"Fish sticks for the sophisticated" is how Sam Sifton describes the Dover sole at Desmond's, but it also seems to sum up his take on the one-starred Upper East Sider. Think of the restaurant as "a Caprice where you might actually wish to eat dinner," a place where "the mandate to comfort the comfortable while avoiding the afflicted entirely" is taken quite seriously. The food ("pensioner food for those who run pension funds") is consistent, the art is boring, the service is good but the prices are high and the restaurant "is not for everyone."
Meanwhile Downtown, Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton pops into Andrew Carmellini's new joint The Dutch and says it "instantly ranks with Minetta Tavern as one of the city’s top chop houses." Order the strip steak but don't be afraid of the rest of the menu, especially the "surprising" burger that is a "first-class blend of short rib, shoulder clod, brisket and dry-aged strip, the latter imparting that concentrated muskiness of a more regal steak" and is only available at lunch and late night. Also? "Carmellini’s Sloppy Joe is awesome."
North a little bit, Time Out's Jay Cheshes loves Jody Williams' new Village French restaurant Buvette, awarding the tiny spot four-stars while worrying aloud that "with so little room for gastro-groupies, rhapsodic reviews may be the last thing she needs." Everything at Buvette, from the food to the antique nutcrackers, is curated to perfection. And Williams "packs an awful lot of flavor" into the restaurant's menu of small plates. "Buvette is the sort of place where you pop in for a glass of wine and a snack—hunks of creamy Noble Road Brie; slices of saucisson sec fished from jars filled with herbed olive oil—and three hours later realize you’ve stayed for dinner."
Meanwhile the critics at the Village Voice have two very different dining experiences this week. Robert Sietsema seems slightly put off by the options available at the Village pizza parlor 900 Degrees, "an offshoot of San Francisco's Tony's Pizza Napoletana, helmed by American pizzaiolo Tony Gemignani. San Francisco telling New York how to make pizza? The end is near, my friends." The menu ("all pies are preconfigured, with no options") has some good notes, certainly, but it also has "Looney-Tunes pies" on the menu as well as some very average "pizzas." On the other end of the spectrum, Lauren Shockey gives David Bouley's Japanese restaurant Brushstroke a try and, though some things disappointed (repetition of dishes, an "uninspiring grilled cod cuddling with a sea urchin"), overall the restaurant is a "noteworthy" addition to the neighborhood.
Finally, the New Yorker's Table For Two gets a table at the Village locavore restaurant Bell Book & Candle and, well:
perhaps there’s a reason why no one’s gone this local before: the bizarrely retro choice of a Thousand Island dressing on a “living leaf” salad of rooftop greens did little to mask the smoky aftertaste of city exhaust fumes. The halfhearted garnish of shredded carrot and split cherry tomatoes made what should have been the crown jewel of the restaurant’s menu seem more like the free salad at a neighborhood sushi joint. Even the Snickers-size chunk of pork belly atop another bed of greens couldn’t save the vegetables from their terroir.
