Sam Sifton is the New York Times' replacement for food critic Frank Bruno. Sifton is a more than adequate replacement for Bruno, but has something that Bruno did not: wit and a literary style. Sifton came on like gangbusters with a style all his own and a sense of restaurant lore to boot. Look at the way he ends his review of "Torrisi Italian Specialties, a tiny and terrific new restaurant on Mulberry Street at the very top of Little Italy."
"No reservations are taken. The best strategy for a table is to go as a couple, either at 5:30 for the first service at 6, or on the hour thereafter, with the hope that you will be seated within 90 minutes. Larger groups should consult horoscopes and witch doctors for advice.
"It sounds awful, the waiting. But Mr. Carbone and Mr. Torrisi are in a burst of creative excellence, and reinventing themselves daily. Theirs is not the simple, pared-down Italian-American food of the Frankies restaurants — their cooking is too aggressively technical for that. But it is simpler than the inventive, luxurious new-Italian fare of Michael White at Marea or Mark Ladner at Del Posto. It is reminiscent most of the spirit of Gabrielle Hamilton at Prune, and of the early days of David Chang at Momofuku Noodle Bar.
"And how long can that last? The Torrisi project as it stands surely must run its course, the way any performance does, the way any combination of kinetic energy and art must eventually fall off its axis. (What happens if the money gets tight? No one counts on the tears.) Presumably Mr. Carbone and Mr. Torrisi will cook this way until it gets boring, and then will do something else.
"Which means the time to get to Torrisi Italian Specialties is now."
Alas, what can one write when the food at the restaurant under review is dreadful? Frankly, I wouldn't review it. Apparently, Mr. Sifton does not have the luxury of throwing up and moving on, so review he must. What else to do when you've spent over, perhaps, a thousand bucks of the boss's money on multiple visits and full tables. While he gave Torrisi two out of four stars, Sifton gives Kenmare none, but has fun doing so.
"The dining room is pretty enough, dark and cool, with white marble tables and a vaguely Mediterranean feel enhanced by big sprays of flowers. It is crowded nightly, first with dinner parties that seem pulled from rejected “Sex and the City” scripts and then with a late, late, late show of models and people with incredible collections of music and sneakers and phone numbers, accompanied by the people who went to college with them who now work on Wall Street.
"But the food is inconsequential....
"...a bread-crumb-crusted asparagus gratin with endive and fontina that tasted like a woody version of macaroni and cheese; and a weirdly tasteless Midwestern-style broccoli-beer soup with cheese and bacon croutons. It is difficult to imagine denizens of any precinct of New York’s night-life world eating these...The entrees continued the trend of mediocrity, time after time. A Milanese-style veal cutlet, essentially a breaded and fried laptop case, was served with lemon, arugula, ricotta salata and a garish, oily salsa verde....
"Not that many people are actually eating, though. There are enough pretty young things and the people who chase them at Kenmare to recall Bret Easton Ellis novels, Scissor Sisters songs and the whole first season of HBO’s “How to Make it in America.” The incessant rumbling of the nearby Lexington Avenue subway vibrates up into a table-hoppy, air-kissing, haven’t-seen-you-since-Quogue bubble of nighttime excitement. No one pays attention to dinner."
Sam Sifton's writing is a lot of fun, but with so many good restaurants that probably won't be reviewed in the NYT, it's not right to give up space and the readers' time to losers. I promise not to do so, that's for sure.
--Torrisi Italian Specialties
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