern at Gramercy," he said. But each got a star.
Jean-Luc Naret, the head of Michelin's guide division, has long insisted that stars have to do only with what is on the plate, not a restaurant's style. Even so, he acknowledged on Monday, "a pearl is always better in a nice setting."
Not all the inspectors in New York are French; at least one American was recruited and trained. They have already started working on the next annual guide.
"They came to Jean Georges eight times," Mr. Vongerichten said of the inspectors, "and I was in the kitchen six of them. Then they spent two hours in the back of the house, looking into the refrigerators and inspecting our dinnerware."
Below the stars, the Michelin guides have lesser rankings denoted by one to five sets of crossed spoons and forks. When they are printed in red, rather than black, the ambience is considered particularly appealing. The New York guide also made note of 58 restaurants with menus for less than $25.
Whether New Yorkers will pay attention to a restaurant with, say, three forks and spoons remains to be seen.
And comparisons with more established reviews - including the Zagat guides, which are based on reader surveys and have a top ranking of 30, and those in The New York Times, which award up to four stars - are inevitable.
The highest rating for food given to any New York restaurant in the 2006 Zagat Survey was 28, a score that only two of the Michelin three-star restaurants received: Per Se and Le Bernardin. (The two others - Jean Georges and Alain Ducasse - got 27's.) And Sushi Yasuda, which scored 28 in Zagat, got no Michelin stars. Three of the four three-star places in Michelin have received four stars in reviews in The Times.
Unlike the Zagat guides, the new Michelin, with nearly 500 pages and dimensions of four and a half by seven and three-quarters inches, will not slip easily into a pocket.
Michelin, the French-based tire company, began publishing guidebooks 105 years ago, at first giving just practical information and maps for motorists. Michelin inspectors are full-time employees, and they often dine alone, anonymously. Awarding stars often involves a consensus, with visits by more than one inspector. Mr. Naret said the top-rated restaurants in New York were visited at least 3 times, some as many as 12.
In recent years, Michelin has encountered some bumps in the road, including a tell-all book by a former inspector, a hubbub over a restaurant in the Benelux guide that was included before it opened and announcements by several starred chefs, including Alain Senderens in Paris, that they no longer wanted Michelin stars, especially not three.
But Michelin is now off and running in the United States. And chefs in San Francisco are starting to get nervous.
Reporting for this article was contributed by Eric Asimov, Dana Bowen, Melissa Clark, Glenn Collins, Rachel Metz, Christine Muhlke, Oliver Schwaner-Albright and Kim Severson.
Comments