The people who protested the yuppie scum at the Bowery Wine Co., the East First Street wine bar that boasted celebrity investor Bruce Willis, when it opened in 2008 may have won in the long run. Eagle-eyed EV Grieve noticed that on this month's CB3 SLA agenda there is an item listed for the space where the wine bar currently lives (it ain't dead yet!). And who appears to be looking to move in? No less than the team behind West Village Italian foodie-magnets Dell'Anima and l'Artusi. more ›

This week Frank Bruni at the Times takes his turn with L'Artusi (photos), the plus-size Greenwich Village twin to the dainty, crowded dell'Anima. Bruni doesn't hate it like NY Mag's Adam Platt, but it's definitely a mixed review: "They have gone not only bigger—with nearly 115 seats, L’Artusi is more than twice the size of dell’Anima—but also bolder, and the uneven results are a lesson in overextension. If they turned a more skeptical eye to some of Mr. Thompson’s inventions, edited the menu to about two-thirds its current length and focused harder on the execution of what remained, they’d have an excellent restaurant. As it is, they have a fitfully enjoyable one." The New Yorker's review is also mixed, and notes that "the décor has an identity crisis." more ›

This week the Times's Frank Bruni piles on Shang, a restaurant in the Thompson LES Hotel helmed by the acclaimed, formerly Toronto-based chef Susur Lee, whose first mistake is making Bruni exercise: "The staircase was the first befuddlement and miscalculation I encountered — and a clue that the evening and restaurant might not be all I’d hope for. It’s a long, drab, foreboding rise of steps from the sidewalk to the host station, an entrance less inviting than aerobic. I’ve gone on runs that didn’t leave me as winded." As for the menu, some dishes are "intensely pleasurable," but overall it's "inconsistent and uneventful. The magic that Mr. Lee reputedly made in Toronto hasn’t followed him here." more ›

The guys behind the smallish, always packed Dell'Anima in the West Village have expanded with L'Artusi, named after Pellegrino Artusi, the celebrated (and long dead) Italian cookbook author. Chef/owner Gabe Thompson and owner/wine director Joe Campanale have taken the sit-at-the-open-kitchen concept that's so popular at Dell'Anima and run with it, with even more seats at the L'Artusi counter to watch the sparks fly. The new 110-seat restaurant (which used to be Maremma) emphasizes seasonal Italian cuisine. And though it may be a lot bigger than Dell'Anima, you probably won't notice because all those stripes are very slimming. more ›