Wednesday Food News: Early Edition

This week in the Times, Bruni goes to Wakiya in the Gramercy Park Hotel, gives it no stars. “There’s a crushing sense of letdown” in the restaurant, he says, and “the slickness of the red and black setting and the poise of the best servers are undercut by dishes that too often look three times as good as they taste.” He likes the desserts, though.

Also in the Times, Peter Meehan visits BarFry for $25 and Under, where the dishes he prefers are not fried (raw fluke and tuna tartare). “Bar Fry does a double disservice to its fried foods by accompanying all of it with the same four underwhelming dipping sauces and dumping it all on the table at one time,” he says.

Alan Richman also goes to Wakiya (for Bloomberg), finds a restaurant that “suffers from excess preening.” The menu “will drive you nuts,” and “nothing here dazzles.” Some of the cold dishes are tasty, though, and he loves the braised pork, sea bass, and almost all of the desserts.

In the NY Sun, Paul Adams visits Centro Vinoteca for Italian. “Main courses are a little disappointing,” he says. He doesn’t love the atmosphere, and chef Anne Burrell’s quasi-celebrity status (she’s been Mario Batali’s assistant on Iron Chef America) doesn’t help.

In the Daily News, Restaurant Girl one-stars Accademia di Vino. Finds the 96-item menu a bit overwhelming to choose from, also a bit too much territory for the chef to cover. Doesn’t like the pastas, or the meat; says “the best hand Accademia di Vino’s holding is the crudo.”