Like Jay Cheshes and Steve Cuozzo before him, NY Times critic Sam Sifton has panned haughty uptown restaurant Le Caprice, which is the first U.S. outpost of the equally exclusive Le Caprice in London. "Those taking advantage of online booking systems will discover that the restaurant generally allows customers tables only before 6 p.m. or after 10 p.m," writes Sifton in his first zero star review. "Telephone calls, meanwhile, can lead to holding patterns that rival those of the cable company. A walk-in diner may be told, despite the sparse crowd in attendance, that there is an hour’s wait for a table, and that seats at the bar are 'for reservations only.'" Which is too bad, because it's a pretty mod bar.

Sifton admits that some of the menu options, like fish and chips, "aren’t bad at all... But boy, the chopped steak sure is: awful gray, flavorless patties of the sort known in the New York City public schools as murder burgers (best with suicide fries). These are accompanied by a tomato relish of no particular distinction. The dish costs $24. It’s worth none of them."

The Village Voice's Robert Sietsema has a porkilicious time at Katsuhama 55, where "the menu has been vastly expanded as befits the restaurant's new identity as an izakaya, or Japanese pub, serving all sorts of small dishes and bar snacks that go with an enhanced alcohol menu...The pristine and humongous pork cutlets remain the center of attention, and you'd be crazy to eat at Katsuhama without copping one."

His colleague Sarah DiGregorio files on Danny Meyer's latest hit, Maialino, in the Gramercy Park Hotel. "To eat at a Meyer restaurant is to be reminded of how pleasant dining can be when every logistic of service has been worked out," writes DiGregorio. "If you're going to spend $72 on a plate of pork (which, to be fair, feeds three), the experience ought to be comfortable and seamless... It's a simple meal—the only discernible seasonings are salt, pepper, and rosemary—yet it's wonderful, one of the best roast pigs in the city, with lush meat hiding under blowsy white fat and skin so crisp you can hear people crunching it across the room." Time Out's Jay Cheshes is also very impressed.