This week the Times’s Frank Bruni opines on Scarpetta (pictured), the new Meatpacking District Italian restaurant from Scott Conant (L’Impero, Alto) that the Village Voice loved and the Sun disdained. Bruni bestows a big three stars, raving about the unassuming dish of spaghetti, tomato and basil: “However Mr. Conant is choosing and cooking the Roma tomatoes with which he sauces his house-made spaghetti, he’s getting a roundness of flavor and nuance of sweetness that amount......

The Sun’s Paul Adams is the latest critic to get around to Hundred Acres (pictured), the meticulously-sourced, farm-to-table restaurant which used to be Provence. While the Daily News was haunted by the ghosts of the old restaurant, Adams says “the transformation is a delightful blast of fresh air. A sultry Southern accent marks the restaurant's menu… where "seasonal" isn't just a buzzword, but where you actually look forward to returning season after season to see......

Earlier this week, New York Mag’s Adam Platt panned star chef Alain Ducasse’s Benoit (pictured), declaring it an “ersatz” brasserie and concluding that “French cuisine, as we used to know it, is deader than we think.” Now the Times’s Frank Bruni takes his turn, and while he disagrees that it’s “a throwaway restaurant,” he does concur that “Benoit is selling a dining experience so familiar it’s almost a cliché… And what of the ‘Parisian salad’?......

Scarpetta: Chef Scott Conant (L’Impero, Alto) has opened a new restaurant on West 14th Street called Scarpetta (pictured), which is an Italian expression meaning “little shoe” – or the shape bread takes when used to soak up a dish. The 70-seat restaurant features a retractable roof in the main dining room, alfresco dining out front, and a long mahogany bar offering a separate menu and some “wine-inspired” cocktails. Conant’s ingredients here are, of course, seasonal......