Vintage Insatiable Critic: 1990-1991
RAKEL AND ROSE: BALLAD OF THE GLAD CAFES
February 26, 1990
“Trading down” is the mantra of nineties dining. The gentler and kinder feedery has dimmed the glitz, shaved the tab, unstarched the hauteur to woo battle-dazed New Yorkers. Welcome to the morning after… more
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GÉRARD’S PLACE/BARROW STREET BISTRO
March 5, 1990
“It’s bigger than I wanted.” Pangaud says. “But the kitchen is beautiful, a pleasure to work in.” He cooks “what I want to eat,” he explains, robust peasant food made very elegant... more
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LAFAYETTE: THE DRAKE'S PROGRESS
March 19, 1990
Most everything at Lafayette is delicious if not downright dazzling. Jean-Georges Vongerichten has made the sublime – well, sublime…more
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FEEDING FRENZY
April 30, 1990
No name beckons – just a yellow nicotine glow in the evening drear of SoHo and a small decal on the Grand Street door of Lucky Strike, open every day from noon till 4 a.m. It’s noisy, smoky, young... more
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GARDEN VARIETY: DESOLATION AND DINING AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
May 7, 1990
We’re going to the game. The Knicks. He’s flying.. Being me, I want to know where we can eat. How about a picnic from Fairway… crusty bread, fabulous cheese, a good Burgundy? He is exasperated. “It’s a basketball game, not a cruise on the QE2.” ... more
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CHEAPER EATS
June 4, 1990
Even the grand masters of the Feeding Universe are panicked. Rumbles of gloom have a way of making even the rich feel poor. Slump talk can become self-fulfilling. Actually, the hunger for casual dining began long ago... more
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BRENDAN WALSH DOES SUMMER STOCK
June 18, 1990
The kid from the Bronx is up to his usual sophisticated south-western tricks in a cute little joint on the water in Island Park…more
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QUATORZE BIS
June 18, 1990
That same rich front, thrown open to the street, an instant flash of the Boulevard St.-Germain, stands out like a red dress in a sea of black... more
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LE BERNARDIN: LOAVES AND FISHES
July 30, 1990
Fate and duty keep me out stalking what’s new and wonderful, not leaving time for simple indulgence—like a night at my favorite Le Bernardin. But when a friend claimed you could roll a bowling ball... more
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E.A.T: ELI ZABAR STANDS, CHUTZPA RAMPANT
July 31, 1990
A browser eyeing the price tags on the sandwiches to go clutches her throat and backs out the door... more
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TRIED AND TRUE: ARCADIA AND PARK BISTRO
September 24 1990
Anne Rosenzweig is back at the range at Arcadia, and Diot’s cooking at the cramped little Park Bistro has snap and finesse…more
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TATOU PARLOR
October 1, 1990
Gilded-plaster satyrs, bugle-toting cherubs—I can’t begin to guess who will love Tatou, who will laugh at it or with it…more
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THE FIXE IS IN
October 8, 1990
It’s possible to sup on Prix Fixe’s upscale deliciousness for not much more than the tab at the neighborhood luncheonette… more
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CHEFS CUISINIERS CLUB
Oct 29, 1990
We fans come to the Chefs Cuisiniers Club latish, hoping to spy our idols, not always recognizing them out of their whites…more
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VINCE & EDDIE'S / EDWARDIAN ROOM
November 5, 1990
It was always a lark eating too much at my grandma Cecilia’s house. I feel the same exuberance and pampering here, with its sweet homage to Grandma, even though the clunky green-and-white water glasses didn’t come with jelly in them…As for the Plaza’s Edwardian Room…If you wanted quiet good taste, you could have yawned at home... more
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REMI/MARK'S AT THE MARK HOTEL: VENICE SERVED
November 12, 1990
Was Adam Tihany a dilettante or just another renaissance man?... His new Remi is packing them in like calamari…
The miniature lobby seems almost devoured by an explosion of autumn…and more sartorial spiff bowing you into the mahogany-velvet-and-silk embrace of Mark’s... more
December 24, 1990
Perhaps it is not necessary to be crazed, obsessed, and monomaniacal (if not megalomaniacal) to flourish in New York. And yet so many are. Count David Bouley in that pantheon... more
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THE CORN IS BLUE
February 18, 1991
Big Apple-born, Bobby Flay had never even been to the Southwest when he began improvising his own lively riff on its cooking. And now he is wowing us at the whimsical Mesa Grill on a fiercely gentrified stretch of lower Fifth… more
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MONDRIAN: BACK TO THE FUTURE
March 18, 1991
Plush, tranquil, as sedate as your banker's boardroom, with discreet corners where a kiss could not possibly offend. The welcome is warm, the service almost top-notch (except when waiters collide), and with Thomas Colicchio at the stove, Mondrian is the ideal classroom to show your most pampered French chauvinist what American chefs are up to... more
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MARCH: BRIO, FAITH AND OPTIMISM
March 19, 1991
A rebirth in the narrow townhouse where once Brive thrilled and, before that, Bobby and Karen Pritsker played out scenes from a marriage at their brilliant Dodin-Bouffant. In the end, Brive faded. But March is crowded, playing to a full house. That proves that genius isn't enough. In fact, that proves that genius may not even be necessary... more
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THE JOY OF REX
April 15, 1991
I can’t get Rex’s crispy wild-mushroom-and-goat-cheese lasagna out of my mind—or the hot jazz that takes over ten-ish ... more
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HAPPINESS IS A THING CALLED JOJO
May 20, 1991
Just a few days into Jean-Georges’s reanimation, savvy East Siders have already slid into reconnaissance positions, vying with food-world adepts for tables. Tonight’s chipper muddle would never dream of dining at Lafayette... more
May 27, 1991
Perhaps it's rash to send you off willy-nilly to worship at Zen Palate. True, many devouring carnivores, racked with doubts, are favoring fish these days. But how many of us are ready for shredded gluten and tofu cutlet?... more
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CHINESE: HAUTE OR HOME-STYLE
July 7, 1991
Hear the bravos at Lincoln Center. Not tonight for Baryshnikov or Beethoven. No. Tonight we salute dim sum, tangy hot-and-sour soup, eggplant as voluptuous as an overripe peach. Shun Lee West, a serious great restaurant has finally come to the Upper West Side…Stalking offal at Home Village… more
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GARDENS OF DELIGHT
August 12, 1991
Barolo’s courtyard is so enchanting, food flaws seem to blur…the eternal gurgle at Eze… Vince & Eddie’s maple is clearly a miracle… more
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THE AMBITIONS OF CUCINA & CO.
October 8, 1991
Everything -- tiles hind-painted with grapes and vines, handmade bricks, the antique stove that forms a counter -- was shipped from Florence and it looks as if someone raided a country flea market for the nostalgic antique kitchen… more
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GRUB MED
October 7, 1991
This is Marilyn Frobuccino’s real idiom: the fried cheese and cod-roe paste of Greece, the bruschetta and fritto misto of Italy… more
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LESPINASSE: THE GRAY EMINENCE
October 28, 1991
I forgive the yawn of the room for the exhilaration of Kunz at his uniquely obsessed best…up to all his old tricks, the minimalist cooking that speaks of the Girardet training, the Asian exotica of his Hong Kong years fused in a glorious alchemy... more
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PLANET OF THE GAPES
November 11, 1991
Aping the Oscars, Kliegs slash the murk. Even the cops are mesmerized, scorching the slow roll of hired stretches, cockroaches on wheels. I really love it when our town’s traffic gets paralyzed by something besides an explosion of asbestos…more
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