Midweek Special: NYC Restaurant Review Roundup

Today Frank Bruni files a second review of Mas (pictured), the organic, locally-sourced West Village eatery he bestowed with one star four years ago. Today he bumps the cozy French-inflected restaurant up a star, noting that Mas isn’t “for diners with big, blunt appetites. It’s for those who revel in little surprises and unexpected nuances, like the smoked celery root purée that came with grilled turbot.” Meanwhile, Alex Witchel enlists cookbook author Arthur Schwartz in his failed and funny attempt to recreate his late Nana’s fried meat kreplach.

The Village Voice’s Robert Sietsema reviews Merkato 55, the ambitious African restaurant in the Meatpacking District, and declares African food the new black. Though his companion gripes that it looks like a theme restaurant, Sietsema deems it a success, with “a spectacular – if flawed – catalog of African dishes,” despite the major omission of West Africa.

As if confirming Sietsema’s trend-spotting, the Daily News’s Irene Sax enjoys Chelsea’s Patisserie des Ambassades, an "Afro-French bistro" with dessert pastries that “will be calling to you all the time you're eating.” The Post’s Frank Cuozzo adores Mia Dona (pictured right), Michael Psilakis and Donatella Arpaia’s East 58th Street remix of their beloved former Italian restaurant Dona: “Many dishes read like old Italian war horses – until you taste them.”

Danyelle Freeman, writing for the Daily News, is cool to Commerce, the West Village charmer in the old Blue Mill Tavern space: “Though there are a handful of successes on the menu, too many dishes amounted to overworked compositions with little payoff.” But like Andrea Strong, she’s swept away by the bread basket and also swoons over “a fantastic treatment of crispy-skinned snapper, which gets a foamy rush of flavor from a green coconut-curry broth that's poured over the filet tableside.”

Photo of Mia Dona by Ryan Charles.