Taking on restaurant-y wine bars, the Times' Frank Bruni gives a star apiece to Jody Williams' Gottino and Marco Canora's Terroir, where he deems the pork blade steak the best dish he's had in months. [NYT]
Going with a barbecue-themed double review, New York's Adam Platt finds some "compulsively tasty" dishes at Anita Lo's Asian 'cue spot Bar Q (two stars) but has fewer kind words for Steve Hanson's Wildwood (one star). [NYM]
The New Yorker scopes out Bar Q, too, and decides Lo's more inventive creations are "finger-licking" good, but that the more traditional items on the menu are sorta eh. [NYer]
The Daily News' Danyelle Freeman is so into the "opulent" polenta at Scott Conant's new meatpacking Italian eatery Scarpetta that she hands it four out of five stars. [DN]
Voice dining critic Robert Sietsema is also a Scarpetta super-fan: Everything on the menu "pales in brilliance with the pastas," except, that is, the appetizers, which "against all odds...surpass the two succeeding courses." [VV]
The pile-on continues at the Gramercy Italian spot Bar Milano, where the Sun's Paul Adams finds the $18 tagliatelle "utterly average," the meat ragu way too salty, and the service so "robotic" that it creates a "Stepfordian vibe that is not conducive to relaxation." [NYS]
Yet another carnage-filled review of Robert De Niro's Ago: Time Out's Jay Cheshes calls it more Analyze This than Goodfellas and gives it one out of six stars. [TONY]
GQ's Alan Richman checks out Ed Brown's classed-up Upper West Side spot Eighty One and finds the food "beautifully prepared" if "expensive"; he also predicts the restaurant will "struggle in a section of the city populated by residents who traditionally have preferred to fight over food than enjoy it." [GQ]
