Dan the Man

[robert wright for the times]Pete Wells has given one four-star review in his 15 months as critic for the New York Times. Reviews of this sort are few and far between, which is not surprising when you consider the shift in restaurant trends over the past few years. Casual and small has become the new fancy and grandiose. Loud is the new quiet, and downtown is definitely the new uptown.

There has been a handful of three-star reviews though. Ichimura at Brushstroke was the last recipient back in September. Before that is was Atera, before that The Nomad, Kyo Ya before that, and Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria was the first on February 14th. Today, Wells has another for the Dining Room at the Modern.

The eight-year-old Danny Meyer restaurant was reviewed by Frank Bruni shortly after it opened in 2005. He gave three stars to the restaurant's Bar Room and two to the Dining Room, where on a recent visit, Wells found, "the cooking has more focus and intensity than I remember from the early days." He writes, "Sweet apple-wood smoke made its way into every bite of a sturgeon and sauerkraut tart topped with a glittering vein of caviar. It was elegant and powerful, like the pairing of a luxuriously soft poached egg with squid-ink spaetzle, sea urchin, roasted salsify and fragments of black truffles."

Executive chef Gabriel Kreuther's food matches the artistry found throughout 9 West 53rd Street. "He is bold with color," writes Wells, "painting salmon crimson with a marinade of beet juice, or drawing a dark green stripe of powdered Kaffir lime down the center of a monkfish fillet resting in a gorgeous sauce of blood orange and mustard."

The review breaks a streak in covering newly opened restaurants. It's a breath of fresh air that proves it's OK to get dressed up for dinner, and that, after running restaurants in New York for 30 years, Mr. Hospitality's still got it. [NYTimes]