Too many critics, not enough judgement.
We're talking about NYT's Best Restaurants list.
Good morning everyone. Yesterday I landed at JFK at 2pm, got home and put my butter in the fridge (one of my readers informed me that you can safely smuggle French butter back into the country with the new seal-wrapping offering at Le Bon Marché) ran a lap around Prospect Park at 4pm, and went to an a16z dinner at 6:30pm.
There’s a rainy heatwave coming to New York this weekend, so I recommend either ordering takeout and working through Criterion’s Pools on Screen collection, or catching a screening of The Phoenecian Scheme at Angelika.
Today’s letter includes: A critique of The New York Times’ Top 100 list by
(I’ve heard from several readers that the paper chose a new critic………), a slump in Hamptons summer rentals, the restaurant group running the cafe at The Frick (finally), GQ’s Will Welch is hiring an assistant, and a #Skinnytok ban.
Expense Account is a series on Feed Me, written by semi-anonymous restaurant critic JLee. In this column, you’ll be reading about Business Guy Restaurants — the bistros, sushi spots and lounges that are best rationalized with the involvement of a corporate card. In his last column, he asked what kind of sicko drinks a foie gras Old Fashioned.
I’ve been to forty of the restaurants on The New York Times’ Top 100 list that was published this week – same as Becky Hughes, one more than Nikita Richardson (both of whom work at The Times). Respectable, I think. But this year, the Times left 90 of those restaurants unranked. Boo. Live a little! Give us something to chew on! Lists are arbitrary, sure, but that’s what makes them fun. Pete Wells’ lists worked because they were personal. One palate, one perspective, one man with the guts to rank. This year’s list? A group project.
100 restaurants is a lot of restaurants. Today, I tried naming 100 restaurants off the top of my head without stuttering – or saying McDonalds – and it's not easy! So kudos to The New York Times for naming 100 restaurants in New York, if not ranking them.
This year's list was compiled by a committee of the paper’s interim restaurant critics: Priya Krishna and Melissa Clark, with a few contributions from editor, Brian Gallagher. A diversity of perspectives can be fun, synergistic. But here, there’s a lack of cohesion, which makes it harder to trust as a true snapshot of the city’s dining scene. Everyone involved is clearly knowledgeable, but the resulting list feels like it's hedging bets rather than staking claims.
We will not name names, but it gives the impression that there is one reviewer who is an expert in Korean food and Trinidadian doubles, and another reviewer who favors pasta and Jean Georges. In the top-ten, it's not hard to guess who contributed King, and who contributed Szechuan Mountain House. Both valid answers (maybe), but it's indicative of a tension within this list. Maybe that’s just the nature of lists, they’re a fool’s task. But a list that truly impresses me is one person's perspective of New York City dining. To me that’ll always have meaning, even when I don’t agree with it. That's what separated Wells’ list from just another Eater/Infatuation/Timeout etc. hit list, heat map, listicle. There is no “Best” restaurant, there is no tenth-best restaurant, and there’s certainly no seventy-second best restaurant, so in my opinion, there’s really no point in being democratic with it. None of the Times’ top-ten restaurants come in at less than $$$ (three dollar signs). What does that say about the list? What does that say about the state of dining? What does that say about New York City or The New York Times? I don’t know.
Here are ten of my favorite restaurants (right now, off the dome). Go ahead and call them the ten best restaurants in New York City (imho) if you’d like. I’d like to eat at the Atomix’s of the world, I’m sure they’re great, but it hasn’t happened for me yet. Maybe next year. These are answers, not takes. I could give you takes for days that’d light this comments section on fire. But today, I’m a journalist. I’ll save the takes for the podcast. $$$
Superiority Burger: Superiority Burger is the best restaurant in New York. It’s a restaurant that I'm consistently inspired by. If I could make a wish to cook like any chef, I’d choose Brooks Headley. Every time I eat his food there's at least one little moment that shocks me, he's so casual about it, and then he does it again. He’s a bit of a hustler in that way. His food to me is New York City personified: brash, bold, fresh, creative, sometimes a little spicy, and always delicious.
Superiority Burger. Noodle Pudding: This is not a curveball, this is not a take, Noodle Pudding is just that good. It’s romance as a restaurant. You will fall in love with Noodle Pudding. You will fall in love at Noodle Pudding. This is where the moon hits your eye, like a big ol’ pizza pie. To love and to be loved, to eat good food and drink cold wine, a plate of pasta, and fresh calamar, what else is there?
Le Veau d’Or: LVD not being in the top-ten is criminal. Noodle pudding, I get it, Sup Burger, fine, but LVD is a masterpiece, and it’s not up for debate. You can never have too much of a good thing, LVD proves this by giving you nothing but incredibly good things nonstop, until, if you are like me, you need to be wheeled away, or at least put into an Uber. Remembering a meal at LVD is like looking back at a wedding night: a bit of a blur, punctuated by moments of pure bliss and ecstasy.
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