After reading Adam Platt's review of Eleven Madison Park this week in New York magaine, I am more and more convinced that he is head and shoulders the best food reviewer in this city. Shades of the sorely missed Reichl* reviews, his are always perceptive and well written. He manages to fold in some wonderful little sentences (this week I loved "often in servings barely big enough to feed a cat") without the overarching self-consiousness that unfortunately makes Bruni so mockable. (Platt also seems much steadier than Bruni, who has a weird off-base-ness that makes one take his reviews with a grain of salt). Besides, Platt has a great command of the English language, is very observant, clearly loves to eat, and loves the NY restaurant scene in a very realistic way, warts and all. Which is harder than it sounds, as uncomplicated as the job description would seem.
After reading a few of Platt's reviews on line I caved in to spending the couple of bucks a month a subscription costs and now get the magazine in the mail. I rarely read more than the food writing, but all of that is good enough to be well worth the price of admission.
*am I being overly nostalgic about the Days of Ruth in the NY Times? It's hard for me to be unbiased, because it was a weekly diet of her reviews that made me long to move to New York and eat in restaurants "when I grew up." Anything with that sort of pull had to be pretty good, although I'd love to go back and re-read them.... have to look for that archive.... anyone done the same recently?
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